What is the definition of the concept of the idea of ​​a work of art. Artwork idea

Idea(Greek ideas- prototype, ideal, idea) - the main idea of ​​the work, expressed through its entire figurative system. It is the way of expression that fundamentally distinguishes the idea artwork from a scientific idea. The idea of ​​a work of art is inseparable from its figurative system, therefore it is not so easy to find an adequate abstract expression for it, to formulate it in isolation from the artistic content of the work. L. Tolstoy, emphasizing the inseparability of the idea from the form and content of the novel "Anna Karenina", wrote: "If I wanted to say in words everything that I had in mind to express in a novel, then I would have to write a novel, the very one that I wrote first.

And one more difference between the idea of ​​a work of art and the idea of ​​a scientific one. The latter requires a clear justification and strict, often laboratory, evidence, confirmation. Writers, unlike scientists, do not, as a rule, strive for rigorous proof, although such a tendency can be found among naturalists, in particular E. Zola. It is enough for the artist of the word to pose this or that question of concern to society. In this setting itself, the main ideological content works. As A. Chekhov noted, in such works as "Anna Karenina" or "Eugene Onegin" not a single issue is "resolved", but nevertheless they are permeated with deep, socially significant ideas that concern everyone.

Close to the concept of "the idea of ​​a work" is the concept of "ideological content". The last term is more connected with the position of the author, with his attitude to the depicted. This attitude may be different, just as the ideas expressed by the author may be different. The position of the author, his ideology are determined primarily by the era in which he lives, the social views inherent in this time, expressed by one or another social group. For educational literature The XVIII century was characterized by high ideological content, due to the desire to reorganize society on the principles of reason, the struggle of enlighteners against the vices of the aristocracy and faith in the virtue of the "third estate". At the same time, aristocratic literature, devoid of high citizenship (Rococo literature), also developed. The latter cannot be called "unprincipled", just the ideas expressed by this trend were the ideas of a class opposite to the enlighteners, a class that was losing historical perspective and optimism. Because of this, the ideas expressed by "precise" (refined, refined) aristocratic literature were devoid of great social resonance.

The ideology of the writer is not reduced only to the thoughts that he puts into his creation. The selection of the material on which the work is based, and a certain circle of characters is also important. The choice of heroes, as a rule, is determined by the corresponding ideological attitudes of the author. For example, the Russian natural school"of the 1840s, professing the ideals of social equality, sympathetically draws the life of the inhabitants of the city" corners "- petty officials, poor bourgeois, janitors, cooks, etc. In Soviet literature comes to the fore" real man", concerned primarily with the interests of the proletariat, sacrificing the personal for the sake of the national good.

The problem of correlation in the work of "ideological" and "artistic" seems to be extremely important. Not always even outstanding writers manages to translate the idea of ​​the work into a perfect art form. Often, word artists, in their desire to express their exciting ideas as accurately as possible, stray into journalism, begin to "argue" rather than "depict", which, ultimately, only worsens the work. An example of such a situation is R. Rolland's novel "The Enchanted Soul", in which the highly artistic initial chapters contrast with the last ones, which are something like journalistic articles.

In such cases, full-blooded artistic images turn into schemes, into simple mouthpieces of the author's ideas. Even such greatest artists words, like L. Tolstoy, although relatively little space is allocated to this way of expression in his works.

Typically, a work of art expresses main idea and a number of secondary, associated with side storylines. So, in the famous tragedy "Oedipus Rex" by Sophocles, along with the main idea of ​​​​the work, which says that man is a toy in the hands of the gods, ideas about the attractiveness and at the same time the frailty of human power (the conflict between Oedipus and Creon), about the wise "blindness "(dialogue of the blind Tiresias with the bodily sighted, but spiritually blind Oedipus) and whole line others. It is characteristic that the ancient authors tried to express even the deepest thoughts only in art form. As for the myth, its artistry without a trace "absorbed" the idea. It is in this connection that many theorists argue that what ancient work the more artistic it is. And this is not because the ancient creators of "myths" were more talented, but because they simply had no other way to express their ideas due to the underdevelopment of abstract thinking.

Speaking about the idea of ​​a work, about its ideological content, one should also keep in mind that it is not only created by the author, but can also be introduced by the reader.

A. Frans said that we bring our own meaning to each line of Homer, different from the one that Homer himself put into it. To this, critics of the hermeneutic trend add that the perception of the same work of art is different in different eras. Readers of each new historical period usually "absorb" the dominant ideas of their time into the work. And indeed it is. Haven't you tried Soviet time fill the novel "Eugene Onegin", based on the "proletarian" ideology dominant at that time, with something that Pushkin did not even think about? In this regard, the interpretation of myths is especially revealing. In them, if desired, you can find any modern idea from political to psychoanalytic. It is no coincidence that Z. Freud saw in the myth of Oedipus a confirmation of his idea about the initial conflict between the son and the father.

The possibility of a broad interpretation of the ideological content of works of art is precisely due to the specifics of the expression of this content. The figurative, artistic embodiment of the idea is not as accurate as the scientific one. This opens up the possibility of a very free interpretation of the idea of ​​the work, as well as the possibility of "reading" into it those ideas that the author did not even think about.

Speaking about the ways of expressing the idea of ​​a work, one cannot fail to mention the doctrine of pathos. V. Belinsky's words are known that "a poetic idea is not a syllogism, not a dogma, not a rule, it is a living passion, it is pathos." And therefore the idea of ​​a work "is not an abstract thought, not a dead form, but a living creation." The words of V. Belinsky confirm what was said above - the idea in a work of art is expressed by specific means, it is "live", and not abstract, not a "syllogism". This is profoundly true. It should only be clarified how the idea nevertheless differs from pathos, because such a difference is not visible in Belinsky's formulation. Paphos is first of all a passion, and it is connected with the form artistic expression. In this regard, they speak of "pathetic" and dispassionate (among naturalists) works. The idea, which is inextricably linked with pathos, still refers more to what is called the content of the work, in particular, they speak of "ideological content". True, this division is relative. Idea and pathos merge together.

Topic(from Greek. theme)- what is put in the basis, the main problem and the main circle life events depicted by the writer. The theme of the work is inextricably linked with its idea. The selection of vital material, the formulation of problems, that is, the choice of a topic, are dictated by the ideas that the author would like to express in the work. V. Dahl in " explanatory dictionary"defined the topic as" a situation, a task that is discussed or explained. "This definition emphasizes that the theme of a work is, first of all, a statement of a problem," tasks ", and not just certain events. The latter can be the subject of an image and be defined also as the plot of the work. Understanding the "theme" mainly as a "problem" implies its closeness to the concept of "idea of ​​the work". This connection was noted by Gorky, who wrote that "a theme is an idea that originated in the author's experience, prompted to him life, but nestles in the receptacle of his impressions still unformed, and, demanding embodiment in images, arouses in him the urge to work on its design. "The problematic orientation of the theme is often expressed in the very title of the work, as is the case in the novels" What is to be done? "Who is to blame?". At the same time, one can almost speak of a regularity, which consists in the fact that almost all literary masterpieces have emphatically neutral names, most often repeating the name of the hero: "Faust", "Odyssey", "Hamlet", "The Brothers Karamazov", "Don Quixote", etc.

Emphasizing the close connection between the idea and the theme of a work, one often speaks of "ideological and thematic integrity" or of its ideological and thematic features. Such a combination of two different, but closely related concepts seems to be quite justified.

Along with the term "theme" is often used and close to it in meaning - "theme", which implies the presence in the work of not only main theme but also various side thematic lines. The larger the work, the wider the coverage of vital material and the more complex the ideological basis, the more such thematic lines. The main theme in I. Goncharov's novel "The Cliff" is a story about the drama of finding one's way in modern society(line of Faith) and the "cliff" that ends such attempts. The second theme of the novel is noble dilettantism and its detrimental effect on creativity (Raisky's line).

The theme of a work can be both socially significant - this was precisely the theme of "Cliff" for the 1860s - and insignificant, in connection with which sometimes it is said about the "small subject matter" of one or another author. However, it should be borne in mind that some genres, by their very nature, involve "small topics", that is, the absence of social significant topics. Such, in particular, is the intimate lyrics, to which the concept of "small subject matter" is inapplicable as an evaluative one. For large works, a good choice of theme is one of the main conditions for success. This is clearly seen in the example of A. Rybakov's novel Children of the Arbat, whose unprecedented reader success was ensured primarily by the exposing of Stalinism, which was acute for the second half of the 1980s.

TOPIC- The subject, the main content of reasoning, presentation, creativity. (S. Ozhegov. Dictionary of the Russian language, 1990.)
TOPIC(Greek Thema) - 1) The subject of presentation, images, research, discussion; 2) statement of the problem, which predetermines the selection of vital material and the nature artistic narration; 3) the subject of a linguistic statement (...). (Dictionary foreign words, 1984.)

Already these two definitions can confuse the reader: in the first, the word "theme" is equated in meaning with the term "content", while the content of a work of art is immeasurably wider than the theme, the theme is one of the aspects of the content; the second makes no distinction between the concepts of topic and problem, and although topic and problem are philosophically related, they are not the same thing, and you will soon understand the difference.

The following definition of the topic, accepted in literary criticism, is preferable:

TOPIC- this is a vital phenomenon that has become the subject of artistic consideration in the work. The range of such life phenomena is THEME literary work. All phenomena of the world and human life make up the scope of the artist's interests: love, friendship, hatred, betrayal, beauty, ugliness, justice, lawlessness, home, family, happiness, deprivation, despair, loneliness, struggle with the world and oneself, solitude, talent and mediocrity, the joys of life, money , relations in society, death and birth, secrets and mysteries of the world, etc. etc. - these are the words that call life phenomena that become themes in art.

The task of the artist is to creatively study the life phenomenon from the sides interesting to the author, that is artistically reveal the topic. Naturally, this can only be done asking a question(or several questions) to the phenomenon under consideration. This very question, which the artist asks, using the figurative means available to him, is problem literary work.

So,
PROBLEM is a question that does not have a unique solution or involves a set of equivalent solutions. The ambiguity of possible solutions of the problem differs from tasks. The collection of such questions is called PROBLEMS.

The more complex the phenomenon of interest to the author (that is, the more topic), the more questions (problems) it will cause, and the more difficult these issues will be to solve, that is, the deeper and more serious it will be issues literary work.

The theme and the problem are historically dependent phenomena. different eras dictate to artists different topics and problems. For example, the author of the ancient Russian poem of the 12th century "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" was worried about the topic of princely strife, and he asked himself questions: how to make Russian princes stop caring only about personal gain and enmity with each other, how to unite the disparate forces of a weakening Kyiv state? The 18th century invited Trediakovsky, Lomonosov and Derzhavin to think about scientific and cultural transformations in the state, about what should be ideal ruler, put in the literature the problems of civic duty and equality of all citizens, without exception, before the law. Romantic writers were interested in the secrets of life and death, penetrated into the dark nooks and crannies human soul, solved the problems of a person's dependence on fate and unsolved demonic forces, the interaction of a talented and extraordinary person with a soulless and mundane society of inhabitants.

19th century with its focus on literature critical realism drew artists to new themes and made them think about new problems:

• Through the efforts of Pushkin and Gogol, the “small” man entered literature, and the question arose about his place in society and his relationship with “big” people;
• became the most important women's theme, and with it the so-called public "women's question"; A. Ostrovsky and L. Tolstoy paid much attention to this topic;
• the theme of home and family acquired a new meaning, and L. Tolstoy studied the nature of the connection between upbringing and a person’s ability to be happy;
• unsuccessful peasant reform and further social upheavals aroused a keen interest in the peasantry, and the theme peasant life and fate, discovered by Nekrasov, became the leading one in literature, and with it the question: what will be the fate of the Russian peasantry and all of great Russia?
• tragic events in history and public sentiments brought to life the theme of nihilism and opened up new facets in the theme of individualism, which received further development Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy in an attempt to resolve the questions: how to warn the younger generation against the tragic mistakes of radicalism and aggressive hatred? How to reconcile the generations of "fathers" and "children" in a troubled and bloody world? How is the relationship between good and evil to be understood today, and what is meant by both? How, in an effort to be different from others, do not lose yourself?
• Chernyshevsky addresses the topic of the public good and asks: "What should be done?" so that a person in Russian society could honestly earn a comfortable life and thereby increase social wealth? How to "equip" Russia for a prosperous life? Etc.

Note! The problem is question, and it should be formulated mainly in interrogative form, especially if the formulation of problems is the task of your essay or other work in the literature.

Sometimes in art, it is the question posed by the author that becomes a real breakthrough - a new one, previously unknown to society, but now burning, vital. Many works are created in order to pose a problem.

So,
IDEA(Greek Idea, concept, representation) - in literature: the main idea of ​​a work of art, the method proposed by the author for solving the problems posed by him. The totality of ideas, the system of author's thoughts about the world and man, embodied in artistic images is called IDEA CONTENT artistic work.

Thus, the scheme of semantic relationships between the topic, problem and idea can be represented as follows:

When you are engaged in the interpretation of a literary work, you are looking for hidden (in scientific terms, implicit) meanings, analyze explicitly and gradually the thoughts expressed by the author, you just study ideological content works. While working on task 8 of your previous work (analysis of a fragment of M. Gorky's story "Chelkash"), you dealt precisely with questions of its ideological content.

When performing tasks on the topic "Content of a literary work: Author's position"Pay attention to the contact statement.

You have set a goal: to learn to understand a critical (educational, scientific) text and correctly, accurately state its content; learn to use analytical language when presenting such a text.

You must learn to solve the following tasks:

• allocate main idea of the whole text, determine its topic;
• highlight the essence individual statements the author and their logical connection;
• convey the author's thoughts not as "one's own", but through indirect speech ("The author believes that ...");
• expand your vocabulary concepts and terms.

Source text: With all his creativity, Pushkin, of course, is a rebel. He certainly understands the correctness of Pugachev, Stenka Razin, Dubrovsky. He, of course, would be, if he could, on December 14 at Senate Square along with your friends and associates. (G.Volkov)

Variant of the completed task: According to the firm conviction of the critic, Pushkin is a rebel in his work. The scientist believes that Pushkin, realizing the correctness of Pugachev, Stenka Razin, Dubrovsky, would definitely be, if he could, on December 14 on Senate Square, along with like-minded people.

Along with the terms "theme" and "problem", the concept of an artistic idea represents one of the facets of the content of a work of art. The concept of an idea was put forward in antiquity. Plato interpreted ideas as entities that are beyond reality and components perfect world, true, in the understanding of Plato, reality. For Hegel, the idea is objective truth, the coincidence of subject and object, the highest point of development. I. Kant introduced the concept of "aesthetic idea", associated with the concept of beauty, which, according to Kant, is subjective.

In literary criticism, the term "idea" was used to designate the author's thoughts and feelings figuratively expressed in works of art - this is an emotionally colored content center of a work of art. The author is presented here as a bearer of a certain philosophical and artistic position, an exponent of a certain point of view, and not a passive "imitator" of nature. In this regard, along with the word "idea", the concepts "concept of the work", "author's concept" were used.

An artistic idea is not an abstract concept, unlike scientific and philosophical categories. It cannot be expressed in a specific verbal formula, as it happens, for example, in scientific texts. A figurative idea is always deeper than its schematic representation (a kind of verbal paraphrase).

However, it happens that the ideas are expressed by the author directly, in fixed verbal formulas. This sometimes happens in lyrical poetic texts, striving for laconism of expression. For example, M.Yu. Lermontov in the poem “Duma” puts the main idea in the first lines: “I look sadly at our generation! / His future is either empty or dark, / Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt, / It will grow old in inaction.

In addition, some of the author's ideas can be "entrusted" to characters who are close in worldview to the author. For example, Starodum in D.I. Fonvizina becomes the "mouthpiece" of the author's ideas, as it is "supposed" to be a reasoner in classic comedies. In a realistic novel of the 19th century, a hero close to the author can express thoughts consonant with the author - such is Alyosha Karamazov in The Brothers Karamazov by F.M. Dostoevsky.

Some writers themselves formulate the idea of ​​their works in their prefaces (for example, M.Yu. Lermontov in the preface to the second edition of A Hero of Our Time).

Thanks to its figurative expression artistic idea becomes deeper than even the author's abstract explanations of his intention. As already mentioned, a specific feature of an artistic idea is its irreducibility to an abstract position, the imagery is expressed only in the artistic whole of the work. From this follows another feature of the artistic idea. A truly artistic idea is not initially given. It can change significantly from the stage of conception to the moment of completion of the work.

The idea of ​​the work includes an assessment by the author of selected facts and phenomena of life. But this assessment is also expressed in a figurative form - by artistic reflection of the typical in the individual. The thought expressed in the work is not only figurative, but also emotionally colored. V.G. Belinsky wrote that the poet contemplates the idea “not with reason, not with reason, not with feeling, and not with any one ability of his soul, but with all the fullness and integrity of his moral being, and therefore the idea is, in his work, not an abstract thought, not dead form, but a living creature, in which the living beauty of the form testifies to being in it divine idea and in which ... there is no boundary between idea and form, but both are a whole and unified organic creation.

Literary creation is thoroughly imbued with the personal attitude of the author. This component within the ideological core in modern literary criticism is called differently: emotional-value orientation, artistry mode, type of author's emotionality.

The literary text is saturated with meanings, they can be in different ways to each other. Ideological meaning the work is a unity of several ideas (according to the figurative definition of L. Tolstoy - “an endless labyrinth of links”), united by the main idea that permeates the entire structure of the work. For example, the multifaceted ideological meaning of "The Captain's Daughter" by A.S. Pushkin is a conjugation of the ideas of nationality, mercy, historical justice.

Hello author! Analyzing any work of art, a critic/reviewer, and just an attentive reader, starts from four basic literary concepts. The author relies on them when creating his work of art, unless, of course, he is a standard graphomaniac, who simply writes everything that comes to mind. You can write rubbish, template or more or less original without understanding these terms. But here is a text worthy of the reader's attention - it is rather difficult. So let's go over each of them. I'll try not to load.

Translated from Greek, the theme is that which is the basis. In other words, the theme is the subject of the author's image, those phenomena and events to which the author wants to draw the reader's attention.

Examples:

The theme of love, its origin and development, and possibly its end.
The theme of fathers and children.
The theme of the confrontation between good and evil.
The theme of betrayal.
The theme of friendship.
The theme of the formation of character.
Space exploration theme.

Topics change depending on the era in which a person lives, but some topics that worry humanity from era to era remain relevant - they are called " eternal themes". Above I have listed 6 " eternal themes", but the last, seventh -" the theme of the conquest of space "- became relevant for mankind not so long ago. However, apparently, it will also become an "eternal topic."

1. The author sits down for a novel and writes everything that comes to mind, without thinking about any topics of literary works.
2. The author is going to write, say, fantasy novel and pushes away from the genre. He does not care about the topic, he does not think about it at all.
3. The author coldly chooses a topic for his novel, scrupulously studies and thinks it over.
4. The author is concerned about some topic, questions about it do not let him sleep at night, and during the day he mentally returns to this topic every now and then.

The result will be 4 different novels.

1. 95% (the percentages are approximate, they are given for a better understanding and nothing more) - it will be an ordinary graphomaniac, slag, a meaningless chain of events, with logical errors, cranberries, blunders where someone attacked someone, although there was none there is no reason for that, someone fell in love with someone, although the reader does not understand at all what he / she found in her / him, someone quarreled with someone for no reason (In fact, of course, it’s understandable - so the author needed it in order to continue to freely sculpt his writings)))), etc. etc. There are many such novels, but they are rarely printed, because few people can master them even with a small volume. Runet is littered with such novels, I think that you have watched them more than once.

2. This is the so-called "stream literature", it is printed quite often. Read and forget. For once. Will pull with beer. Such novels can captivate if the author has a good imagination, but they do not touch, do not excite. A certain man went there, found something, then became powerful, and so on. A certain young lady fell in love with a handsome man, from the very beginning it was clear that in the fifth or sixth chapter there would be sex, and in the final they would get married. A certain "nerd" became the chosen one and went to distribute whips and gingerbread left and right, to all those who he did not like and liked. And so on. In general, everything ... such. There are plenty of such novels both on the Web and on bookshelves, and, most likely, while reading this paragraph, you remembered a couple of three, or maybe a dozen or more.

3. These are the so-called "crafts" High Quality. The author is a pro and skillfully leads the reader from chapter to chapter, and the ending surprises. However, the author does not write about what he sincerely cares about, but he studies the moods and tastes of readers and writes in such a way that the reader is interested. Such literature is much rarer than the second category. I will not name the authors here, but you are probably familiar with suitable crafts. These are fascinating detective stories and exciting fantasy and beautiful love stories. After reading such a novel, the reader is often satisfied and wants to continue to get acquainted with the novels of his favorite author. They are rarely re-read, because the plot is already familiar and understandable. But if the characters fell in love, then re-reading is quite possible, and reading the author’s new books is more than likely (if he has them, of course).

4. And this category is rare. Novels, after reading which people walk for several minutes, or even hours, as if knocked down, under the impression, often ponder what was written. They can cry. They can laugh. These are novels that stagger the imagination, that help to cope with life's difficulties rethink this or that. Almost all classic literature- just like that. These are the novels that people put on bookshelf in order to re-read and rethink what was read after some time. Novels that have an impact on people. Novels that are remembered. This is Literature with a capital letter.

Naturally, I'm not saying that choosing and working on a theme is enough to write a strong novel. Moreover, I will say frankly - not enough. But in any case, I think it is clear how important the topic is in literary work.

The idea of ​​a literary work is inextricably linked with its theme, and that example of the influence of a novel on the reader that I described above in paragraph 4 is unrealistic if the author paid attention only to the topic, but forgot to even think about the idea. However, if the author is concerned about the topic, then the idea, as a rule, is comprehended and worked out by him with the same attention.

What is the idea of ​​a literary work?

The idea is the main idea of ​​the work. It shows the attitude of the author to the theme of his work. It is in this display artistic means and lies the difference between the idea of ​​a work of art and a scientific idea.

"Gustave Flaubert vividly expressed his ideal of the writer, noting that, like the Almighty, the writer in his book should be nowhere and everywhere, invisible and omnipresent. There are several important works fiction in which the presence of the author is unobtrusive to the extent that Flaubert wanted it, although he himself did not manage to achieve his ideal in Madame Bovary. But even in works where the author is ideally unobtrusive, he is nevertheless scattered throughout the book and his absence turns into a kind of radiant presence. As the French say, "il brille par son absence" ("shines with its absence")" © Vladimir Nabokov, "Lectures on Foreign Literature".

If the author accepts the reality described in the work, then such an ideological assessment is called an ideological statement.
If the author condemns the reality described in the work, then such an ideological assessment is called an ideological denial.

The ratio of ideological affirmation and ideological negation in each work is different.

It is important not to go to extremes here, and this is very, very difficult. The author who forgets about the idea at the moment, the emphasis on artistry will lose the idea, and the author who forgets about artistry, because he is completely absorbed in the idea, will write journalism. This is neither good nor bad for the reader, because it is a matter of the reader's taste - to choose how to relate to this, however, fiction is precisely what fiction is and precisely what literature is.

Examples:

Two different authors describe the NEP period in their novels. However, after reading the novel by the first author, the reader is filled with indignation, condemns the events described and concludes that this period was terrible. And after reading the novel by the second author, the reader would be delighted, and would draw conclusions that the NEP is a wonderful period in history and will regret that he does not live in this period. course in this example I exaggerate, because the clumsy expression of an idea is a sign of a weak novel, poster, popular print - which can cause rejection in the reader, who considers that the author is imposing his opinion on him. But I exaggerate in this example for a better understanding.

Two different authors wrote stories about adultery. The first author condemns adultery, the second understands the causes of their occurrence, and main character that being married fell in love with another man - justifies. And the reader is imbued with either the ideological negation of the author, or his ideological affirmation.

Without an idea, literature is waste paper. Because the description of events and phenomena for the sake of describing events and phenomena is not only boring reading, but also tritely stupid. "Well, what did the author mean by that?" - the dissatisfied reader will ask and shrugging his shoulders, he will throw the book into a landfill. Junk, because.

There are two main ways to present an idea in a work.

The first - by artistic means, very unobtrusively, in the form of an aftertaste.
The second - through the mouth of the character-resonator or direct author's text. Head-on. In this case, the idea is called a trend.

It is up to you to choose how to present an idea, but a thoughtful reader will surely understand whether the author gravitates toward tendentiousness or artistry.

Plot.

The plot is a set of events and relationships between characters in a work, unfolding in time and space. At the same time, the events and relationships of the characters are not necessarily presented to the reader in a causal or temporal sequence. A simple example for better understanding is a flashback.

Attention: the plot is based on the conflict, and the conflict unfolds due to the plot.

No conflict, no plot.

This is very important to understand. Many "stories" and even "novels" on the Web do not have a plot, as such.

If the character went to the bakery and bought bread there, then came home and ate it with milk, and then watched TV - this is a plotless text. Prose is not poetry, and without a plot, it is usually not accepted by the reader.

And why is such a "story" not a story at all?

1. Exposure.
2. Tie.
3. Development of action.
4. Climax.
5. Decoupling.

The author does not have to use all the elements of the plot, in contemporary literature authors often do without exposition, for example, but the main rule of fiction is that the plot must be completed.

More about plot elements and conflict in another topic.

Do not confuse plot with plot. These are different terms with different meanings.
The plot is the content of events in their sequential connection. Causal and temporal.
For a better understanding, I explain: the author conceived the story, in his head the events are arranged in order, first this event happened, then that, this follows from here, and this from here. This is the plot.
And the plot is how the author presented this story to the reader - he kept silent about something, rearranged the events somewhere, and so on. etc.
Of course, it happens that the plot and the plot coincide when the events in the novel line up strictly according to the plot, but the plot and the plot are not the same thing.

Composition.

Oh, this composition! The weak point of many novelists, and often writers of short stories.

Composition is the construction of all elements of a work in accordance with its purpose, character and content, and largely determines its perception.

Difficult, right?

I'll say it easier.

Composition is the structure of a work of art. The structure of your story or novel.
It's such big house, consisting of various parts. (for men)
This is such a soup in which there are just no products! (for women)

Each brick, each soup component is an element of the composition, an expressive means.

The character's monologue, description of the landscape, lyrical digressions and inserted novels, repetitions and point of view on the depicted, epigraphs, parts, chapters and much more.

The composition is divided into external and internal.

The external composition (architectonics) is the volumes of the trilogy (for example), parts of the novel, its chapters, paragraphs.

The internal composition is portraits of characters, descriptions of nature and interiors, point of view or change of points of view, accents, flashbacks and much more, as well as extra-plot components - a prologue, inserted short stories, author's digressions and an epilogue.

Each author strives to find his own composition, to get closer to his ideal composition for a particular work, however, as a rule, in compositional plan most of the texts are rather weak.
Why so?
Well, firstly, there are a lot of components, many of which are simply unknown to many authors.
Secondly, it is banal because of literary illiteracy - thoughtlessly placed accents, overdoing it with descriptions to the detriment of dynamics or dialogues, or vice versa - continuous jumping-running-jumping of some cardboard Persians without portraits or continuous dialogue without attribution or with it.
Thirdly, because of the inability to capture the volume of the work and isolate the essence. In a number of novels, without prejudice (and often for the benefit) of the plot, whole chapters can be thrown out. Or, in some chapter, a good third is given information that does not play on the plot and characters of the characters - for example, the author is fond of describing the car up to the description of the pedals and detailed story about the gearbox. The reader is bored, he scrolls through such descriptions ("Listen, if I need to get acquainted with the device of this car model, I will read the technical literature!"), And the author believes that "This is very important for understanding the principles of driving the car of Peter Nikanorych!" and thereby makes a generally good text dull. By analogy with soup - it is worth overdoing it with salt, for example, and the soup will become too salty. This is one of the most common reasons why executives are encouraged to first practice on small form before taking on novels. However, practice shows that quite a few nachpisov seriously believes that to start literary activity follows with big shape, because that's exactly what publishers need. I assure you, if you think that all you need to write a readable novel is the desire to write it, you are greatly mistaken. You have to learn how to write novels. And learning is easier and with greater efficiency - on miniatures and stories. Despite the fact that the story is a different genre - internal composition you can perfectly learn by working in this genre.

Composition is a way to embody the author's idea, and a compositionally weak work is the author's inability to convey the idea to the reader. In other words, if the composition is weak, the reader simply will not understand what the author wanted to say with his novel.

Thank you for attention.

© Dmitry Vishnevsky

Video lesson 2: Composition, stages of action development

Topic. Idea. Issues. Plot. Composition. Epigraph. Antithesis

Topic- a set of events that form the basis of a literary work.

In other words, the theme is everything that the author tells his reader about.

Ideaof a work of art is the main idea, the emotional component, the semantic content of the work.

To understand the idea, you need to carefully analyze the text. The idea contains the individual view of the writer on the world, his purely personal understanding of ongoing processes and phenomena.

• National Historical
• philosophical
• Socio-political
• Moral and ethical

When they are interested in any work, they are primarily interested in the plot. This is the set of events that make up the work.

Plot represents the content of a literary opus, reveals the characters' characters, demonstrates the author's attitude to the phenomena and life situations described by him.

In addition to the events taking place in the lives of the characters, the plot may contain lyrical digressions that reveal the events of the author's inner life.

Composition- the method of constructing a literary work.

The organization of the composition can be plot or non-plot. Compositional construction necessary for the author for the most complete embodiment of his plan.

Components of the composition:

plot composition

grouping of characters

arrangement of other actors

speech features

composition of elements not included in the plot

Epigraph.Often, before the work, the author places some short saying, one or two lines, a quatrain.

The purpose of this technique is to help the reader better understand the author's intention. The epigraph is the key to understanding the intention of the author of the work.

Antithesis – stylistic device in literature, when images and concepts are opposed to each other in a diametrically opposite sense.

Stages of action development

Exposure.The exposition “opens” the plot of the work. In this part, the reader is given an introduction to events that will soon develop.

The author tells the reader about what happened before the start of the work. Basically, in this part, the main characters are characterized. Exposure can be direct or delayed. If the work begins with an exposition, this is a direct view, if the author determines the place of exposition in the middle or closer to the end, then there is a delayed exposition part. The most popular example of such an arrangement is the description of Chichikov's life.

tie- an event that determines the start of an action.

The plot either organizes the conflict itself, or reveals conflict situation at the start of the work.

climax- the highest, most intense point in the development of action, when the conflict reaches the top of its development.

After the climax, the action gradually moves to the denouement.

denouement- the outcome of the action, a certain semantic point of the work.

The conflict took place, the plot goes into the final stage.

Epiloguecompletes the work. As a rule, in this part the author talks about future fate their heroes later certain time after the events described in the work.

Lyrical digression – special reception composition, through which the author has the opportunity to express his Subjective opinion regarding the heroes of the work, any actions or phenomena, comment on the development of the plot.

AT digression may contain abstract author's reflections that are not directly related to the plot, but thematically retain unity with common theme works (" Dead Souls", "Eugene Onegin").

Conflict(lat. "collision") - confrontation, contradictions that determine the development of the plot of any literary work.

Between whom and whom does the conflict arise? All literature is built on several types of conflict:

• between actors
• between the main character and other characters
• between the hero and society
• hero's conflict with himself

The form of conflict expression is external or internal.

The most obvious conflict dramatic works, epic.

The story is often told in the first person. In this case, the writer himself, called the author - the narrator, acts as a narrator. He personally observed the events that he describes in his work. The author-narrator does not become part of the characters, he only observes what is happening, evaluates the events and their participants. So, Maxim Maksimovich is well acquainted with Pechorin, he can tell a lot about him.

Sometimes the author - the narrator, by the will of the author, turns into the Narrator (writing with capital letter emphasizes its equal position in the text). The narrator is endowed with character, supplied with certain manners, his own character.

The first image of the author in domestic literature created in "Eugene Onegin", it is included in general circle characters on equal terms, participates in the action, explains what is happening, gives assessments, comments on events. The reader observes him as the author - the narrator, the author - the character, the author - the lyrical hero.

Character . No literary work can exist without characters through which the plot develops. The character can be the main character or the minor character. In addition to active personal participation in the action, the character can be introduced to the reader by another actor or author. The center of attention in some works can be one character (Rudin, Pechorin), in others - several at once ("Quiet Don").

Interiorin a work of fiction depicts an interior setting (saying modern language- draws the design of the room).

The authors often use the description of the home environment to characterize the character, enhancing the emotional perception of the text. For example, the home environment in "War and Peace" characterizes inner world the inhabitants of the house.

Literary character. Any work consists of several components, including characters, human images. The literary character carries in itself something unified, individual and unique, relating only to a specific image of the work. Character is one of the main constituent parts works in general.

Type of- the hero of a literary work, a certain collective image, which absorbed the phenomenon of time, historical moment, public event, etc.

An example literary hero, by which one can judge people who have not found common language with society, rejected, misunderstood, Pechorin or Onegin can serve.

Hero lyrical – lyrical image a poet whose inner world is revealed through a state of mind or experience in a particular situation.

To be more precise, this is one of the possible manifestations of the author's consciousness. Lyrical hero may have its own biography, sometimes outlined in in general terms appearance.

Represents a complex artistic images a work that incorporates not only the images of characters, but also accompanying images - details, symbols, etc.

Portraitcontains a description of the appearance of the character, how he looks, so that the reader can more clearly imagine the character of the work, reproduce it in his imagination.

The portrait gives a description not only of facial features, but also how and what the character is dressed in, notes the manner of conversation, facial features, and characteristic gestures. In addition, the literature often uses psychological picture- when the author wants to show the inner world of his hero through appearance.

Landscape, depicting nature in a literary work, can serve as a special device for describing the state of a character at a certain moment, an original means of characterizing him.

"Talking Surname" . Very often, for better "recognizability" of the character, the authors resort to such a special technique as giving acting person"talking" surname. The surname at the same time reflects any trait of his character, behavior. The method was especially often used by Russian classic writers (Skotinin, Lyapkin-Tyapkin, Vralman, etc.).

remark most often accompanies dramatic works. With the help of a remark, the author, as it were, "accompanies" the action - he explains what is happening, clarifies, explains. The remark is intended for the actors involved in the play, it facilitates the work of the director when staging the action on stage.

"Eternal Themes" and "Eternal Images" in Literature. When it comes to the “eternal” in literature, the conversation concerns “eternal topics” and “ eternal images". Eternal implies something that has enduring significance for all mankind throughout the entire period of existence of the universe.