Why is the grotesque used in literature? Grotesque: examples in literature

a type of imagery based on a contrasting, bizarre combination of fantasy and reality, the beautiful and the ugly, the tragic and the comic. The sphere of the grotesque in art includes multi-valued images created by the artist's fantasy, in which life receives a complex and contradictory refraction. Grotesque images do not allow either their literal interpretation or their unambiguous decoding, retaining the features of mystery and incomprehensibility. The element of the grotesque was most vividly embodied in the art of the Middle Ages (ornaments of the animal style, chimeras of cathedrals, drawings on the margins of manuscripts). The masters of the Renaissance, who preserved the medieval predilection for the grotesque (Hieronymus Bosch, Peter Brueghel, Albrecht Dürer), made the grotesque a means of expressing the moral and social views of their turning point. Jacques Collot, Francisco Goya, Honore Damier in the 17th-19th centuries. used the grotesque as a means of dramatic embodiment of the sinister symbols of modern social forces. Wars, revolutions and political cataclysms of the XX century. caused a new wave of grotesque satire in denouncing the "terrible world" (for example, Kukryniksy in the USSR). Source: Apollo. Fine and decorative arts. Architecture: Thematic Dictionary. M., 1997.

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GROTESQUE

French grotesque, from Italian. grottesco) is a term of aesthetics, denoting the combination in the art of the comic and the tragic, the funny and the terrible in the fantastic. and hyperbolic. form. Originally the term "G." was used to designate a special type of ornament, discovered at the end of the 14th - beginning. 15th century during excavations of underground premises - grottoes in Rome (hence the name) and representing a fantastic. a pattern of bizarre weaves of ribbons, masks, caricature figures of people and animals. During the Renaissance, gauze was widely used to decorate architectural ensembles: the paintings by Pinturicchio in the Borgia Palace in the Vatican (1492–1495), the Vatican loggias of Raphael (1515–19), and others. Subsequently, the term "g." began to be used as a special aesthetic. categories along with the categories of the beautiful, the tragic, the comic. Of particular importance G. received in the aesthetic. theory and art. Romantic practice. The aesthetics of romanticism, developing the dialectic of the comic and the tragic as the basis of the romantic. irony, gave a deep characterization of the grotesque. Schelling in lectures on the philosophy of art (1803), F. Schlegel in "Conversations on Poetry" (1800), A. Schlegel in "Readings on Dramatic Art and Literature" (1809–11) considered G. as an expression of the necessary internal. connections between the comic and the tragic and the transition from the low to the high, considering it a sign of the genius of the arts. works (see F. W. Schelling, Philosophie der Kunst, Werke, Bd. 3,1907, 359-60). The most significant in the history of art, according to the romantics, are the works of Aristophanes and Shakespeare, in which a synthesis of tragedy and comedy, great and low, is carried out. In France, V. Hugo made propaganda for G.. In the "Preface to" Cromwell "" he considered G. as the center. the concept of all post-antique art, considering G. aesthetically more expressive than the beautiful (V. Hugo, Sobr. soch., v. 14, M., 1956). In the 2nd floor. 19 - beg. 20th century an extensive formalistic lit-ra about G., to-heaven for the definition of G. took its external formal features: sharpening of the image, exaggeration, fantasy, etc. So F. T. Fischer (F. T. Vischer,? sthetik, oder Wissenschaft des Sch?nen, TI 1, 1854, S. 400-09), K. Flegel (K. Fl?gel, Geschichte des Grotesk-komischen, 1788) and others, considering G. only from the side of its form, in fact identified it with hyperbole, caricature, buffoonery. Aesthetics Russian. roar. Democrats extensively explored the sphere of the birth of H. - the dialectic of the tragic and the comic (see N. G. Chernyshevsky, The Sublime and the Comic, 1854), discovering the realist. ways in the art of depicting the transitions of high and low, terrible and funny, tragic and comic, evil and human. “Evil,” Chernyshevsky wrote, “is always so terrible that it ceases to be funny, despite all its ugliness” (Izbr. filos. soch., vol. 1, 1950, p. 288). In drama, the comic and the tragic interpenetrate each other, organically linked into a single whole, so that one turns into the other. In G., the terrible and sinister reveals funny and insignificant features (for example, in the painting of Brueghel), and the funny and insignificant - terrible and inhuman. essence (for example, in the stories of E. T. A. Hoffmann, Gogol, Shchedrin). What at first glance is perceived only as funny and amusing, reveals in G. its real, deeply tragic. and dramatic meaning. The tragic is G. only insofar as it accepts ironic. or comic. shape. Modern bourgeois Aesthetics identifies G. with the ugly, considers it a characteristic feature of the art of the 20th century. along with eroticism and psychopathology ("Revue d´esthetique", P., 1954, v. 7, No2, p. 211–13). Burzh. aesthetics and art assert anti-humanistic. G., depicting him as an eternal disgrace and tragic. the absurdity of the world. In the owls claim-ve realistic. G. is widely used in works of poetry (Mayakovsky), cinema (Eisenstein) and music (Prokofiev, Shostakovich) as a means of satire. criticism of the ugly in society. life and affirmation will put. aesthetic ideals. Lit.: Zundelovich Ya., Poetics of the grotesque, in Sat. – Problems of Poetics, ed. V. Ya. Bryusova, Moscow–Leningrad, 1925; Efimova Z. S., The problem of the grotesque in the work of Dostoevsky, "Scientific. Zap. N.-I. Department of the History of European Culture", [Kharkov], 1927, [issue] 2, p. 145–70; Adeline, Les sculptures grotesques et symboliques, Rouen-Aug?, 1878; Heilbrunner P. M., Grotesque art, "Apollo", L.–N. Y., 1938, v. 28, No. 167, November; M?ser J., Harlequin, oder Vertheidigung des Groteske-Komischen, in his book: S?mtliche Werke, Tl 9, B., 1843; Michel W., Das Teuflische und Groteske in der Kunst, 11 Aufl., Müncth, 1911; Kayser W., Das Groteske. Seine Gestaltung in Malerei und Dichtung, 1957. V. Shestakov. Moscow.

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. Fiction successfully uses the techniques and means that originated in the depths of other types of art: music, painting, architecture.

What is grotesque and the history of this term

The grotesque is a means of artistic expression that combines simple and complex, high and low, comic and tragic in bizarre, amazing images. The basis of the grotesque is contrast.

Curious forms and representations give rise to several opposite principles, such as, for example, images of talking dolls or little freaks, like Little Tsakhes in the fairy tales of E. T. Hoffmann.

There is nothing traditionally puppet about these characters. They do not touch, do not cause a desire to take care of themselves, but, on the contrary, inspire horror, disgust or bewilderment, only after a while giving way to warmer feelings.

The word "grotesque" comes from the French "grotesque" (" bizarre, funny"). According to the etymological dictionary of M. Fasmer, it is based on the Italian "grotta" ("cave").

In the 15th century, there was a definition of "grotto", referring to painting and architecture with bizarre elements of animal and floral ornament. Similar decorative fragments have been found in Roman catacombs. It is assumed that by the time of creation they belong to the era of the reign of Emperor Nero.

The amazing painting of underground caves gave rise to a fashion for a combination of strange characters and figures in the decoration of dwellings, furniture, dishes, and jewelry. A dragon holding a vine in its teeth, a griffin with an apple in its paw, a two-headed lion entwined with ivy are typical images of grotesque art.

Grotesque in literature- this is a comic technique necessary to emphasize the absurdity of what is happening, to draw the reader's attention to something important, hiding behind a ridiculous, at first glance, phenomenon.

Unlike, which is also prone to exaggeration, the grotesque takes the situation to the extreme, making the plot absurd. In this absurdity lies the key to understanding the image.

Literature differs from other art forms in that its content cannot be seen or touched, but can be imagined. Therefore, the grotesque scenes of literary works always "work" to ensure that awaken the imagination reader.

Examples of the grotesque in literature

Analyzing experiences from the time of Aristophanes to the present day, we can conclude that the grotesque is a social evil reflected in literature, concluded in a shell of laughter.

In the comedy "The Frogs", owned by the great Greek playwright, serious things are ridiculed: the fate of the soul after death, politics, versification, social mores. The characters enter the realm of the dead, where they observe a dispute between the great Athenian tragedians: Sophocles and the recently deceased Euripides.

Poets scold each other, criticizing the old and the new way of composing poetry, and at the same time the vices of their contemporaries. Instead of the classic antique choir that usually accompanied the characters' lines, Aristophanes has a choir of frogs whose croaking sounds like laughter.

A striking example of the grotesque - story by N. V. Gogol "The Nose". The olfactory organ separates from its owner and begins an independent life: it goes to work, to the cathedral, walks along Nevsky Prospekt.

The most interesting thing is that the Nose is perceived by others as a very serious gentleman, but Major Kovalev, abandoned by him, cannot leave the house. It turns out that it is not a person that is important to society, but his attributes: rank, status, appearance. Grotesque image of a swollen nose

Satirical stories are built on the grotesque. fairy tales by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. For example, the hero of the work of the same name Karas-idealist personifies a philosophizing intellectual, cut off from real life. Crucian preaches universal love and equality, while predatory fish continue to swallow small fish.

Thinking to dissuade the pike from eating his own kind, the idealist perishes. His attempt to go against the laws of nature is comical, but behind it lies a deep sadness from the realization of this truth.

However, not all researchers consider the grotesque to be an exclusively comic device. In works M. A. Bulgakova such powerful and fantastic images collide that it would hardly occur to anyone to laugh at them.

« Fatal eggs" and " dog's heart are dedicated to human experiments on nature. Are we allowed to interfere in everything? What are the consequences of scientific experiments? These questions are increasingly relevant in the era of cloning and Creonics. Bulgakov's grotesques frighten, warn, with their ominous authenticity reminiscent of Goya's engravings.

Grotesque in foreign literature

In addition to the already mentioned Aristophanes and Hoffmann, F. Rabelais, S. Brandt, J. Swift used the method of high and low collision among foreign writers. In the twentieth century, a German-speaking writer became an unsurpassed master of the grotesque F. Kafka.

The hero of the novel transformation» Gregor Samsa wakes up and finds that he has become a huge insect. Having tried to roll over to the other side, he realizes that he can no longer do this.

A loving son and brother, Gregor made money for the whole family, and now he is no longer needed. Relatives treat the giant centipede with disgust. They don't go into Gregor's room, only his sister occasionally brings him food.

Gradually, disgust for a strange creature increases. No one guesses how "it" suffers, hearing how mother and father discuss the problems that have arisen in the evenings. One evening, the sister invites the new tenants to play the piano. Attracted by the sounds of music from the living room, the hero crawls out of his hiding place. The merry company is shocked, a scandal comes out.

Tormented by hunger, wounds and loneliness, Gregor slowly dies. The family, relieved, throws the dried body of the insect out of the room. Parents notice that, despite all the hardships, the sister is getting prettier.

Kafka's phantasmagorical invention continues Gogol's idea of ​​how little a person means when he loses his social functions, how little love remains even in the closest people.

Talking about the grotesque leads to the cherished depths of artistic imagery. This technique is successful only for those artists whose creations are generated by long years of deliberation. That is why the grotesque in a literary work invariably amazes and remains in memory for a lifetime.

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Grotesque is a kind of conditional fantastic figurativeness, defiantly violating the principles of plausibility, in which figurative plans and artistic details that are incompatible in reality are bizarrely and illogically combined. Ornaments were called grotesque discovered at the end of the 15th century. Raphael during excavations of the ancient Roman baths of Titus. A distinctive feature of these images is the free combination of pictorial elements: human forms turned into animals and plants, human figures grew out of flower cups, plant shoots intertwined with chimeras and bizarre buildings. B. Cellini mentions these ornaments in his book (“The Life of Benvenuto Cellini”, 1558-65), I.V. Goethe writes about their features, calling them arabesques. The transfer of the term to the field of literature and the real flourishing of this type of imagery occurs in the era of romanticism F. Schlegel in his “Letter on the Novel” (1800) considers the grotesque as an expression of the spirit of the times, its only, along with “personal confessions”, romantic generation. The grotesque, as a characteristic feature of romantic literature, in contrast to the "dead form" - classical literature, is indicated in the Preface to the drama "Cromwell" (1827) by V. Hugh, which became the manifesto of French romanticism. Ch. Baudelaire addressed the problem of the grotesque in the article “On the Nature of Laughter and the Comic in the Plastic Arts”, contrasting laughter as “simply comic” with the grotesque as “absolutely comic”. The term grotesque became especially popular in the 20th century, initially in connection with innovative phenomena in theatrical art (V.E. Meyerhold), later in connection with the spread of ideas expressed in M.M. Bakhtin's book about F. Rabelais (1965).

The grotesque could arise in those genres of literature where the implausibility of fiction was obvious to both the author and the reader (listener). These are the comic genres of antiquity (the comedies of Aristophanes, The Golden Ass (2nd century), Apuleius, humorous and satirical works of the Renaissance, folklore fables can be attributed to grotesque works. with which fantasy enters into a kind of conflict (grotesque novels by N.V. Gogol, F.M. Dostoevsky, "The History of a City", 1869-70, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin). Grotesque can be humorous when, with the help of fantasy, the discrepancy between the present and the proper is emphasized, or when qualities that cause an ironic attitude are literally embodied in the fantastic forms of the appearance and behavior of the characters. However, it is in satire, aimed mostly at ridiculing social vices, where fantastic images appear in the most generalized form, that some of the meaningful possibilities of the grotesque, in particular, its allegoricalness, are more fully revealed. The grotesque can also be tragic - in works with tragic situations, when fate and the spiritual confusion of the individual are placed in the center. This may be an image of the suppression of the individual by the instincts of biological existence (“The Metamorphosis”, 1916, F. Kafka), the motive of a collision with a doll taken for a person (“Sandman”).

What is Grotesque?

Grotesque- this is a bizarre mixture in the image of the real and the fantastic, the beautiful and the ugly, the tragic and the comic - for a more impressive expression of the creative idea.

Grotesque - the image of people, objects, details in the visual arts, theater and literature in a fantastically exaggerated, ugly comic form; a peculiar style in art and literature, which emphasizes the distortion of generally accepted norms and at the same time the compatibility of real and fantastic, tragic and comic, sarcasm and harmless gentle humor. The grotesque necessarily violates the boundaries of plausibility, gives the image a certain convention and takes the artistic image beyond the limits of the probable, consciously deforming it. The grotesque style got its name in connection with the ornaments discovered at the end of the 15th century by Raphael and his students during excavations in Rome of ancient underground buildings, grottoes.

These images, strange in their bizarre unnaturalness, freely connected various pictorial elements: human forms turned into animals and plants, human figures grew out of flower cups, plant shoots intertwined with unusual structures. Therefore, at first, distorted images began to be called grotesque, the ugliness of which was explained by the tightness of the square itself, which did not allow making a correct drawing. Later on, the grotesque style was based on a complex composition of unexpected contrasts and inconsistencies. The transfer of the term to the field of literature and the true flowering of this type of imagery occurs in the era of romanticism, although the appeal to the methods of satirical grotesque occurs in Western literature much earlier. Eloquent examples of this are the books of F. Rabelais Gargantua and Pantagruel and J. Swift Gulliver's Travels. In Russian literature, the grotesque was widely used when creating bright and unusual artistic images of N.V. Gogol (The Nose, Notes of a Madman), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin (History of one city, Wild landowner and other tales), F.M. Dostoevsky (Double. Adventures of Mr. Golyadkin), F. Sologub (Small Demon), M.A. Bulgakov (Fatal Eggs, Heart of a Dog), A. Bely (Petersburg, Masks), V.V. Mayakovsky (Mystery-buff, Klop, Bathhouse, Prosessed), A.T. Tvardovsky (Terkin in the next world), A.A. Voznesensky (Oza), E.L. Schwartz (Dragon, Naked King).

Along with the satirical, the grotesque can be humorous, when with the help of a fantastic beginning and in the fantastic forms of the appearance and behavior of the characters, qualities are embodied that cause the reader's ironic attitude, and also tragic (in works of tragic content that tell about the attempts and fate of the spiritual definition of personality.

GROTESQUE - (from fr.- whimsical, intricate; funny, comic, from Italian. - grotto) - the image of people, objects, details in the visual arts, theater and literature in a fantastically exaggerated, ugly comic form; a peculiar style in art and literature, which emphasizes the distortion of generally accepted norms and at the same time the compatibility of real and fantastic, tragic and comic, sarcasm and harmless gentle humor. The grotesque necessarily violates the boundaries of plausibility, gives the image a certain convention and takes the artistic image beyond the limits of the probable, consciously deforming it. The grotesque style got its name in connection with the ornaments discovered at the end of the 15th century by Raphael and his students during excavations in Rome of ancient underground buildings, grottoes.

These images, strange in their bizarre unnaturalness, freely connected various pictorial elements: human forms turned into animals and plants, human figures grew out of flower cups, plant shoots intertwined with unusual structures. Therefore, at first, distorted images began to be called grotesque, the ugliness of which was explained by the tightness of the square itself, which did not allow making a correct drawing. Later on, the grotesque style was based on a complex composition of unexpected contrasts and inconsistencies. The transfer of the term to the field of literature and the true flowering of this type of imagery occurs in the era of romanticism, although the appeal to the methods of satirical grotesque occurs in Western literature much earlier. Eloquent examples of this are the books of F. Rabelais "Gargantua and Pantagruel" and J. Swift "Gulliver's Travels". In Russian literature, the grotesque was widely used when creating bright and unusual artistic images of N.V. Gogol ("The Nose", "Notes of a Madman"), M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin ("The History of a City", "The Wild Landowner" and other tales), F.M. Dostoevsky ("Double. The Adventures of Mr. Golyadkin"), F. Sologub ("Small Demon"), M.A. Bulgakov ("Fatal Eggs", "Heart of a Dog"), A. Bely ("Petersburg", "Masks"), V.V. Mayakovsky ("Mystery-buff", "Bedbug", "Bath", "Seated"), A.T. Tvardovsky ("Terkin in the next world"), A.A. Voznesensky ("Oza"), E.L. Schwartz ("Dragon", "Naked King").

Along with the satirical, the grotesque can be humorous, when, with the help of a fantastic beginning and in the fantastic forms of the appearance and behavior of the characters, qualities are embodied that cause the reader's ironic attitude, and also tragic (in works of tragic content that tell about the attempts and fate of the spiritual definition of personality.