What stories does it consist of? Short story, novella, novella as epic genres

Among the small literary genres of prose, the most popular and widespread is the story. In it, as a rule, emphasis is placed on one, less often on several events from the life of the protagonist of the work. This literary form is popular among readers due to its combination of small volume with very rich content and logical completeness.

About the story

The story is a short prose work. . The narrative in such an essay is concise, the author deals with one problem, or a limited circle of them.

The number of actors is often quite limited. Due to the brevity of the work, the artistic space is outlined very narrowly. There are quite capacious details, you can often observe an expressive final . The presence of a third-party narrator is acceptable.

This genre is realistic. The works contain a concise and logically completed narrative about some incident. , event, incident that happened in the life of a certain person. And the whole plot of the story is built around this fact.

The term “story”, as such, does not describe a specific genre of a particular literary style, but a whole array of related but equivalent genres that use different stylistic forms.

In Europe, works of this kind fall under the category of short story, which, in fact, is synonymous with our story. Both the short story abroad and here, the story stood out from the general literary array during the crisis of the feudal system, when enlightened circles close to art gravitated towards realism in the depiction of life.

Over time, stories appear in all artistic styles, changing under the influence of the framework of a particular genre. . But everywhere he retains some features peculiar only to him.

One of the main features is the presence of a certain semantic center, which brings together all the elements of the story. And this center can be anything - the culmination, the image of the main character, a certain incident, an act, or the course of events itself.

Top Storytelling Masters

Many writers in their work turned to this literary form, but not everyone did it well. And some authors revealed their true talent in the story. One way or another, there are many writers who have created wonderful works in this genre:

• Anton Chekhov;
• Ray Bradbury;
• Charles Dickens;
• Edgar Poe;
• O.Henry;
• Ivan Turgenev;
• Lev Tolstoy;
• Jack London and many others.

.
Mikhail Zoshchenko

The narrator did not believe that our planet was round, and his friend Styopka wanted to prove it to him. To do this, the children decide to go on a trip around the world, taking with them Stepan's sister Lyolya and the dog Tuzik. But not it's so easy to organize a trip around the world when you're only 6 years old .

Henryk Sienkiewicz

A child was born into a poor family. And this child was very weak and sickly. Nothing in his life pleased him, except for the violin which he could listen to for hours. He was destined to become a musician.

Victor Astafiev

A person must be responsible in everything . This also applies to nature. The story touches on extremely important moral and philosophical issues, the author tries to find not only the place of man in this world, but also to show the need to live in harmony not only with the surrounding nature, but also with oneself.

In the electronic library of our site you can find many interesting and instructive works in the genre of short stories.

a small form of epic literature; a small piece of prose. Unlike the essay, the story has a plot and conflict and is less documentary, that is, it contains fiction. The short story differs from the story in its dynamic construction and, as a rule, in the unexpected outcome of the plot. Depending on the content, two types of stories are distinguished: short stories and essay types. The story of the novelistic type is based on a certain case that reveals the formation of the character of the protagonist. Such stories record either a moment that changed the hero’s worldview, or several events that led to this moment: Belkin’s Tales by A. S. Pushkin, The Bride and Ionych by A. P. Chekhov, and M. Gorky’s “trampling” stories. A story of this type goes back to the literature of the Renaissance, where many short stories of the novelistic type were combined into a larger work: this is how Don Quixote by M. Cervantes, Gil Blas by A. R. Lesage, Till Ulenspiegel by C. de Coster. A story of an essay type captures a certain state of the world or society, its task is to show not a key moment, but the ordinary, normal life of a group of people or one person, choosing the most typical moment for this: “Notes of a hunter” by I. S. Turgenev, “ Antonov apples” by I. A. Bunin, “Cavalry” by I. E. Babel. Such stories are often part of a larger work that unfolds a moralistic picture, often with satirical pathos; for example, J. Swift, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The story can combine both tendencies: the author uses the novelistic form for moralistic content; for example, “Mumu” ​​by I. S. Turgenev, “The Death of an Official” by A. P. Chekhov, etc.

Among the stories are detective and fantastic. Detective stories describe a criminal incident, their plot is based on the search for a criminal. Often writers create cycles of detective stories united by a cross-cutting hero: for example, Sherlock Holmes in A. K. Doyle or Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple in A. Christie. Fantasy stories set the action in a fictional world (the future or another planet), showing the life of the characters among technological innovations in conditions of almost unlimited possibilities, for example. fantasy stories by R. Bradbury.

In Russian literature, the short story is one of the most widespread genres of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20th century a genre of the so-called. "women's" story (V. S. Tokarev, D. Rubin), which is an episode from the life of the hero, revealing his psychology, and through it - the psychology of all modern people. In content, it gravitates toward the novel, but in volume and form it remains a story.

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Story

Story

STORY. - The term "R." in its genre meaning is usually applied to any small narrative prose. a literary work with a realistic coloring, containing a detailed and complete narrative about any individual event, case, everyday episode, etc. So. arr. this term (as well as any other genre term) actually denotes not one genre of any particular style, but a whole group of close, similar, but not identical genres that take place in the literature of various styles. At the same time, naturally, on the periphery of this group, we find a number of transitional, related forms, which do not make it possible to sharply distinguish the corresponding material from the material of other related genres. However, this cannot prevent us from distinguishing R. from other literary types, establishing its typical features and the pattern of its addition in its classical form under certain historical conditions and in certain styles, on the one hand, and the pattern of its use and the emergence of modification of R. forms in others. styles on the other.
In Western European literature, the corresponding genre group is denoted by the term "short story" (see), which is essentially a synonym for the term "R.". It is true that in us the presence of these synonymous terms aroused (among the Formalists especially) the desire to differentiate them. Thus, the short story was often defined as a variety of R., distinguished by a particular sharpness of the plot and denouement and tension in the development of the plot. However, this kind of terminological distinction is nothing more than arbitrary, since in its historical origin and further development, Russian R. is quite similar to the Western European short story. Like the short story there, so here R. stood out from all narrative literature in general at similar historical moments, determined primarily by the nature of the content, aimed at reality. We had it in the XVII-XVIII centuries. in connection with the growth of tendencies opposed to the old feudal order. During this period, R. developed most intensively in the styles of the “third estate”. The aggravation of social contradictions and the cultural and ideological growth of the classes creating literature determine the design of the genre of R. At this stage, in contrast to the general character of the writing (church, religious) that prevailed in previous centuries, merchant or petty-bourgeois R. of the XVII-XVIII centuries. brought real, everyday, everyday content into literature, enclosed in clear compositional forms, distinguished by structural completeness, intense dynamism of the plot, and simplicity of language. In contrast to the genre amorphism of a medieval story, the plot structure of which basically follows the natural course of events and is limited by the natural boundaries of the latter (biography of the hero, history of a military campaign, etc.), R. is a form that shows the author's ability to distinguish from the general the flow of reality moments, the most significant, situations, the most conflicting, in which social contradictions appear with the greatest convexity and sharpness, converging in one event that serves as the plot of R. However, the connection of the story of the XVII-XVIII centuries. in the styles of the "third estate" with more traditional genres, it was expressed in the stubborn preservation of the old terms - "story", "fairy tale" - as applied to early R. ("Tales" about Karp Sutulov, about Shemyakin's court, etc., "fairy tale » Chulkov "Annoying Awakening", etc.). As a certain literary term "R." begins to come into use at the beginning of the 19th century, but even in Pushkin and Gogol, the term “story” combines works, some of which we would definitely attribute to R. or a short story ("The Shot", "The Undertaker", "The Carriage", etc.).
So. arr. R. took shape as a genre advanced by the growth of bourgeois trends and bourgeois styles in literature. Further R. wins its place in a variety of styles, in each of them being modified both in ideological significance and formally. The in-depth psychological story of Chekhov, the "simplified", "folk" story of L. Tolstoy, the mystical-symbolist story of F. Sologub, the socially sharpened realistic story of M. Gorky - all these are different both in content and in R.
The genre forms of R., in the styles of the "third estate" that met the needs of a progressively realistic reflection of reality, were later used also for opposite purposes - for the purpose of mystical refraction of real life by writers of the reactionary classes. F. Sologub, for example, referring to the reflection of the everyday reality surrounding him, along with the large epic form - the novel - also gives R., in which there are a number of characteristic features of this narrative type: small size, restriction of the plot to one event taking place in the setting ordinary reality, a prosaic form, etc. However, due to the fact that this author refracts reality in a mystical, surreal way, his stories closely border on other genre groups of a small epic form - a religious legend, a fairy tale - absorbing the signs of these latter (for example . the introduction of elements of the miraculous into the depiction of characters, into the development of the plot), which, however, does not give grounds to identify all these different narrative types.
Hence the profound difference between R. in different styles, in the presence of some structural homogeneity of R. as a certain type of small epic form (a limited number of characters shown around one central event, the absence of a detailed life history of the characters, a limited size, etc.).
So. arr. the content of the term "R." even in its widest use - not only in application to its typical, so to speak, classical form, but also in its further transformations - it retains certain of the above features. They ch. arr. determined by the social conditions that put forward realism as an artistic method. These few features, however, are sufficient to clarify the relationship of R. with other similar genre forms. Story eg. in contrast, R. sets out not just one case, but unfolds a whole series of events that make up a single line of fate for a particular character or the development of a more or less long process. In accordance with this, if in R. we have an intensive construction of the plot, in which the threads of the life fate of the characters are pulled together into one knot of this event (the so-called "totality" of the novelistic plot), then in the story we see its extensive deployment, with Krom, narrative tension is evenly distributed over a number of moments (events). Thus, the story presents a broader scope of material and usually (but not always) in size form than R. Cf. as examples of R. "Myatel" by Pushkin and the story "Notes of a Marker" by L. Tolstoy, Chekhov's stories "The Steppe", "Men", etc. with his own stories, etc. On the other hand, in the same plane, we delimit R., stating at least one case, but in a number of situations, indicating the circumstances of the case, describing the situation, etc., from an anecdote as the smallest (rudimentary) narrative form, giving only one acute, comic situation, the essence of which is concluded often in one apt phrase. It is clear that between R. and the story, R. and an anecdote, it is easy to find intermediate forms. Thus, in translated facets we find samples of short anecdotal stories. Adding a moralistically generalizing conclusion to such a short anecdote-story turns it into a fable, which, due to this, acquires a more or less allegorical character, which we see in a number of the same facetia. On a different plane lies the criterion for distinguishing R. from a fairy tale and legend and R. from an essay: in terms of volume, plot dynamics, R., a fairy tale, a legend are similar forms. But the first differs from the last two in its realism (in typical forms) or at least the focus of the subject matter on reality (albeit fantastically refracted). However, in this respect, R. opposes only a literary tale, but not folklore, because, according to the accepted traditional terminology, the latter embraces works not only of a mythical and fantastic nature, but also of a realistic-everyday and historical one. The term "R." applies only to literary works, although among oral tales it is easy to find typical examples of a realistic novel. As has already been said more than once, transitional forms can be found for all the indicated relations. Even such a seemingly permanent sign of a story as a prose form is relative - we know examples of R. in verse (Nekrasov - "Philanthropist", Maikov - "Mashenka", etc.). However, in all such cases, in the absence of any feature characteristic of R., others obviously remain, otherwise the very term “R.” would not be applicable to this work. For all that, it must be emphasized that these features of R. by no means represent something immovable, unchanging, on the contrary, their concrete implementation in different styles is extremely diverse and significantly different. So, in some styles, the “totality” of the plot of R. is manifested in the extraordinary event that unexpectedly determines the fate of the characters (“Shot” by Pushkin), in others, on the contrary, in its everyday ordinaryness (Chekhov’s stories), in the third, in its broad social generalization (Gorky's stories). In accordance with this, other aspects of the poetic structure of R. are also modified: the always complete, integral plot of R. in some styles is driven by the power of individual psychological impulses, more or less exceptional (“Shot”) or ordinary (Chekhov’s stories), in others - by social contradictions. (Gorky's stories). The function of the background, the situation, the action, etc., changes (a small share of the everyday background in "The Shot" and a large one in Chekhov's stories, a wide social background in Gorky, etc.). Hence - the variety of varieties of the story: everyday life, satirical, adventurous, psychological, fantastic, etc. The story in general we find in many styles. But each of them gravitates toward a certain type (or series of types) of R., again giving a peculiar concrete form of this type. It is easy to understand why, for example. Saltykov-Shchedrin, a representative of the revolutionary peasant democracy, puts forward the genre of satirical R. - fairy tales with "Aesopian" language, the populist-liberal Korolenko - everyday R., the writer of the decadent petty bourgeoisie F. Sologub - mystical and fantastic, etc. In our Soviet Literature is dominated by R. with broad social themes. This theme is not always given in a truly realistic interpretation: there are frequent examples of superficial everyday life (for example, in the stories of Podyachev), one-sided "biological" psychologism ("The Secret of the Secret" by Vs. Ivanov), etc. Even though Soviet literature has already brought forward a number of fairly prominent masters of painting (Babel, Tikhonov, Vs. Ivanov, Zoshchenko, Erdberg, Gabrilovich, and others), painting of the style of socialist realism is still in the process of its formation. Meanwhile, the specific artistic means of R. - conciseness, laconism, dynamism, intensity of perception, relative simplicity and accessibility, etc. - determine its special effectiveness. And if the large canvas of the novel reflects the broad lines of the social process of modernity in a single compositional scope, then in R. the artist focuses on individual moments, episodes, aspects of this process, which also contain the essential features of a changing reality. Therefore, the literature of socialist realism, as the richest and most diverse in terms of genres, assigns a proper place to R. in the general system of its genres, critically mastering the huge short story heritage of the past. Bibliography:
Novella.

Literary encyclopedia. - In 11 tons; M .: publishing house of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Friche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Story

Small form of epic kind of literature; a small piece of prose. Unlike essay the story has plot and conflict and is less documentary, i.e. contains fiction. Novella differs from the story in the dynamism of the construction and, as a rule, in the unexpected denouement of the plot. Depending on the content, two types of stories are distinguished: short stories and essay types. The story of the novelistic type is based on a certain case that reveals the formation of the character of the protagonist. Such stories record either a moment that changed the hero’s worldview, or several events that led to this moment: “Belkin’s Tales” by A.S. Pushkin, "The Bride" and "Ionych" A.P. Chekhov, "tramp" stories by M. Gorky. This type of story goes back to literature. Renaissance, where many stories of the novelistic type were combined into a larger work: this is how Don Quixote by M. Cervantes, "Gille Blas" by A. R. Lesage, "Til Ulenspiegel" by S. de Costera. A story of an essay type captures a certain state of the world or society, its task is to show not a key moment, but the ordinary, normal life of a group of people or one person, choosing the most typical moment for this: “Notes of a hunter” by I.S. Turgenev, "Antonov apples" I. A. Bunin, Cavalry by I. E. Babel. Such stories are often part of a larger work that unfolds a moralistic picture, often with satirical pathos; for example, J. Swift, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. The story can combine both tendencies: the author uses the novelistic form for moralistic content; for example, “Mumu” ​​by I. S. Turgenev, “The Death of an Official” by A. P. Chekhov, etc.
Among the stories are detective and fantastic. Detective stories describe a criminal incident, their plot is based on the search for a criminal. Often writers create cycles of detective stories united by a cross-cutting hero: for example, Sherlock Holmes in A.K. Doyle or Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple at A. Christie. Fantasy stories set the action in a fictional world (the future or another planet), showing the life of the characters among technological innovations in conditions of almost unlimited possibilities, for example. fantastic stories R. bradbury.
In Russian literature, the short story is one of the most widespread genres of the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20th century a genre of the so-called. "female" story (V.S. Tokarev, D. Rubin), which is an episode from the life of a hero, revealing his psychology, and through it - the psychology of all modern people. In terms of content, it gravitates towards the novel, but in terms of volume and form it remains a story.

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Under the editorship of prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

Story

STORY. In Russian literature, the designation of a more or less definite narrative genre under the subtitle "story" is approved relatively late. N. Gogol and Pushkin prefer the name "story", where we could say "story", and only from the 50s does a clearer distinction begin. Tolstoy has the least hesitation and the greatest precision in his subtitles of the 1950s, which can be studied as an example of sensitivity to literary terminology. (Thus, "Snowstorm" is called a "story", "Marker's Notes" a "tale" - both of them are eminently accurate).

Of course, the main fluctuations can only be between two genres: a story and a short story, sometimes adjoining in their assignments and very indefinite in their terminological meaning. Indeed, while the Italian short story of the Renaissance is a very specific concept, which has become historical in its concreteness and formed a solid literary genre (hence the ease and explainability of stylization specifically for the Italian short story) - this cannot be said at all about the "story". A variety of composition techniques, motives, interests, the very manner of presentation (Turgenev, for example, has a story in 9 letters - "Faust") - is associated with the story of the 19th century. To him belong both the works of E. Poe (one of the greatest masters of the story), honed in the spirit of the Italian short story, and the “stories” of early Chekhov that developed from the techniques of the so-called “scene”. All these considerations make it necessary to begin the definition of the term "story" not from its theoretically and abstractly established type, but rather from a general manner, which we will designate as special tone of the story giving it the features of a "story". This tonality, which is rather difficult to define in abstract terms, is sometimes given immediately in the efficiency of the message begun, in the fact that the story is very often conducted in the first person, in the fact that it is given the features of something really former (hence the characteristic technique for the story is the creation special illusion of chance, for example, a found manuscript, a meeting, episodes during a trip, etc.). So, the tone of the story is immediately caught in Tolstoy's exemplary construction of Master and Worker: “It was in the 70s, the day after the winter Nikola. There was a holiday in the parish, and the village janitor, merchant of the second guild, Vasily Andreevich Brekhunov, could not be absent. This factuality and efficiency of the started message immediately sets you up for waiting. story about some event (“It was”), underlined by a detailed mention of the time (70s). Further, according to the beginning, it is completely restrained tone specific story. It is not superfluous to add that the elements of the story permeate all of Tolstoy's work: certain parts of his novels, with an appropriate roundness, can be singled out as separate stories). Quite a different tone of the beginning of Faust. The very first letters create a feeling of narrative lyrics, with a very detailed transfer of feelings and various, rather vague, memories. The tone of narration presupposes something else - strict factuality, economy (sometimes consciously calculated) of visual means, immediate preparation of the main essence of what is being told.

The story, on the contrary, uses the means of slow tonality - it is all filled with detailed motivation, secondary accessories, and its essence can be distributed at all points of the narrative itself with almost uniform tension. This is done in Marker's Notes, where the tragic end of the book. Nekhlyudov is not perceived tragically, thanks to the uniform tension and uniform distribution. Thus, a special specific tone of the story is created by quite definite means. A good storyteller knows that he must focus on a relatively easily observable case or event, quickly, i.e. immediately, explain all his motives and give appropriate permission (end). Concentration of attention, the center advanced in tension, and the connectedness of motives by this center are the hallmarks of the story. Its relatively small volume, which they tried to legitimize as one of the signs, is entirely due to these basic properties.

K. Loks. Literary encyclopedia: Dictionary of literary terms: In 2 volumes / Edited by N. Brodsky, A. Lavretsky, E. Lunin, V. Lvov-Rogachevsky, M. Rozanov, V. Cheshikhin-Vetrinsky. - M.; L.: Publishing house L. D. Frenkel, 1925

See what "Story" is in other dictionaries:

Story- STORY. In Russian literature, the designation of a more or less definite narrative genre under the subtitle "story" is approved relatively late. N. Gogol and Pushkin prefer the name "story", where we could say ... ... Dictionary of literary terms

See an anecdote, a book, a fairy tale based on stories ... Dictionary of Russian synonyms and expressions similar in meaning. under. ed. N. Abramova, M .: Russian dictionaries, 1999. anecdote story, book, fairy tale; narrative, description, history, epic, story, essay; parable ... Synonym dictionary

This genre is written for both children and adults. They differ from each other also by belonging to one or another literary movement. More about what a story is, what characteristic features this genre has, is described in today's article.

Structure

What story can be read in half an hour? Almost anyone. The story is small. Its structure is quite simple. The story consists of a beginning, a climax and a denouement. Representatives of romanticism, a trend that developed in the 19th century, preferred an unexpected ending. But many critics call their works differently - short stories, which, however, in many languages ​​is consonant with the word "story".

Novella and short story

What do these genres have in common? There are few differences between them, but some literary critics believe that the story is more psychological, unlike the short story. In terms of genre features, it is closer to the essay. In the novel, the plot plays a major role.

What are the stories in Russian literature that have a deep psychological content? These are the works of Chekhov, Bunin, Andreev. It is enough to read a story by one of these authors to understand how this genre differs from the short story, the unsurpassed master of which, by the way, Prosper Merimee is recognized. Each work of the French prose writer ends unexpectedly. In the stories of Chekhov, Bunin, one rarely finds unexpected plot twists.

A striking example of a classic story is "The Tale of the Seven Hanged Men" by Leonid Andreev. The reader already knows from the title what fate awaits the heroes. In this work, the main thing is not the plot, but the psychological portraits of the characters.

Tale or story

Until the middle of the 19th century, Russian writers saw no boundaries between these genres. For example, Gogol called the work "The Overcoat" a story. Whereas, according to modern literary terminology, this is more of a short story: a small volume, only a few characters, an unexpected ending. The story tells about a number of events. Such a work covers a significant time period. The story, unlike the short story or short story, is more leisurely, calm.

Almost any prose work by Edgar Allan Poe can be read in less than an hour. It will take the same amount of time to get acquainted with one of the stories of HG Wells. However, the distinction between the story and the story according to the criterion of volume is still conditional. So, "One day of Ivan Denisovich" - - is considered to be a story. But in terms of volume, it is more consistent with the story.

Romantic writers' stories

Above, it was described in detail how the short story differs from the story. Some literary scholars believe that these are different genres, however, in many languages ​​there is only one term for a work of small prose. The first short stories appeared in Germany in the era of romanticism, that is, in the 19th century. A striking example - But the typical stories in the modern sense are not "Little Tsakhes", but the lesser-known "Sandman", Mademoiselle de Scudery. Other representatives of this genre are Kleist, Tik, Chamisso.

Russian novella

The famous representative of this genre is Alexander Pushkin. A collection of his works called Belkin's Tales is nothing more than a collection of classic short stories. In the 19th century, followers of the German writer Hoffmann appeared in Russia. These are Odoevsky, Pogorelsky, Field. Hoffmann had a huge influence on the work of Nikolai Gogol. Examples of Russian romantic short stories are the works "Viy", "Terrible Revenge", "Nose", "Portrait". The American writer Washington Irving made a huge contribution to the development of this genre. "Sleepy Hollow" is called a fairy tale for adults. This work became an example of a romantic novel.