General principles for delimiting literary genres. General concept of literary gender

Literary genera

When we talk about literary gender and genre, we are talking about the type of literary work. Literary genre and genre - a certain type of literary work. The fact is that a literary work does not exist by itself. It exists only as a representative of a certain genus and genre. It is impossible to create a literary work that would be absolutely unlike any other literary work. The historical life of works also live only as representatives of a certain kind and genre.

A literary work is a combination of unique properties that determine its individuality. On the other hand, in any literary work there are some typical properties that, on the contrary, bring this work closer to some other works, i.e. have typical properties. We distinguish types of literary works. The degree of correlation between individual and typical depends on the stage of development of literature, literary direction.

Definition of literary gender according to Tamarchenko:

A literary gender is a concept that is introduced on the one hand to designate a group of genres that have similar structural features. On the other hand, to differentiate (distinguish) the basic possibilities of verbal creativity.

Ode, elegy, sonnet, message - lyrics. On the basis of common (structural) features, the lyrics will differ from other genres. Lyrics, epic and drama have the main possibilities of verbal and artistic creativity.

Generic properties of a literary work are the most general, universal, supra-historical properties. Genres are, on the contrary, a historically developed variety of a literary work.

Criteria for delimiting literary genres

Aristotle sees art as an imitation of beautiful nature. From the point of view of Aristotle, there are three ways of imitation: telling about an event as something separate from itself (for example, Homer's epic); remaining himself, without changing his face (lyrics); you can imitate, showing all the depicting persons as actors and figures (drama).

Aristotle puts the type of relationship between the subject of the utterance and the subject of speech at the basis of the distinction between literary genders.

In the 19th century, literary genres began to be thought of as types of artistic content. According to Hegel, everything objective in drama is the manifestation of the subjective will of the individual.

Hegel considered drama as the highest kind of literature. At the beginning of the 20th century, linguistic and psychological interpretations of literary genres appeared.

The linguistic interpretation correlates literary genres with the phenomena of language, with the categories of person and time. Lyric is first person, drama is second person, epic is third person. Lyric is the present tense, epic is the past tense, drama is the future tense.

Psychological interpretation correlates literary genres with the category of the psyche. The epic is a memory, the lyric is a performance, the drama is a will.

Vadim Valeryanovich Kozhinov in the article "Problems of literary types and genres" (collection "Theory of Literature. Main Issues in Historical Coverage. Volume 3") says that, on the one hand, all of the above concepts have given a lot of productive results in the study of literary types, on the other hand , they cannot be considered fully productive, because in these concepts, when describing the types of literature, the features associated with the structure of the literary work itself are not taken into account.

Without taking into account aspects of the literary work itself, Kozhinov lists the signs associated with the structure of the literary work itself: a different amount of verbal text (conciseness in lyrics, limited size in drama, spaciousness, length in epic), the nature of time and the pace of development (instantaneity, accuracy in lyrics , perfection, slowness in the epic, striving for the future in the drama), the method of joining (free joining in the epic, a rigid causal relationship between episodes - drama, the unity of the lyrical plot - lyrics), the specificity of compositional speech forms (lyrics - monologue, drama - dialogue, epic - mixing). Kozhinov writes that the generic properties of a literary work are the most general, universal, which exist both on the surface of the text and in its depth.

In modern literary criticism, all previous criteria (conditions) are taken into account

The modern approach is usually described according to three criteria:

1) Compositional-speech organization

Each literary genre has its own subject matter. One subject of speech is lyrics, the primary and secondary subject of speech is epic, the alternation of replicas plus author's remarks is drama. This is the most superficial criterion

2) The nature of the development of action in a literary work. Type, situation, events, composition that underlie the development of actions. P.S. may be decisive.

3) Subject-semantic sphere. The literary genre has its own subject matter. Modern literary criticism considers literary genres as architectonic forms, i.e. as a form of organization of life values.

According to the traditional point of view, we have three literary genres: lyric, epic and drama. However, there were other points of view regarding the number of literary genera. In the 20th century there was an attempt to justify the novel as a fourth literary genre. V. Dneprov published an article "The novel as a new kind of poetry." There were attempts by other literary scholars to substantiate satire as the fourth literary kind, but these points of view were not entrenched in literary criticism. In addition to works that clearly belong to one or another literary genre, there are works that combine the features of different literary genres. These are intergeneric forms. The ballad is just an intergeneric form (lyroepic).

In addition to intergeneric forms, there are also non-generic forms (works that only slightly possess generic features, or even lack them altogether) (epigram, essay).

Lyrics as a kind of literature

1. The subject of lyrics as a literary genre

2. The specifics of the lyrical event and the lyrical plot.

3. Semantic structure of a lyrical work

In his lectures on aesthetics, Hegel defines the subject of lyricism as follows: the subject of lyricism is the expression of the content and activity of the innermost life. All words in this formulation are significant for Hegel. Moreover, the word “expression” is especially significant. Gennady Nikolaevich Pospelov in the textbook "Introduction to Literary Studies" says that the subject of lyrics is the inner life itself. Despite the fact that Pospelov refers to Hegel, the word "expression" is omitted in Pospelov's formulation, and Pospelov's approach cannot be considered adequately productive, because Pospelov's approach does not allow drawing boundaries between lyrics and other literary genres. To prove this is very simple: if we consider such a genre as a psychological novel. The subject of the psychological novel is the inner life. But this will not mean at all that we will classify the psychological novel as a lyric. And therefore, Pospelov's approach does not always work.

In order for the expression of the inner life (according to Hegel) not to be accidental, the inner life of the subject itself must be poetic. This means that the feelings and experiences of the subject, in addition to their uniqueness (singularity), must have some kind of universal, universal significance. In lyrics, the universality of the subject's experiences is achieved not by the subject of the image (according to Hegel, the content and the subject can be random), but is born by the form of a poetic work, the form of a lyrical statement. In the lyrics, the question "HOW?" is important. Lyrics presupposes a special status of the poetic word in a lyrical work. From the point of view of Tamarchenko, a lyrical event is always an event of utterance or an event of the birth of a poetic word. The search for a word, a name to express one's own inner life is an integral part of a lyrical event, and sometimes all of its content. It is no coincidence that one of Mandelstam's poems begins with the line "I forgot the word that I wanted to say."

"This morning, this joy..." The last line "It's all spring" sums it up. Fet's example proves that a lyrical event is an utterance event or an event of the birth of a poetic word. The subject of lyrical experience absorbs the external world, experiences it in his inner element (within himself) and, after the external world has become something internal for him, expresses it, finding the appropriate word for this.

Lyrics implies a minimum distance between the author and the hero, the author and the reader, the hero and the reader. “These are my words, I feel the same” - this is a typical reader's reaction to a lyrical work. Such a reader's reaction is explained by the special status of the lyrical character. The lyrical character is characterized by extreme validity (the subject of appearance, social status, age characteristics. One of the properties of the lyrical character is his anonymity (anonymity). Just because of the generalization of the lyrical character, it is easy for the reader to identify himself with him. At the same time, the logical connections between the words in the lyrics can However, despite the absence of logical connections, the lyrics still have a great inspiring force that infects the reader.The ability of lyrics to have a great inspiring force that infects the reader is called suggestiveness.

3. Semantic structure of a lyrical work. (according to the concept of Tamara Isaakovna Silman). This concept is outlined in the book On Lyrics. It proceeds from the fact that artistic time is organized in a special way in the lyrics. In lyrics, a moment can be experienced as eternity, and eternity as an instant. Based on this, Silman distinguishes two parts in a lyrical work: empirical and generalizing. How to differentiate them? In the empirical part, a variety of the objective world appears, time plans clearly separated from each other, specific facts of the biography of the subject of experience appear. In the generalizing part, universal time appears (when the past, present and future are drawn together into one point). It is both moment and eternity at the same time. The generalizing part captures the moment when the subject of experience comprehends the timeless essence of what is happening, the timeless meaning of what is happening.

Nr. Monastic Giuseppe Ungaretti

“And I love you, love you; and it is endless suffering. Here there is a concrete fact of the biography of the lyrical hero. And this fact is assigned to the present.

"When the yellowing field is agitated ...". The first stanza is about autumn, the second about spring, and the third about winter. And the fourth is a generalizing part, because there is universal time. Universal tense is usually grammatically expressed using the present tense, but not always. Universal tense does not depend on the verb form.

Tarkovsky's poem "Ballet" consists of 6 stanzas. In the first five there is a description of the ballet performance (empirical part). The fifth stanza ends with the question "So what is art?". The sixth stanza is a kind of answer to the question. The verbs in it are in the future tense, but the time there is universal, because this is the answer to the question of what art is considered in GENERAL. The generalizing part very often stands at the end of the lyrical work, but not always (it can stand at the beginning, in the middle, it can be broken by the empirical part). The empirical part in a lyrical work may be absent altogether, the generalizing part is present in any lyrical work, because universal time is one of the main properties of lyrics.

Pasternak has a poem "Definition of Poetry".

It is customary to unite works of artistic literature into three large groups, called literary genera - epic, drama and lyrics.

Epos and drama have a number of common properties that distinguish them from lyrics. Epic and dramatic works recreate events taking place in space and time! It depicts individuals (characters), and? with relationships, intentions and actions, experiences and statements. And although the reproduction of life in epic and drama invariably expresses the author's understanding and assessment of the characters' characters, it often seems to readers that the events depicted occurred independently of the author's will. In other words, epic works, and especially dramatic ones, can create the illusion of their complete objectivity.

Drama, and especially epic, have unlimited ideological and cognitive possibilities. Freely mastering life in its spatial and temporal extent, the authors of epic and dramatic works can draw vivid, detailed diverse pictures of life "in its variability, conflict, diversity" and at the same time penetrate into the depths of people's consciousness, recreate their inner life. At the same time, both literary types are capable of capturing a variety of characters and their relationship with life circumstances.Drama and epic, in other words, "act" in an infinitely wide content sphere: any topics, problems and types of pathos are accessible to them.

Epic and dramatic works, however, differ sharply from each other. The organizing formal beginning of the epic is a narrative about the events in the life of the characters and their actions. Hence the name of this kind of literature (gr. epos - word, speech). Means of subject representation here are used most freely and widely.

In the drama (gr. drao - I act), the narration in any developed form is absent. The text of the work consists primarily of the statements of the characters themselves, through which they act in the depicted situation. The author's explanations to the words of the heroes are reduced to the so-called remarks (fr. remarquer - to notice), which have only an auxiliary meaning. The specificity of drama as a literary genre is determined by its purpose for stage production.

The word "lyric" is derived from the ancient Greek name of the musical instrument lyre, to the accompaniment of which verbal works were performed (sung). Lyric differs from epic and drama primarily by the subject of the image. There is no detailed and detailed reproduction of events, actions, relationships between people in it. Lyrics artistically masters mainly the inner world of a person as such: his thoughts, feelings, impressions. It maximally embodies the subjective beginning of human life. However, the feeling of complete, "absolute" subjectivity of the lyrics, which sometimes arises when reading it, is illusory: lyrical creativity contains deep cognitive generalizations.

Speech in lyrics appears primarily in its expressive (expressive) function, it directly and actively embodies the emotional attitude to the life of the speaker (speech speaker) - the so-called lyrical hero. Therefore, the speech structure of a lyrical work is its most important formal beginning: the nuances of word usage and construction of phrases, as well as the rhythmic ordering of the text, are especially significant here.

The concept of literary gender arose in ancient aesthetics, in the writings of Plato and Aristotle. The third chapter of the Aristotelian “Poetics” speaks of the existence in poetry (i.e., the art of the word) of three “modes of imitation”: from himself, as Homer does, or in such a way that the imitator remains himself, without changing his face, or representing all the depicted persons as active and active " (20, 45). The “methods of imitation” designated by Aristotle subsequently began to be called literary genera. This concept characterizes

Epos, lyrics and drama were formed at the earliest stages of the existence of society, in primitive syncretic creativity. Al-r N. Veselovsky devoted the first of three chapters of his "Historical Poetics" to the origin of literary genera (36, 200-313); in it, he argued that literary genera arose from the ritual choir of primitive peoples.

The ritual choir that accompanied the dance and mimic actions included, according to Veselovsky, exclamations of joy and sadness, which expressed collective emotionality. Lyricism arose from such exclamations, which subsequently separated from the rite and acquired artistic independence. Lyric-epic songs (cantilenas) were formed from the performances of the singers (luminaries) of the ritual choir. From these songs, which later also separated from the rite, heroic poems (epics) arose. And, finally, a drama arose from the exchange of remarks of the participants in the ritual choir.

The theory of the origin of literary genera, put forward by Veselovsky, is confirmed by many facts known to modern science from the life of primitive peoples. Thus, the emergence of theatrical performances (and, on their basis, drama) from ritual games is undoubted.

At the same time, Veselovsky's theory does not take into account that epic and lyric poetry could be formed independently of ritual actions. Mythological tales, which subsequently formed prose legends (sagas) and fairy tales, appeared outside the ritual choir. They were not sung, but representatives of the tribe told each other. Lyricism could also arise outside the rite. Lyrical self-expression took place in the production (labor) and domestic relations of primitive peoples. Thus, there were different ways of forming literary families, and the ritual choir was one of them.

Under the influence of the literary process, ideas about childbirth changed in one way or another. They were brought into the system by representatives of German aesthetics of the late 18th - early 19th centuries: in the works of Schiller and Goethe, later - Schelling and Hegel. In line with the ideas of these authors (primarily Hegel), Belinsky developed his theory of literary genera in the article "The Division of Poetry into Genus and Types" (1841). He saw in epic, drama, lyrics

certain types of content and delimited the genera using the categories of "object" and "subject" of artistic knowledge. Epic works were associated with the idea of ​​the object. “Epic poetry,” wrote Belinsky, “is primarily objective, external poetry, both in relation to itself and to the poet and his reader” (25, 9). And further: “The poet is not visible here; the world, plastically determined, develops by itself, and the poet is only, as it were, a simple narrator of what happened by itself” (25 10). Lyricism, on the contrary, was understood as the sphere of the subjectivity of the poet. “Lyric poetry,” we read in Belinsky, “is predominantly poetry subjective internal, the expression of the poet himself" (25, 10). And, finally, the drama was seen as a "synthesis" of objectivity and subjectivity. A work of this literary kind, according to Belinsky, "is a reconciliation of opposite elements - epic objectivity and lyrical subjectivity" (25, 16).

This concept of literary genera summarizes centuries of artistic experience. Many of the thoughts expressed by Belinsky were inherited by Soviet literary criticism, for which the emphasis on the meaningful functions of generic forms is especially important.

At the same time, there is a certain one-sidedness in the mentioned article: not only drama, but also any work of art combines objectivity (that is, reflects reality) and subjectivity (since it expresses the writer's understanding of life). Belinsky himself repeatedly spoke about this in later works. In particular, he emphasized the importance of the subjective principle in epic works, primarily in novels and short stories.

Along with the division of literature into genera (epos, lyrics, drama), there is a division into poetry and prose. In everyday speech, lyrical works are often identified with poetry, and epic works with prose. This usage is inaccurate. Each of the literary genera includes both poetic (poetic) and prose (non-poetic) works. The epic in the early stages of art was most often poetic (epics of antiquity, French songs about exploits, Russian epics and historical songs, etc.). Epic works written in verse are not uncommon in modern literature (“Don Juan” by Byron, “Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin, “Who Lives in Russia

good" Nekrasov). In the dramatic kind of literature, both poetry and prose are also used, sometimes combined in the same work (many of Shakespeare's plays, Pushkin's Boris Godunov). Yes, and the lyrics, mostly poetic, sometimes prose.

Other, more serious terminological problems also arise in the theory of literary genders. The words “epic” (“epic”), “dramatic” (“dramaticism”), “lyrical” (“lyricism”) denote not only the generic features of the work in question, but also their other properties.

Epic is called majestically calm, unhurried contemplation of life in its complexity and diversity, the breadth of the view of the world and its acceptance as a kind of integrity. In this regard, they often talk about the "epic worldview", artistically embodied in Homer's poems and a number of later works ("War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy). Epicness as an ideological and emotional mood can take place in all literary genres - not only in epic (narrative) works, but also in drama (“Boris Godunov” by Pushkin) and lyrics (“On the Kulikovo Field” by Blok). It is customary to call dramatism a state of mind associated with a tense experience of some contradictions, with excitement and anxiety. And, finally, lyricism is a sublime emotionality expressed in the speech of the author, narrator, characters. Drama and lyricism can also be characteristic of all literary genres. Thus, L. Tolstoy's novel "Anna Karenina" and Tsvetaeva's poem "Longing for the Motherland" are full of drama. Turgenev's novel "The Nest of Nobles", Chekhov's plays "Three Sisters" and "The Cherry Orchard", stories and novels by Paustovsky are imbued with lyricism.

Therefore, it is important to distinguish, on the one hand, epic, drama, lyricism as literary genres, and on the other hand, epic, dramatic, lyricism as the emotional mood of works.

Section two

A LITERARY WORK AS A ARTISTIC WHOLE

that is called an idea. But this term will be explained
later, but for now we note that the content of the artistic
works contains different sides, for defining
divisions of which there are three terms - subject matter,
problematic, ideological o-e emotional

grade. Naturally, it is necessary to begin the analysis with what characteristic phenomena of reality are reflected in this work. This is a subject specific question.

Namely, in all the arts, according to Aristotle, there is a great difference between the object of imitation, the means of imitation and the way of imitation. Aristotle writes that imitative arts "differ from each other in three ways: in that they reproduce by different means, or by different objects, or by different, not in the same way." Aristotle speaks about the same division of artistic imitation according to the means, method and subject of imitation, but the division of types of creativity according to imitation is given by Aristotle not without confusion. Thus, in another place, he divides imitation into imitation of facts present or past, into imitation in the subjective representation, and into imitation of what should be. The artist "always has to reproduce objects in one of three ways: as they were or are; or as they are imagined and as they seem; or as they should be." This confusion is further increased by the fact that poetry, according to Aristotle, does not at all imitate any real facts, but only depicts their possibility.

Types of literature- these are large associations of verbal and artistic works according to the type of relationship of the speaker ("carrier of speech") to the artistic whole. There are three types: drama, epic, lyrics.

This division is traced back to Aristotle's Poetics:

you can imitate in the same and the same thing by telling about the event as something separate from yourself, as Homer does, or in such a way that the imitator remains himself without changing his face, or by representing all imaginary persons, both acting and active

However, Gerard Genette, in his Introduction to the Architext, calls this popular belief a “retrospective illusion” and shows that it is in fact an 18th-century aesthetic concept (above all, of Abbé Batteux), unreasonably appealing to the authority of Aristotle:

The relatively recent theory of the “three main literary genera,” having appropriated such distant ancestors, not only ascribes to itself an ancient origin, and therefore is endowed with the appearance or presumption of eternity and thereby self-evidence, but also pulls under its three literary genera that natural foundation, which was developed by Aristotle, and before him by Plato, for completely different things and, probably, with great right.

Since ancient times (Aristotle's "Poetics"), it has been customary to divide literature into three types:

1. epic- covering being in all its diversity: spatio-temporal extent and eventfulness (a distinctive feature is plot).

2. Lyrics- capturing the inner world of the individual in the formation and change of impressions, dreams, moods, associations (emotionality, expressiveness, lack of a pronounced plot).

3. Drama- fixing the speech acts of characters, originally intended for stage production; possessing, on the one hand, expressiveness, on the other hand, plot, which allows us to see in this kind of literature the fusion of the features of the epic lyric poetry.

Each of these types of literature is characterized by its own specific genres (that is, established forms of works).

epic genres

The epic is characterized by the following genres: epic, epic poem, story, short story, short story, novel, some types of essay. A specific feature of the epic is the organizing role of the narrative: the speaker reports the events and their details as something past and remembered, along the way resorting to descriptions of the situation, actions and appearance of the characters, and sometimes to reasoning. The main difference between the listed genres is in the volume of the work, as well as in the scale of the displayed events and philosophical generalizations.

epic- a work of national problems, monumental in form (for example, “War and Peace” by JI. N. Tolstoy, “Quiet Flows the Don” by M. A. Sholokhov).

Epic poem- a poetic, in some cases prose work with a plot; as a rule, a work glorifying the glorious past of the people, its spiritual formation or aspirations, etc. (for example, "Poltava" by A. S. Pushkin, "Dead Souls" by N. V. Gogol).

Novel- a work in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual in the process of its formation and development. According to Belinsky's definition, a novel is an "epos of private life" (for example, "Oblomov" by A. I. Goncharov, "Fathers and Sons" by I. S. Turgenev).

Tale- "middle" genre of epic literature. In terms of volume, as a rule, it is less than a novel, but more than a short story, short story. If in the novel the center of gravity lies in the holistic action, in the actual and psychological movement of the plot, then in the story the main burden is often transferred to the static components of the work - positions, mental states, landscapes, descriptions, etc. (for example, "Steppe" A P. Chekhov, "Notes from the House of the Dead" by F. M. Dostoevsky). It is often quite difficult to distinguish between a novel and a story; in Western literary criticism, the “story” genre is not distinguished at all (there the division occurs into two main categories: “novel” - “novel”, and “short story” - “story”).

Novella- a small prose genre, comparable in volume to a story (which sometimes gives rise to their identification - there is a point of view on the short story as a kind of story), but differs from it in a sharp centripetal plot (often paradoxical), lack of descriptiveness and compositional rigor. Poetizing the case, the short story reveals the core of the plot to the utmost, reduces life material into the focus of one event (for example, the early stories of A.P. Chekhov, N.V. Gogol, the cycle "Dark Alleys" by I.A. Bunin).

Story- a small epic genre form of fiction - a prose work, small in terms of the volume of the depicted phenomena of life, and hence in terms of the volume of the text (for example, stories by V. M. Garshin, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Kuprin, etc. .).

The system of genders and genres in ancient literature

Perhaps the greatest achievement of the theoretical and literary thought of Antiquity was the generic and genre classification of literary works. It took shape in the course of the centuries-old creative practice of the masters of the word and was first systematically comprehended in the work of Aristotle "Poetics" ("On the Art of Poetry"), which for almost two and a half thousand years of its existence has been almost constantly in the field of view of philologists to this day. has not lost its meaning. It was Aristotle who singled out the three largest groups of literary works, which we now call literary genera. Aristotle defined the differences between them, based on the concept of art created by him (following Plato) as an imitation of nature, or mimesis. In each kind of literature, according to the scientist, imitation of nature is achieved in different ways: “... it is possible to imitate the same thing in one and the same thing by telling about an event as something separate from oneself (1), as Homer does, or so that the imitator remains himself, without changing his face (2), or representing all the depicted persons as active and active (3) ”24. There is no doubt that (1) is typical for epic, (2) for lyrics, and (3) for drama.

Subsequently, literary scholars put forward other ideas about the fundamental differences between literary genres 25 . At the same time, all of them in one way or another have something in common with the concept of Aristotle, and all of them are fair in their own way. Without rejecting them, we can offer one more consideration in this regard.

An artist can “imitate nature”, that is, reflect the surrounding world in works of art, only guided by certain ideas about this world and the place of man in it, or, in other words, a certain concept of the world and man. Each type of literature has its own.

The epic perceives the world as an infinite multifaceted objective being, where various events are constantly taking place, while a person acts as a part of this world whole and an active figure who, participating in events, realizes himself. The eventful world is external in relation to man; something happens in it objectively, that is, regardless of human will, and something is the result of human activity. Identification of the causes and consequences of events, their interconnection, the role of specific people and even entire nations in the movement of life, the diverse relationships of people with the world and among themselves (which are also realized in various events) - this is the main object of interest in the works of epic literature and the subject of narration in them.

In the history of verbal art, the epic appears, as a rule, first, ahead of lyrics and drama. This is understandable: after all, the first conscious interest of people was precisely the interest in the outside world, nature, everything that happens around. In ancient Greece, the development of epic poetry begins in the 8th century. BC, in Rome - in the III century. BC.

In lyrics, a person acts as a subject of experiences and spiritual activity. Accordingly, the outside world for her is not an objective reality (as for an epic), but subjective impressions, associations, experience, emotions of a particular person that have arisen under the influence of external circumstances. In the narrative, this world of internal states and spiritual movements of a person, unlike the epic event world, cannot be fully disclosed (it is not for nothing that they say that you cannot tell about feelings).

Therefore, the lyrics do not tell anything, but reproduce human thoughts, feelings and moods, in which the outside world is reflected subjectively, individually. The personality of a person engaged in a variety of spiritual activities, the lyrics embody in the image of a lyrical hero. Usually it is denoted by the pronoun of the first person, but it is wrong to think that this “I” belongs only to the author of the work. In the spiritual life of the lyrical hero, the author's own, individual experiences and experience are typified, acquire a universal meaning.

As a result, the “I” - the hero of the lyrical work acts as a completely independent person, spiritually close not only to the author, but also to the reader.

In ancient Greece, the formation of lyrics takes place in the 7th century. BC, that is, when the human individuality begins to realize itself not as an integral part of the collective, but as an intrinsically valuable and self-sufficient unit. Greek lyrics, especially at the beginning of its historical path, were very closely connected with music, sung (melic) or read in a singsong voice with musical accompaniment (declamatory). This explains the origin of the term "lyric" (a lyre in Ancient Greece is a stringed musical instrument used for accompaniment).

In Rome, the lyric in the full sense of the word takes shape in the 1st century. BC. She was much less connected with music and singing. The Romans more often intended their lyrical poems for reading. In the dramatic kind of literature (from the Greek. drama - action), the world is presented as a struggle of opposite principles, the development of conflicts, and a person - as a participant in this struggle; it requires the maximum exertion of all forces for making vital decisions, for self-affirmation, and achieving the goal. Dramaturgy arises later than the epic and lyrics, when the consciousness of the individual reaches true maturity and a person realizes himself as an indispensable participant in the eternal struggle between Good and Evil on a global scale, and shows significant social activity. In ancient Greece, dramaturgy was formed at the end of the 6th - beginning of the 5th centuries. BC, in Rome - in the III century. BC. The drama draws on the traditions of epic and lyrical literature. Like an epic, it depicts a person in activity, from the point of view of an external observer, like a lyric, it represents him as a subject of experiences. Dramaturgy is closely connected with the theater - a special syncretic art. Initially, dramatic works were not intended for reading, but specifically for stage performance, which provided them with additional visual and expressive possibilities and a special power of influencing the audience.

In addition to the generic, another, more detailed classification of literary works is also possible. In accordance with it, each type of literature has its own group of genres - “historically emerging types of literary works”, characterized by a whole set of specific features (V.V. Kozhinov, LES. - P.106-107). Each genre, as it were, concretizes, localizes the general concept of man and the world, characteristic of the kind of literature to which it belongs. According to S.S. Averintsev, it is already quite significant that Aristotle for the first time “consciously describes the genre as an intra-literary phenomenon, recognizable by intra-literary criteria” 26, and not by external circumstances related to etiquette and various conditions for the ritual design of life.

Epic genres in ancient literature

Epic (epos as a genre) - (from the Greek. epos - word, narration and poieo - I create), "an epic work of national problems, monumental in form" (G.N. Pospelov, LES. - P.513). One should distinguish between an epic of folklore origin and a purely literary epic. The first of these varieties existed in archaic Greece in the form of a folk-heroic epic (the Iliad and the Odyssey attributed to Homer, as well as the so-called kyklic poems created in the oral collective tradition of the Aedi folk singers). After a long folklore existence, some texts were written down and thus saved from oblivion. So they moved into the realm of literature. Literary epics were immediately created by individual authors in the form of fixed texts. Several of their genre varieties were formed: didactic (“Works and Days” by Hesiod, “Georgics” by Virgil), mythological (“Theogony” by Hesiod, “Metamorphoses” by Ovid), historical (“Annals” by Ennius) and historical-mythological (“Aeneid” by Virgil). ) epics.

Despite the different ways of creating, the main genre features of the folk-heroic and literary epics are similar. The world is presented in them as a single universe, depicted in accordance with the mythological worldview of antiquity, comprehensively, as an idealized and exaggerated world of the past, where grandiose events took place (and ended), the fate of peoples was decided. That is, the picture of the world in the epic gravitates towards maximum generalization; details, particulars are either omitted or enlarged and also acquire a monumental character (the shield of Achilles in the Iliad).

The images of people are just as widely generalized. The heroes of the folk-heroic epic are heroes, understood as an integral part of the people and at the same time (due to some individual features) - the face of the people. In literary epics, the hero can be interpreted as an ideal, omniscient sage (the author-narrator in a didactic epic), an ideal citizen (Aeneas in Virgil) and even as a completely ordinary person, immersed in personal life (characters of Ovid's Metamorphoses), but always in epicly wide - nationwide and all-human - context. Therefore, the characters of epic heroes, as a rule, are solid, exaggerated, monumental.

It is these people who are able to participate in fateful events, to accomplish great deeds. The experiences of the heroes in the early forms of the epic (folk-heroic epic) were also depicted as actions, through their external manifestations. In later examples, especially those of Virgil and Ovid, the skill of psychological analysis increases significantly.

The epic glorifies the heroic past of the people, the heroes-ancestors, affirms the eternal universal ideals, sings of the unity of man with the people and the world. For this, a sublimely poetic, monumental style and poetic speech are used.

The hexameter verse, characteristic of ancient epics, arose in Greece as early as Homer's time. Later it was mastered by the Romans.

The heroic epics of Homer and Hesiod's didactic poem Works and Days were perceived as indisputable role models in Antiquity. The role of the classic model of the epic for the literature of subsequent eras, starting from the Middle Ages, was played by Virgil's Aeneid for a long time.

A special place among the epics of Antiquity is occupied by the anonymous comic poem "The War of the Frogs and Mice" (late 6th - early 5th centuries BC). This parody of Homer's Iliad may have become the response of the people to the official, state recognition of the "exemplary" nature of Homer's poems. It could also reflect the criticism of the mythological worldview, begun by the first Greek philosophers. The parodic beginning is also inherent in Ovid's early poems "The Science of Love" and "The Cure for Love". In them, the author is defiantly indifferent to "high", significant phenomena, heroic deeds. With a sly smile, he delves into the world of love experiences - after all, they also have a universal meaning.

Epillium is a small epic poetic genre that has established itself in Greek literature of the Hellenistic era. The meaning of the name (“small epic”) is justified not only by the small amount of text, but also by a special approach to the selection of artistic material, as well as an elegant “jewelry” treatment of the artistic form. Epillius tells, as a rule, about certain private events, individual moments, one way or another in contact with great epic deeds. These events have no independent heroic significance. They are attractive for their psychological pattern, emotional content. Like great epics, epilliae were composed in hexameters. A classic example of this genre in ancient literature was Callimachus' Hecale. Subsequently, epillium came into Roman poetry ("The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis" by Catullus).

A fable is “a short story in prose or verse with a directly formulated moral conclusion, giving” it an “allegorical meaning”. The allegorical characters are "animals, plants, sketchy figures of people"; plots of the type “how someone wanted to make himself better, but only made worse” are widely used. Often in the fable there is comedy and motives of social criticism. It originated in folklore, "... acquired a stable genre form ... acquired in Greek literature (VI century BC - the time of the semi-legendary Aesop)" (M. L. Gasparov, LES. - P. 46-47). The creator of the first samples of the Latin literary fable is Phaedrus (1st century AD). The first Greek literary fables are created by Valery Babriy (2nd century AD). The former writes his fables mainly for the sake of morality, while for the latter the fable is a rhetorical exercise, and he focuses his attention on the elegance of a detailed story.

“Biography (from Greek bios – life and grapho – I write), biography. ... Based on factual material, it gives a picture of a person's life, the development of his personality in connection with social circumstances. The history of the biographical genre dates back to antiquity (“Comparative Lives” by Plutarch, “The Life of Agricola” by Tacitus, “Biographies of the Twelve Caesars” by Suetonius). (LES. - P.54). The author of a biography can subordinate his work to various tasks: words of praise, moral instruction, entertainment, psychological observations, and so on.

“A novel ... an epic work in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual in the process of its formation and development, deployed in an artistic space and time sufficient to convey the “organization” of the individual. Being an epic of private life, ... the novel presents individual and social life as relatively independent, not exhaustive and not absorbing each other elements, and this is the defining feature of its genre content.

From the definition given here by V.A. Bogdanov (LES. - P.329-330) it is clear that, unlike another, more ancient epic genre - the epic - the novel depicts the world not as a single monolithic whole, but as a complex multi-component system. Moreover, he focuses his main attention only on one sphere of being - the sphere of people's private life. All other aspects of the surrounding reality are depicted in the novel through the prism of this private life. The novel world is not a well-known, illustrious for centuries, completed, static past (as in an epic), but a current, unfinished modernity, where the outcome of events is not known in advance and therefore is of particular interest. In general, the main goal of the novelist is not to glorify the private life of ordinary people, but to present it as something bright and interesting.

For this, especially at the dawn of the genre, including in Antiquity, entertaining adventurous stories, fantasy, and exoticism were widely used.

Novel heroes, unlike epic ones, are treated not as an integral part of the people and humanity, but as independent individuals, separate from these communities, entering into complex, contradictory relationships with each other, as well as with society and the world. Consequently, their characters cannot (and should not) be as solid and monumental as those of epic heroes. They do not need hyperbolization either, but they are often (although not necessarily) depicted in dynamics, in the process of personality development, which is not characteristic of the heroes of epics.

Thus, in the novel, a new, different from the epic, concept of the world and man found its artistic realization.

In the minds of the people of Antiquity, it was formed gradually. “The development of the personal principle necessary for a novelist hero,” continues V.A. Bogdanov, “occurs in the historical process of the individual’s isolation from the whole: gaining freedom in informal, everyday family life; rejection of religious, moral and other principles of a closed corporation; the emergence of an individual ideological and moral world and, finally, the consciousness of its intrinsic value and the desire to oppose one’s unique “I”, its spiritual and moral freedom to the environment, natural and social “necessity” (LES. - P. 330). Novel thinking is finally established at the end of the era, in the conditions of the deepening crisis of the slave-owning society and the entire ancient civilization. The time of intensive development of the novel in Greek and Roman literature - II - III centuries. AD True, at that time it did not yet have its current name. The term "novel" will be established in Europe only in the Middle Ages. In ancient Greece, literary works of this type were called "stories" or "dramas" (that is, "actions").

The texts of five Greek novels have completely survived: “Charei and Kalliroya” by Chariton, “The Tale of Gabrokom and Antia” by Xenophon of Ephesus, “Leucippus and Cleitophon” by Achilles Tatia, “The Shepherd's Story of Daphnis and Chloe” by Long, “Ethiopica” by Heliodorus. In the retellings, Iamblichus' Babylonica and Anthony Diogenes' Amazing Adventures Beyond Fula are also known. Finally, there is a Latin translation of the novel "The Tale of Apollonius of Tyre", the Greek original of which has not been preserved.

Roman romance is represented by fragments of the work of Gaius Petronius "Satyricon" and the full text of Apuleius' book "Metamorphoses, or the Golden Ass".

Lyric genres in ancient literature

Hymn (Greek hymnos - praise) in ancient Greece - "a cult song in honor of a deity", usually performed by a choir. Thus, the paean hymns addressed Apollo, the parthenias addressed Athena, the dithyrambs addressed Dionysus. There were also hymns in honor of solemn events: epithalamy (wedding), epinicia (in honor of Olympionists). The hymns of Callimachus (III century BC) no longer have a cult purpose and are designed not for choral singing, but for reading. “Under the name of the hymns, works of an epic narrative nature are known - the so-called Homeric hymns (they were attributed to Homer in ancient times).” In general, “the rudiments of the epic, lyrics and drama are seen in the hymns” (LES. - P. 77-78).

Elegy (from the Greek elegos - plaintive song), “a lyrical genre, a poem of medium length, meditative or emotional content ..., most often in the first person, without a distinct composition. ... The form of the ancient elegy is the elegiac distich. It may have developed in Ionian Asia Minor from lamentations over the dead. The elegy originated in Greece in the 7th century. BC. (Callinus, Tyrtaeus, Theognidus), initially had a moral and political content, then, in Hellenistic and Roman poetry (Tibull, Propertius, Ovid), love themes become predominant ”(M.L. Gasparov, LES. - P. 508). “The Lida of Antimachus (a combination of myths about unhappy love) was considered a model” (SA. - P. 650-651).

“Yambs, a genre of poems, mostly accusatory, less often elegiac, with alternating written iambs [poems. size] of long and short lines in a stanza ”(M.L. Gasparov, LES. - P. 528). “The prototypes of the iambic as a literary genre were ritual reproach, which served as a magical means of averting evil at fertility festivals; their metric base was iambic. The form of this ritual poetry was used by the Greek poet Archilochus (7th century BC), who is considered the founder of the iambic. Hipponact (the end of the 6th century BC) invented the “lame iambic” (holiyamb) - an iambic verse with a break in rhythm at the end of each line - and applied it to his witty, rude, daring poems. In the era of Hellenism, Kallimachus, Herod turned to the iamb. "Iambic poetry entered Roman literature thanks to Lucilius." His undertaking was continued by neoteriki and Horace ("Epodes"). "The last significant iambographers of antiquity were Persius, Petronius and Martial" in Rome (SA. - p.675).

“Ode (from the Greek ode - song), a genre of lyric poetry. In antiquity, the word “ode” at first did not have a terminological meaning, then it began to denote a lyrical choral song of a solemn, upbeat, moralizing nature written mainly in stanzas ... ”(M.L. Gasparov, LES. - P. 258). “The themes of odic poetry were varied: mythology, human life, love, state, glory, etc. The largest odic poets of antiquity are Sappho, Alcaeus, Pindar, Horace ”(SA. - P. 390). Epigram (Greek epigramma - inscription), in ancient poetry - originally "a short lyric poem of arbitrary content" (LES. - P.511). Developed in ancient Greece from dedicatory inscriptions on monuments, sacrifices. It appeared in Greek poetry in the 7th-6th centuries. BC, reached its peak in the III - I centuries. BC. A distinctive feature of the epigram is the accuracy of expressions. Often created in the form of elegiac distichs. Latin literary epigram developed under the influence of Alexandrian poetry. Impromptu epigrams were popular in educated circles. “At the same time, they increasingly contained mocking satirical features and witticisms. This direction of development began under Catullus and culminated in the witty, original epigrams of Martial, which remained a model until the present ”(SA. - P. 659).

Satire is a lyrical poem of accusatory orientation, often having the character of an oratorical speech of a lyrical hero, a critical review of social life and the customs of people, in which satire is widely used as one of the types of comic along with other types (sarcasm, irony, humor, etc.). This literary genre originated and developed in ancient Rome. Satura served as the basis for it. The name goes back to lat. lanx satura - a dish filled with all sorts of fruits, which was brought to the temple of the goddess Ceres; in a figurative sense - a mixture, all sorts of things. Satura is “a genre of early Roman literature: a collection of short poetic and prose works of deliberately varied content (parables, invectives, moral sketches, popular philosophical reasoning, etc.). Appeared at the beginning of the II century. BC. in Ennius as an imitation of Hellenistic literature. ... Already at the end of the II century. BC. in Lucilius Gaius, satura becomes an entirely poetic genre, acquires an accusatory connotation and degenerates into satire in Horace, Persius Flaccus and Juvenal, and the more archaic satura (“mixture”) dies off ”(M.L. Gasparov, LES. - P. 371).

Dramatic genres in ancient literature

“Satyr dramas were originally local merry stage performances in the Peloponnese. Their main characters were satyrs from the retinue of Dionysus. ... These characters were characterized by immoderate gluttony, drunkenness and sensuality. When the danger arose that, with the flourishing of tragedy and comedy, S.d. will be ousted, Pratinus of Phliunt contrasted the action of his S.d. with their own tragedy. At the same time, the heroes of the tragedies (especially Hercules) fell into comic situations. With this, Pratin managed to achieve that S.d. firmly entered the theatrical performances as the fourth drama after the trilogy ”(SA. - P. 510). Only the text of Euripides' satyr drama Cyclops has come down to us in full. This genre is not represented in Roman dramaturgy.

“Tragedy, a dramatic genre based on the tragic collision of heroic characters, its tragic outcome and filled with pathos ...” (A.V. Mikhailov, LES. - P. 491). The etymology (Greek tragodna, Latin tragoedia - song of the goats) indicates the origin of this dramatic genre from ritual games in honor of the god Dionysus. Already in Antiquity, the dithyramb was considered the forerunner of tragedy. “Thanks to Arion, the dithyramb in the Peloponnese became a work of choral lyrics, which was performed by the choir,” the participants of which were disguised as satyrs. “Starting from the second half of the 6th c. BC e. dithyrambs are sung at the Great Dionysia. Thespis was the first to use, along with the choir, one actor-reciter, who gave explanations during the performance, thus creating a prerequisite for dialogue. Later, Aeschylus introduced a second, and Sophocles a third actor-reciter, so a dramatic action independent of the choir became possible. ... In Athens, annually on holidays in honor of Dionysus, competitions of poets were held, during which tragedies were performed. Every day a tetralogy of one author was performed, consisting of three tragedies and one satyr drama. ... Starting with Sophocles, the plot unity of the tetralogy ceases to be a necessary condition. (SA. - S.583). In ancient tragedies, mainly mythological motifs were developed. The events of history or modernity were used extremely rarely for tragic plots, which is explained both by the ritual origin of the tragedy and its genre features.

Like any dramatic genre, tragedy comes from the idea of ​​the world as a struggle, the development of conflicts in which people inevitably participate. However, tragedy concretizes this general dramatic conception of being with a special tragic worldview. Its essence is approximately as follows: in a person's life, unresolvable conflicts often lie in wait, impasses that cannot be evaded, unworthy, but it is also impossible to emerge victorious from them. However, even in such a hopeless situation, a person can and should remain a person. In order not to become a victim of circumstances, to remain true to himself and defend his dignity, he acts even without hope of success, suffering from this hopelessness.

So, the most important genre feature of tragedy is the presence of an insoluble, in other words, tragic conflict, that is, such a confrontation where there are neither winners nor losers. Her second distinguishing feature is a special type of hero.

The personality of the tragic hero is characterized by scale, strength of passion, will and intellect; he is active, free, responsible and purposeful. Moreover, his goals are always noble and disinterested, but - in conditions of hopeless circumstances - they are not realized. Moreover: the results of the tragic hero's activity are often opposite to the intentions (strives for good, but does evil). The reason for this discrepancy is usually a tragic mistake. Allowed out of ignorance, it leads to irreversible consequences. The situation of a tragic mistake shows that the tragic hero does evil not intentionally and, therefore, deserves indulgence. However, he himself, as a truly noble, responsible person, takes upon himself the fullness of the tragic guilt. It is impossible to get rid of it, since nothing can be corrected, therefore the destiny of a tragic hero is suffering, and sometimes death.

As you can see, the tragic heroes in their personal data clearly rise above the average level of ordinary people (in the words of Aristotle, these are people “better than us”). Their activities also go beyond private, everyday life. Tragic heroes find themselves in conflict with the world, at odds with themselves, in the midst of important events, in the face of universally significant problems (Good and Evil, moral choice, the struggle for justice, freedom, etc.). Thus, the tragedy focuses on the depiction and study of serious, high spheres of life and sublime natures. That is why the works of this genre are full of noble heroic pathos and are created in a sublimely poetic style. The purpose of the tragedy is to glorify the greatness of man and at the same time arouse compassion for him, to warn of the misfortunes and catastrophes that lie in wait in everyone's life. The sympathy of the audience with the heroes of the tragedy is often aggravated due to the use of the effect of tragic irony by the author. It occurs when the viewer is better informed than the tragic hero and foresees in advance a misfortune that the hero himself is not yet aware of. Awakening in people the most noble feelings (admiration, compassion), tragedy, according to Aristotle, contributes to their spiritual purification (catharsis).

Tragedy flourished in ancient Greece in the 5th century BC. BC. in the work of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, as well as their predecessors (Heril, Pratinus, Phrynichus, Thespis) and younger contemporaries (Agafon, Ion of Chios); from the 4th century BC. gradually began to lose its significance. In ancient Rome, the first tragedies - free adaptations of Greek ones - were staged in the 3rd century BC. BC. Livy Andronicus. At the end of the same century, Gnaeus Nevius developed a new type of tragedy - the pretext, or pretextatus (on the plots of Roman mythology and history), followed by Ennius, Pacuvius, Actius (II century BC). From the 1st century BC. tragedies are staged less and less in the Roman theatre, but they continue to compose for readers (Cicero, Caesar, Augustus, Ovid). Vivid examples of tragedies for reading are preserved in the literary heritage of Seneca (1st century AD). In the literature of modern times, this tradition will be continued.

Comedy, a dramatic genre, “in which characters, situations and action are presented in funny forms or imbued with comic” (LES. - P. 161). This means that this genre corrects the general dramatic concept of the world and man with a special comic worldview, according to which the vast majority of life conflicts are not tragic dead ends, but inconsistencies, deviations from the norm and can be overcome, corrected. In Antiquity, the notion of the comic was established as ugly, ugly, but not bringing much harm.

There are many different inconsistencies in reality (between what should be and what is, between appearance and essence, etc.). Being depicted in a work of art, these life inconsistencies give rise to a special comic effect. In an effort to achieve it, the artist can purposefully modify, rethink what is depicted, deliberately exaggerate the absurdities in it. “All the elements of a funny image are taken from life, from a real object (face), but their ratios, location, scales and accents (“composition” of the object) are transformed by creative imagination; and one of the sources of pleasure from the comic is our “recognition” of an object under a mask transformed to the point of being unrecognizable (for example, in a cartoon, caricature): co-creation of viewers and listeners, ”says L.E. Pinsky (LES. - P. 162) . The comic effect in a literary work is created both by the speech of the characters (play on words, paradoxes, parodies, etc.), and their appearance (for example, the actors of the ancient Attic comedy deliberately deformed their figure, dressed like a buffoon), and behavior. However, the main sources of comedy are unusual, ridiculous situations and characters. Depending on which of these sources prevails in comedy, there are two main types of comedy - situation comedy, intrigue and character comedy. Both types are already present in ancient literature.

The comic worldview opens up inexhaustible possibilities for the artist. Guided by him, the comedian a) delves into the study of the patterns of life, its contradictions and paradoxes; b) discovers various negative manifestations in the way of life, as well as in the behavior and characters of people, and, discrediting them, affirms ideals, genuine spiritual values; c) expresses an optimistic attitude, maintains the moral health of people, promotes their spiritual emancipation; d) educates, teaches moral lessons to people; d) amuse.

As you can see, the goals of comedy are varied and cannot be reduced to “ridicule of vices”. Comic should not be equated with funny either. In a work of art, a comic effect can cause not only laughter, but also anger, indignation, disgust, sadness, regret, sympathy, tenderness. Therefore, the pathos of comedies is very diverse: from public buffoonery to romantic heroics. At the same time, comedy, even when it affirms and glorifies, does not glorify what is depicted. Her sphere is the sphere of unofficial, everyday life; her style is the style of live everyday communication of people. Comic heroes are treated as individuals, not free from shortcomings and even vices. According to Aristotle, these are people “like us”, or “worse than we are”. In all this, comedy is the opposite of tragedy, but close to the novel. Indeed, the successes of comedy - the new Attic and Roman - paved the way for ancient romance.

Like tragedy, comedy grew out of a complex of religious and ritual actions of ancient Greek farmers, which is also indicated by the etymology of the name of this genre: lat. comedia, Greek komodna, from komos - a merry procession and ode - a song). “Attic comedy arose from various forms of folk entertainment (processions of choirs with dances and comic songs, squabbles and performances of mummers) and was part of the Dionysian festivities as a free ritual game” (SA. - P. 280). Comedy finally acquired its genre appearance by the middle of the 5th century. BC. in the works of Epicharmus, Eupolis and Cratinus. The first recognized classic of this genre in Greece was Aristophanes (late 5th century BC). Antiphanes, Alexis, Menander, Diphilus, Philemon (4th-3rd centuries BC) contributed to the further development of Attic comedy. Their works served as a model for the first Roman comedians (Livy Andronicus, Gnaeus Nevius) and such recognized classics of the genre as Plautus and Terence (III-II centuries BC). From the 1st century BC. and then, in the Roman Empire, the ancient comedy gradually loses its importance and is supplanted by atellana and mime. “Atellana, a genre of ancient Roman folk comedy; appeared in Rome in the III century. BC. in the Oscan language. Initially improvised; at the beginning of the 1st century BC. atellana received a poetic arrangement in Latin (fragments have been preserved).

Atellani - comical short scenes from the life of the common people, often with political attacks; the actors performed in masks” (M.L.Gasparov, LES. - P.41). In the form of 4 masks (stable primitive character-characters) the characters of atellana are also represented. Subsequently replaced by a mime.

“Mim (from the Greek mimos - actors; imitation), a small comic genre of ancient drama, one of the forms of folk theater. At first, these were short scenes with some characteristic figure in the center ... - an impromptu imitation on a funny or obscene topic from everyday life. The mime receives its first literary processing in the work of the Sicilian poet Sophron (5th century BC) and his son Xenarchus. From the 3rd century BC. mime spread throughout the Greek world, gradually crowding out other dramatic genres. From the 1st century BC. appears in Rome (mimes D. Laberia and Publius Syrah).

In comparison with large literary forms, the mime allowed unusual freedom in verbal, rhythmic, stylistic design, as well as in choosing themes and heroes from different social strata ... ”(T.V. Popova, LES. - P. 221).

Not all of the literary genres described above became the subject of study in Aristotle's Poetics. And the point is not only that the text of the treatise, as we have already shown, most likely has not been completely preserved. Some genres turned out to be simply younger than Poetics. So, historically later, atellana and satire were formed (besides, purely Italian phenomena), as well as biography, epillium, and even more so - a novel. The same can be said about bucolic and its varieties.

“Bukolika (Greek bukolikб, from bukolikos - shepherd), a genre of ancient poetry of the Hellenistic and Roman times (III century BC - V century AD): small hexameter poems in narrative or dialogic form describing the peaceful the life of shepherds…, their simple life, tender love and flute songs (often with the use of folklore motifs). The poems of bucolic poetry were indifferently called idylls (lit. - picture) or eclogues (lit. - selection) ... The initiator and classic of Greek bucolic poetry was Theocritus, Roman - Virgil ”(M.L. Gasparov, LES. - P.59).

One more circumstance should be taken into account. The Poetics clearly expresses the idea of ​​the genre as a stable phenomenon, having a number of features inherent only to it. True, Aristotle understood that genres go through the stage of emergence and formation, but this path ends with stabilization - the establishment of a genre canon. Literary forms that have reached their canonical completeness were first described in Poetics. However, not all genres of ancient literature developed such a canon. This applies, in particular, to genres that actively used folklore material (bucolic) or are closely related to the sphere of oral communication, such as dialogue, which is even difficult to attribute to any particular type of literature.

Dialogue is a literary genre, predominantly philosophical and publicistic, in which the author's thought is developed in the form of an interview, a dispute between two or more persons. He relied on the tradition of oral intellectual communication in Ancient Greece; at the origins of tradition is the activity of Socrates ”(LES. - P. 96). As a special genre, dialogue took shape in the 4th century. BC. in the prose of Plato, who popularized his philosophical doctrine with the help of this literary form. Plutarch used dialogue for moralistic writings. Lucian created several cycles of comic dialogues. Cicero, relying on the experience of Plato and Aristotle, used dialogue to present his philosophical reflections (“Tusculan Conversations”).

The novel, already within the limits of ancient literature, showed itself to be a genre hostile to all canons. Such unstable, easily changing genre formations did not fit into the framework of the artistic consciousness of reflective traditionalism and therefore were not reflected either in Aristotle's Poetics or among his later successors.

Notes

24. Aristotle. Poetics. Rhetoric. - St. Petersburg: Azbuka, 2000. - S.25-26.

25. For an overview of these concepts, see, for example: Khalizev V.E. The ancestry of the work. // Introduction to literary criticism. Literary work: basic concepts and terms. - M., 1999. -S. 328–336.)

26. Relationship and interaction of genres in the development of ancient literature. - M., 1989. - P.12.

One of the founders of Russian literary criticism was V. G. Belinsky. And although serious steps were taken in antiquity in the development of the concept of literary gender (Aristotle), it is Belinsky who owns the scientifically based theory of three literary genera, which you can get acquainted with in detail by reading Belinsky's article "The division of poetry into genera and types."

There are three types of fiction: epic (from the Greek. Epos, narration), lyrical (a lyre was a musical instrument, accompanied by sung verses) and dramatic (from the Greek. Drama, action).

Presenting a particular subject to the reader (meaning the subject of conversation), the author chooses different approaches to it:

The first approach: you can tell in detail about the subject, about the events associated with it, about the circumstances of the existence of this subject, etc.; at the same time, the position of the author will be more or less detached, the author will act as a kind of chronicler, narrator or choose one of the characters as the narrator; the main thing in such a work will be precisely the story, the narration about the subject, the leading type of speech will be just the narration; this kind of literature is called epic;

The second approach: you can tell not so much about the events, but about the impression that they made on the author, about the feelings that they caused; the image of the inner world, experiences, impressions and will refer to the lyrical kind of literature; it is the experience that becomes the main event of the lyrics;

The third approach: you can depict the subject in action, show it on stage; present to the reader and the viewer surrounded by other phenomena; this kind of literature is dramatic; in the drama itself, the author's voice will sound least of all - in remarks, that is, the author's explanations for the action and replicas of the characters.

Types of fiction EPOS (Greek - narration)

a story about events, the fate of the heroes, their actions and adventures, an image of the external side of what is happening (even feelings are shown from the side of their external manifestation). The author can directly express his attitude to what is happening. DRAMA (Greek - action) depiction of events and relationships between characters on stage (a special way of writing text). The direct expression of the author's point of view in the text is contained in the remarks. LYRICS (from the name of a musical instrument) experience of events; depiction of feelings, inner world, emotional state; feeling becomes the main event.

Each type of literature in turn includes a number of genres.

GENRE is a historically formed group of works, united by common features of content and form. Such groups include novels, stories, poems, elegies, short stories, feuilletons, comedies, etc. In literary criticism, the concept of a literary type is often introduced; this is a broader concept than a genre. In this case, the novel will be considered a type of fiction, and genres - various varieties of the novel, for example, adventure, detective, psychological, parable novel, dystopian novel, etc.

Examples of genus-species relations in the literature:

Genus: dramatic; type: comedy; Genre: sitcom.

Genus: epic; type: story; genre: fantasy story, etc.

Genres, being historical categories, appear, develop, and eventually "leave" from the "active reserve" of artists, depending on the historical era: the ancient lyric poets did not know the sonnet; in our time, an ode born in antiquity and popular in the 17th-18th centuries has become an archaic genre; nineteenth-century romanticism gave rise to detective literature, and so on.

Consider the following table, which lists the types and genres related to the different kinds of word art:

Genera, types and genres of artistic literature EPOS Folk Myth

Poem (epos): Heroic Strogovoinskaya Fairytale-legendary Historical... Fairy tale Epic Duma Legend Tradition Ballad Parable Small genres: proverbs sayings riddles nursery rhymes... Author's epicRoman: Historical. Fantastic. Adventurous Psychological. R.-parable Utopian Social... Small genres: Short story Short story Fable Parable Ballad Lit. fairy tale... DRAMA Folk Game

positions, characters, masks ... Drama: philosophical social historical socio-philosophical. Vaudeville Farce Tragifarce... LYRICS Folk Song Author's Ode Anthem Elegy Sonnet Message Madrigal Romance Rondo Epigram...

Modern literary criticism also distinguishes a fourth, related kind of literature, which combines the features of the epic and lyrical genres: lyrical-epic, to which the poem belongs. Indeed, by telling the reader a story, the poem manifests itself as an epic; revealing to the reader the depth of feelings, the inner world of the person who tells this story, the poem manifests itself as a lyric.

Epic and lyrical works are divided into large and small genres to a greater extent in terms of volume. The large ones include an epic, a novel, a poem, while the small ones include a story, a story, a fable, a song, a sonnet, etc.

Read the statement by V. Belinsky about the genre of the story:

“Our life, modern, is too diverse, polysyllabic, fractional (...) There are events, there are cases that, so to speak, would not be enough for a drama, would not be enough for a novel, but which are deep, which in one moment focus so much life, no matter how long it takes to get rid of it for centuries: the story catches them and puts them in its narrow framework.(...) Short and fast, light and deep together, it flies from subject to subject, crushes life into trifles and tears out the leaves from the great book of this life " .

If the story, according to Belinsky, is "a leaf from the book of life", then, using his metaphor, one can figuratively define the novel from the genre point of view as "a chapter from the book of life", and the story as "a line from the book of life".

The small epic genres to which the story belongs are prose that is "intense" in content: due to its small volume, the writer does not have the opportunity to "spread his thoughts along the tree", get carried away with detailed descriptions, enumerations, reproduce a large number of events in detail, and the reader often needs to be told very a lot of.

The story is characterized by the following features:

small volume;

the plot is based most often on one event, the rest are only plotted by the author;

a small number of characters: usually one or two central characters;

some one main issue is being solved, the rest of the issues are "derivatives" of the main one.

A STORY is a small prose work with one or two main characters, dedicated to the depiction of a single event. The story is somewhat more voluminous, but the difference between the story and the story is not always possible to catch: the work of A. Chekhov "Duel" is called by some a small story, and by some - a big story. The following is important: as the critic E. Anichkov wrote at the beginning of the 20th century, "it is the personality of a person, and not a whole group of people, that is at the center of the stories."

The heyday of Russian short prose begins in the 20s of the XIX century, which gave excellent examples of small epic prose, including the absolute masterpieces of Pushkin ("Tales of Belkin", "The Queen of Spades") and Gogol ("Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", Petersburg stories ), romantic short stories by A. Pogorelsky, A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, V. Odoevsky and others. In the second half of the 19th century, small epic works were created by F. Dostoevsky ("The Dream of a Ridiculous Man", "Notes from the Underground"), N. Leskov ("Lefty", "Dumb Artist", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), I. Turgenev ("Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky district", "The Steppe King Lear", "Ghosts", "Notes of a hunter"), L. Tolstoy ("Prisoner of the Caucasus", "Hadji Murat", "Cossacks", Sevastopol stories), A. Chekhov as the largest masters of a short story, works by V. Garshin, D. Grigorovich, G. Uspensky and many others.

The twentieth century also did not remain in debt - and the stories of I. Bunin, A. Kuprin, M. Zoshchenko, Teffi, A. Averchenko, M. Bulgakov appear ... Even such recognized lyrics as A. Blok, N. Gumilyov, M. Tsvetaeva "descended to despicable prose," in the words of Pushkin. It can be argued that at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, the small epic genre occupied a leading position in Russian literature.

And for this reason alone, one should not think that the story raises some minor problems and touches on shallow topics. The form of the story is laconic, and the plot is sometimes uncomplicated and concerns, at first glance, simple, as L. Tolstoy said, "natural" relationships: there is simply nowhere for a complex chain of events in the story to unfold. But this is precisely the task of the writer, in order to conclude a serious and often inexhaustible subject of conversation in a small space of text.

If the plot of I. Bunin's miniature "Muravsky Way", consisting of only 64 words, captures only a few moments of a conversation between a traveler and a coachman in the middle of an endless steppe, then the plot of A. Chekhov's story "Ionych" would be enough for a whole novel: the artistic time of the story covers almost a decade and a half. But it doesn’t matter to the author what happened to the hero at each stage of this time: it is enough for him to “grab” several “links” - episodes from the hero’s life chain, similar to each other, like drops of water, and the whole life of Dr. Startsev becomes extremely clear to the author, and the reader. “As you live one day of your life, so you will live your whole life,” Chekhov seems to say. At the same time, the writer, reproducing the situation in the house of the most “cultured” family of the provincial city of S., can focus all his attention on the knock of knives from the kitchen and the smell of fried onions (artistic details!), But here about several years of a person’s life, they say as if they and it didn’t exist at all, or it was a “passing”, uninteresting time: “Four years have passed”, “Several more years have passed”, as if it’s not worth wasting time and paper on the image of such a trifle ...

The image of a person's everyday life, devoid of external storms and upheavals, but in a routine that makes a person wait forever for happiness that never comes, became a cross-cutting theme of A. Chekhov's stories, which determined the further development of Russian short fiction.

Historical upheavals, of course, dictate other themes and plots to the artist. M. Sholokhov in the cycle of Don stories speaks of terrible and wonderful human destinies in the time of revolutionary upheavals. But the point here is not so much in the revolution itself, but in the eternal problem of man's struggle with himself, in the eternal tragedy of the collapse of the old familiar world, which mankind has experienced many times. And that is why Sholokhov turns to plots that have long been rooted in world literature, depicting private human life, as it were, in the context of world legendary history. So, in the story "The Mole" Sholokhov uses an ancient story, like the world, about the duel of father and son, not recognized by each other, which we meet in Russian epics, in the epics of ancient Persia and medieval Germany ... But if the ancient epic is the tragedy of the father who killed son in battle, explains the laws of fate, not subject to man, then Sholokhov talks about the problem of a person choosing his life path, a choice that determines all further events and in the end makes one a beast in human form, and the other - equal to the greatest heroes of the past.