Genre short story in literature. What is a story? Genre originality of the story

The short story is the most concise form of fiction. The story is difficult precisely because of its small volume. The story requires especially serious, in-depth work on the content, plot, composition, language, because in small forms, flaws are more clearly visible than in large ones.

A story is not a simple description of a case from life, not a sketch from nature.

The story, like the novel, shows significant moral conflicts. The plot of a story is often as important as in other genres of fiction. The author's position, the importance of the topic is also significant.

The story is a one-dimensional work, it has one storyline. One incident from the life of heroes, one bright, significant scene can become the content of the story, or a comparison of several episodes covering a more or less long period of time. Too slow development of the plot, prolonged exposition, unnecessary details harm the perception of the story. Sometimes, with excessive brevity of presentation, new shortcomings arise: the lack of psychological motivation for the actions of the characters, unjustified failures in the development of the action, the sketchiness of characters devoid of memorable features. The story should not just be short, it should have a truly artistic conciseness. And here the artistic detail plays a special role in the story.

A story usually does not have a large number of characters and many storylines. Overloading with characters, scenes, dialogues are the most common shortcomings of the stories of novice authors.

So, the story is a small prose work and its components are: unity of time, unity of action and event unity, unity of place, unity of character, unity of center, significant ending and catharsis.

Under UNITY OF TIME it is understood that the time of action in the story is limited. Usually the basis of the story is one event or incident that occurred in a specific and fairly short period of time.

Stories that span a character's entire life are not very common. However, aiming at the global, the author must be aware that in this case he will have to sacrifice many details.

The unity of time determines UNITY OF ACTION. The story, as a rule, is devoted to the development of one conflict. Often the authors try to cram a bunch of characters into the volume of 20 thousand, and even each with their own life story (conflict). Well, if their stories have at least some points of contact with the history of the protagonist, then such a narrative can be drawn out. The author needs to set a limiter for himself: one story - one story. That is, to concentrate on a single event that happened / is happening in the life of a particular hero.

Unlike a novel or short story, a short story gives the author a setting for the utmost brevity, including in the description of actions.

Unity of action is associated with EVENT UNITY. That is, the story is either limited to a description of a single event, or one or two events become meaningful.

UNITY OF PLACE. In the story, meaningful events take place in one place, well, in two. Maximum three. More for the story is unrealistic. Pay attention, we are talking about places that determine the development of the conflict of the story, which is one! If the author wants to describe the whole world in detail, then he risks getting not a story, but a novel.

UNITY OF THE CHARACTER. As a rule, there is one main character in the story. Let me remind you that the main character is the one who plays the main role and is the spokesman for the plot action. Sometimes there are two. Very, very rarely - several (main characters), but then they act as a bunch and differ little from each other - like, for example, seven kids.

There can be as many secondary characters as you like, even a division. But why so many? If you say a few words about each, just 20 thousand characters will come out. And there is not enough space for the main character. The task of secondary characters is to help or hinder the main character, to create a background. Therefore, the author must strictly dose out the descriptions of the characters. The main - more, the secondary - a little bit. Describe only what is directly related to the conflict, what serves to resolve it. The rest is out. The secondary character should not obscure the main character.

All of the aforementioned unities are reduced to UNITY OF THE CENTER.

A story cannot exist without a center of crystallization. It can be a culminating event, and the development of the action, and even a certain descriptive image - it doesn't matter. The main thing is to have a core, due to which the entire compositional structure will be held.

SIGNIFICANT ENDING AND CATARSIS The story must have an end. The action must complete and, preferably, logically. Throughout the story, the characters walked towards each other and, finally, reunited. Or, on the contrary, they did not meet, which is why they died on the same day.

But this is not the whole ending - the story also has an ideological component. The author intended to tell the world an important thought in an artistic form, and in the finale this thought should find its maximum expression. If found - the story took place.

Ideally, when reading a story, the reader should have some kind of emotional pulsation, and the ending should cause catharsis. That is, to act purifying and ennobling, to elevate and educate. Literature is needed for this, so that the reader through the hero better understands himself.

Plot . It is probably not worth steaming over its originality. In the end, everything has long been written before us. The maximum that we can is to present the story, as old as the world, with style and grace inherent only to us.

There is only one storyline in the story. The hero wants/doesn't want to do something. He is opposed / helped by minor characters, natural phenomena or the social environment. The hero lives\fights\sometimes suffers and finally does/does not do what he/she must/shouldn't.

Here is a diagram of any literary conflict - the core on which the author strings fictional episodes. All episodes should be tailored to a single goal - the disclosure of the main conflict of the work. Everything else is on the side.

Intrigue is a must. The main character has to do something. At least yawn - loudly and lingeringly. Otherwise, the story turns into a very long mood miniature. Writing plotless stories is a very great art. As well as reading. The composition of the story should be proportionate: 20% of the volume for the introduction, 50% for the main action, 10% for the climax and 20% for the denouement. Once again, let's go through the terms and connect them with the invoice.

exposition- the image of time, space, actors.

“Once upon a time there were three little pigs in the world. Three brothers. All of the same height, round, pink, with the same cheerful ponytails.

Even their names were similar. The piglets were called: Nif-Nif, Nuf-Nuf and

Naf-naf. All summer they tumbled in the green grass, basked in the sun, basked in the puddles.

Tie - the beginning of the conflict, the imbalance in the relationship between the characters.

“But now autumn has come.

The sun was no longer so hot, gray clouds stretched over

yellowed forest.

It's time for us to think about winter, - Naf-Naf once said to his brothers,

waking up early in the morning. - I'm shivering from the cold. We may catch a cold.

Let's build a house and winter together under one warm roof.

But his brothers did not want to take the job. Much nicer in

the last warm days to walk and jump in the meadow than to dig the ground and drag

heavy stones"

Main action- the growth of the conflict, the strengthening of the confrontation between the heroes.

“- It will be successful! Winter is still far away. We will take a walk, - said Nif-Nif and

rolled over his head.

When it is necessary, I will build myself a house, - said Nuf-Nuf and lay down in

Well, whatever you want. Then I will build my own house, - said Naf-Naf.

I won't wait for you.

Every day it got colder and colder.”

climax- the highest point of the struggle, the pinnacle of the conflict, when its outcome becomes clear.

“He carefully climbed onto the roof and listened. The house was quiet.

"I'm still going to have a bite of fresh pig today!" thought the wolf and

licking his lips, climbed into the pipe.

But, as soon as he began to descend the pipe, the piglets heard a rustle. BUT

when soot began to pour on the lid of the boiler, smart Naf-Naf immediately guessed that

than the case.

He quickly rushed to the cauldron, in which water was boiling on the fire, and tore off

cover it.

Welcome! - said Naf-Naf and winked at his brothers.

Nif-Nif and Nuf-Nuf have already completely calmed down and, smiling happily,

looked at their smart and brave brother.

The piglets didn't have to wait long. Black as a chimney sweep, wolf

splashed right into the boiling water.

He had never been in such pain before!

His eyes popped out on his forehead, all his hair stood on end.

With a wild roar, the scalded wolf flew up the chimney back to the roof,

rolled down it to the ground, rolled over four times over his head, rode

on his tail past the locked door and rushed into the forest.

Interchange - the new state of the environment and heroes after the conflict is resolved.

“And three brothers, three little pigs, looked after him and rejoiced,

that they so cleverly taught the evil robber a lesson.

And then they sang their cheerful song.

Since then, the brothers began to live together, under the same roof.

That's all we know about the three little pigs - Nif-Nifa, Nuf-Nufa

and Naf-Nafa"

The absence of any part or a strong distortion in proportions spoils the story unambiguously.

The Three Little Pigs, by the way, has a very balanced composition! That is why we remember this story to this day.

A sluggish and drawn-out opening leads the reader to stop reading the story after the third paragraph.

Deviations from the plot in the form of descriptions of nature and citing scientific articles are allowed, but ask yourself the question - why is this for the reader? If absolutely necessary, let them stay, but if there is even the slightest doubt, all retreats out!

The scope of the story is limited and involves the exclusion of what is not related to the plot. In the story (compared to the novel), the significance of an individual episode increases, and the details acquire a symbolic character. The main author's forces should be thrown on the description of the protagonist. The main character can be described head-on, or it can be more sophisticated, by using a variety of artistic details.

The story, written in clumsy language, will be read only by the closest relatives of the author. The biggest sin of the author is a heap of unnecessary details. Also, stories are spoiled by excessive detail in the description of actions, the so-called. "caterpillar".

The only way to develop style is to read good literature. Fix - write yourself. To hone and improve style means to listen to criticism. Well, in conclusion, as recommended, a paradoxical denouement.

There are no rules without exceptions. Sometimes the violation of the laws of the construction of the story leads to stunning effects.

The short story genre is one of the most popular in literature. Many writers have turned to him and are turning to him. After reading this article, you will find out what are the features of the short story genre, examples of the most famous works, as well as popular mistakes that authors make.

The story is one of the small literary forms. It is a small narrative work with a small number of characters. In this case, short-term events are displayed.

Brief history of the short story genre

V. G. Belinsky (his portrait is presented above) as early as 1840 distinguished the essay and the story as small prose genres from the story and the novel as larger ones. Already at this time in Russian literature the predominance of prose over verse was fully indicated.

A little later, in the second half of the 19th century, the essay received the broadest development in the democratic literature of our country. At this time, there was an opinion that it was documentary that distinguished this genre. The story, as it was believed then, is created using creative imagination. According to another opinion, the genre we are interested in differs from the essay in the conflict of the plot. After all, the essay is characterized by the fact that it is basically a descriptive work.

Unity of time

In order to more fully characterize the genre of the story, it is necessary to highlight the patterns inherent in it. The first of these is the unity of time. In a story, the action time is always limited. However, not necessarily only one day, as in the works of the classicists. Although this rule is not always observed, it is rare to find stories in which the plot spans the entire life of the protagonist. Even rarer are works in this genre, the action of which lasts for centuries. Usually the author depicts some episode from the life of his hero. Among the stories in which the whole fate of a character is revealed, one can note "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" (author - Leo Tolstoy) and It also happens that not all life is represented, but its long period. For example, Chekhov's "The Jumping Girl" depicts a number of significant events in the fate of the characters, their environment, and the difficult development of relationships between them. However, this is given extremely compacted, compressed. It is the conciseness of the content, greater than in the story, that is a common feature of the story and, perhaps, the only one.

Unity of action and place

There are other features of the short story genre that should be noted. The unity of time is closely connected and conditioned by another unity - action. A story is a genre of literature that should be limited to describing a single event. Sometimes one or two events become the main, meaning-forming, culminating events in it. Hence comes the unity of place. Usually the action takes place in one place. There may be not one, but several, but their number is strictly limited. For example, there may be 2-3 places, but 5 are already rare (they can only be mentioned).

character unity

Another feature of the story is the unity of the character. As a rule, one main character acts in the space of a work of this genre. Occasionally there may be two, and very rarely - several. As for the secondary characters, there can be quite a lot of them, but they are purely functional. The story is a genre of literature in which the task of minor characters is limited to creating a background. They can interfere or help the main character, but no more. In the story "Chelkash" by Gorky, for example, there are only two characters. And in Chekhov's "I want to sleep" there is only one at all, which is impossible either in the story or in the novel.

Unity of the center

Like the genres listed above, one way or another are reduced to the unity of the center. Indeed, a story cannot be imagined without some defining, central sign that "pulls together" all the others. It does not matter at all whether this center will be some static descriptive image, a climactic event, the development of the action itself, or a significant gesture of the character. The main image should be in any story. It is through him that the whole composition is kept. It sets the theme of the work, determines the meaning of the story told.

The basic principle of building a story

It is not difficult to draw a conclusion from reflections on "unities". The idea suggests itself that the main principle of constructing the composition of a story is the expediency and economy of motives. Tomashevsky called the motive the smallest element. It can be an action, a character or an event. This structure can no longer be decomposed into components. This means that the author's biggest sin is excessive detail, oversaturation of the text, a heap of details that can be omitted when developing this genre of work. The story should not go into detail.

It is necessary to describe only the most significant in order to avoid a common mistake. It is very characteristic, oddly enough, for people who are very conscientious about their works. They have a desire to express themselves to the maximum in each text. Young directors often do the same when they stage diploma films and performances. This is especially true for films, since the author's fantasy in this case is not limited to the text of the play.

Imaginative authors love to fill the story with descriptive motifs. For example, they depict how a pack of cannibal wolves is chasing the main character of the work. However, if dawn breaks, they will necessarily stop at the description of long shadows, dimmed stars, reddened clouds. The author seemed to admire nature and only then decided to continue the pursuit. The fantasy story genre gives maximum scope to the imagination, so avoiding this mistake is not at all easy.

The role of motives in the story

It must be emphasized that in the genre of interest to us, all motives should reveal the theme, work for meaning. For example, the gun described at the beginning of the work must certainly fire in the finale. Motives that lead to the side should not be included in the story. Or you need to look for images that outline the situation, but do not overly detail it.

Composition features

It should be noted that it is not necessary to adhere to traditional methods of constructing a literary text. Their violation can be effective. The story can be created almost on the same descriptions. But it is still impossible to do without action. The hero is simply obliged to at least raise his hand, take a step (in other words, make a significant gesture). Otherwise, it will turn out not a story, but a miniature, a sketch, a poem in prose. Another important feature of the genre we are interested in is a meaningful ending. For example, a novel can last forever, but the story is built differently.

Very often its ending is paradoxical and unexpected. It was with this that he associated the appearance of catharsis in the reader. Modern researchers (in particular, Patrice Pavie) consider catharsis as an emotional pulsation that appears as you read. However, the significance of the ending remains the same. The ending can radically change the meaning of the story, push to rethink what is stated in it. This must be remembered.

The place of the story in world literature

The story - which occupies an important place in world literature. Gorky and Tolstoy turned to him both in the early and in the mature period of creativity. Chekhov's story is the main and favorite genre. Many stories have become classics and, along with major epic works (stories and novels), have entered the treasury of literature. Such, for example, are Tolstoy's stories "Three Deaths" and "The Death of Ivan Ilyich", Turgenev's "Notes of a Hunter", Chekhov's works "Darling" and "The Man in a Case", Gorky's stories "Old Woman Izergil", "Chelkash", etc.

Advantages of the short story over other genres

The genre we are interested in allows us to single out one or another typical case, one or another side of our life, with particular convexity. It makes it possible to depict them in such a way that the reader's attention is completely focused on them. For example, Chekhov, describing Vanka Zhukov with a letter "to the village of grandfather", full of childish despair, dwells in detail on the content of this letter. It will not reach its destination and because of this it becomes especially strong in terms of accusation. In the story "The Birth of a Man" by M. Gorky, the episode with the birth of a child that occurs on the road helps the author in revealing the main idea - affirming the value of life.

Introduction

Conclusion

Introduction

For a long time, text linguistics was limited to the study of individual units of language. However, with the increasing relevance of the issue of identifying linguistic means in a literary text and analyzing its organization, linguists are currently paying great attention to a detailed study of speech. Researchers such as I.R. Galperin (2006), G.Ya. Solganik (2002), N.A. Nikolina (2003) created works related to the study of the text and its analysis within the framework of the style of speech.

It seems to us relevant to consider the stylistic features of the language in Francis S. Fitzgerald's story "The Adjuster" due to insufficient knowledge of the specifics of the texts of this author.

The object of this study is the language and style of Francis S. Fitzgerald's short story "The Adjuster".

The subject of the study is the conditionality of the stylistic specificity of the story under study by the author's intention.

The purpose of the study is to study the conditionality of stylistic means and compositional features of the text by the author's artistic intention.

Achieving this goal predetermined the solution of a number of tasks:

· study of the specifics of artistic style;

· study of the features of the story as a genre;

· designation of the main directions in the work of Francis S. Fitzgerald;

· description of the structure of the text and determination of the role of stylistic forming elements in revealing the author's intention in the story.

The short story "The Adjuster", written in 1926 by the American writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald, was chosen as the research material.

During the study, the following methods were applied:

· the method of observation and the method of stylistic analysis to identify the style specificity of the work of Francis Scott Fitzgerald "The Adjuster";

· descriptive method and comparative method for summarizing the results of the study.

The theoretical basis of the study included the concepts and theories presented in works on text linguistics by N.S. Valgina (2001), O.A. Krylova (2006), as well as in the works on the style of the text by G.Ya. Solganika (2002), I.R. Galperin (2006) and others.

The novelty of the presented work lies in the fact that in this study, for the first time, the features of the style of the story of Francis Scott Fitzgerald "The Adjuster" are identified and described. The work reveals the influence of the stylistic means of the English language on the disclosure of the author's intention. Also, the work describes the functional-semantic types of speech, the types of organization of speech by the number of participants and the methods of transmitting someone else's speech used in the story.

The theoretical significance of the work lies in the fact that the study makes a certain contribution to the study of the work of Francis S. Fitzgerald. Practical significance - in the possibility of using the results obtained in practical classes in the style of the text.

The total volume of the studied material is 25 pages.

The work consists of an introduction, two parts and a conclusion.

I. Theoretical background of the study

1.1 Artistic style and its features

Functional style is a kind of literary language that performs a specific function in communication. That is why styles are called functional. If we consider that style is characterized by five functions (there is no unanimity among scientists about the number of functions inherent in the language), then five functional styles are distinguished: colloquial-everyday, scientific, official-business, newspaper-journalistic, artistic [Solganik 2002: 173].

Functional styles determine the stylistic flexibility of the language, the diverse possibilities of expression, variation of thought. [Solganik 2002: 172]. "In essence, linguistic or functional styles are nothing but genre styles of certain spheres of human activity and communication" [Bakhtin 1996: 165].

G.Ya. Solganik notes three features of the functional style:

) each functional style reflects a certain aspect of social life, has a special scope, its own range of topics;

) each functional style is characterized by certain conditions of communication - official, informal, laid-back, etc.;

) each functional style has a common setting, the main task of speech [Solganik 2002: 176].

Among scientists there is no consensus on the allocation of artistic style among other functional styles. Researchers such as I.R. Galperin, A.I. Gorshkov, N.A. Meshchersky consider the language of fiction as a phenomenon of a special kind, which cannot be put on a par with functional styles. However, other researchers such as M.N. Kozhina, N.M. Shansky, D.N. Shmelev, L.Yu. Maksimov, A.K. Panfilov believe that the removal of the artistic style beyond the functional styles impoverishes our understanding of the functions of the language.

ON THE. Nikolina in her work "Philological analysis of the text" identifies the following series of features of a literary text:

In the artistic style, the intratextual reality is created by the author's imagination and is conditional. The world depicted in a literary text correlates with reality only indirectly;

The literary text is a complex organization system. On the one hand, this is a private system of means of a national language, on the other hand, a literary text has its own code system, which the addressee must "decipher" in order to understand the text;

3. In a literary text, "everything strives to become motivated from the point of view of meaning. Here everything is full of internal meaning, and language means itself, regardless of the sign of what things it serves. On this basis, reflection on the word, so characteristic of the language of art, is explained. The poetic word is reflective word. The poet seeks and discovers in the word its "closest etymological meanings", which are valuable for him not for their etymological content, but for the possibilities of figurative application contained in them. This poetic reflection revives the dead in the language, motivates the unmotivated" [Vinokur 1959: 248] ;

The units that form a literary text acquire additional "increments of meaning", or "overtones of meaning". This determines the special integrity of a literary text [Larin 1961: 79];

All elements of the text are interconnected, and its levels show or can show isomorphism. Thus, according to R. Yakobson, adjacent units of a literary text usually show semantic similarity. Poetic speech "projects the principle of equivalence from the axis of selection to the axis of combination" [Yakobson 1975: 201]. Equivalence is one of the most important ways of constructing a literary text: it is found in repetitions that determine the coherence of the text, attract the reader to its form, actualize additional meanings in it and reveal the isomorphism of different levels;

The literary text, as we see, is the result of a complex struggle of various formative elements. This or that element has the meaning of an organizing dominant, dominating the rest and subordinating them to itself. The dominant is understood to be that component of the work that sets in motion and determines the relations of all other components;

The literary text is connected with other texts, refers to them or absorbs their elements. These intertextual connections influence its meaning or even define it. Accounting for intertextual connections can serve as one of the "keys" to the interpretation of a literary work;

A literary text always contains not only direct but also implicit information [Nikolina 2003: 181].

So, a literary text is a private aesthetic system of linguistic means, characterized by a high degree of integrity and structure. It is unique, inimitable and at the same time uses typed construction techniques. This is an aesthetic object that is perceived in time and has a linear extent [Nikolina 2003: 185].

A literary text is always an addressed message: it is a form of communication "author - reader". The text functions taking into account "aesthetic communication", during which the addressee must perceive the intentions of the author and show creative activity. This or that artistic text, to which the reader refers, causes him certain "expectations", which are usually due to the ideas inherent in the mind of the addressee about the problems, composition and typical characteristics of the text, dictated primarily by its genre. Further "interpretation", as a rule, is already connected with attention to the development of images, to repetitions, sequence and features of compatibility of language means of different levels. That is why the philological analysis of a literary text usually starts from its substantive side, but then consistently includes the consideration of the speech system of a literary work in its scope [Nikolina 2003: 187].

An artistic text as a part of culture is always associated with other texts that are transformed or partially used in it, serve to express its meanings.

Thus, the main features of the artistic style include: the indirect correlation of the imaginary and real worlds; interdependence of text elements; a combination of different styles in a literary text; a high degree of structure; aesthetic function.

1.2 Storytelling as a genre of artistic style

One of the important aspects of the analysis of a literary work is the identification of the genre.

Genre is a historically developing and developing type of literary work. "Each individual utterance is individual, but each sphere of language use develops its own relatively stable types of such utterances, which we call speech genres" [Bakhtin 1996: 162].

To determine the genre of a literary work, it is necessary to take into account that genres are classified according to a number of principles:

1) according to belonging to different kinds of poetry: epic (heroic or comic poem), lyrical (ode, elegy, satire);

Fitzgerald functional style story

2) according to the leading aesthetic quality, aesthetic "tonality" (comic, tragic, satirical);

) in terms of the volume and the corresponding structure of the work: the volume largely depends on two main aspects - on the gender and aesthetic "tonality". For example, lyrics are usually small in volume, tragedy requires development, and elegiac motifs can have a relatively small volume [Electronic source No. 3].

Many genres are subdivided into types based on a number of heterogeneous principles:

) the general nature of the subject (for example: a novel of everyday life, adventurous, psychological, socio-utopian, historical, detective, scientific, science fiction, adventure, etc.);

) properties of figurativeness (this principle includes grotesque, allegorical, burlesque, fantastic satire, etc.);

) composition type. (for example: a lyrical poem can be built in the form of a sonnet, triolet, gazelle, haiku, tank, etc.) [Electronic source No. 1].

MM. Bakhtin classifies genres into primary (simple) and secondary (complex). Secondary genres - novels, dramas, various kinds of scientific research, etc. - arise in conditions of a more complex and relatively highly developed (mainly written) cultural communication: artistic, scientific, socio-political, etc. In the process of their formation, they absorb the primary genres that have developed in the conditions of direct speech communication. In his work "The Problem of Speech Genres", he notes that most literary genres are secondary, complex genres, consisting of various transformed primary genres (replicas of dialogue, everyday stories, letters, diaries, protocols, etc.) [Bakhtin 1996: 161].

According to U. Labov, "a story is a specific genre in which the presentation is built in the same order in which the described events of past experience occurred" . He gives his own genre scheme of the story, which consists of six components: summary, orientation, increasing action, evaluation, result / denouement, coda.

W. Chafe offers a simpler story scheme of five components: orientation, plot, climax, denouement, coda.

According to M.M. Bakhtin, the main characteristics of the story are:

1) unity of time. The duration of the story is limited. Works describing the whole life of a character are quite rare.

2) unity of action. There is only one action in the story.

4) unity of place. The number of places where the story takes place is limited. Most often, these are two or three places, the rest can only be mentioned.

5) character unity. There can only be one main character in a story. Sometimes two. Less often - a few. The number of secondary characters is not limited, but each of them performs a specific function, creates a background.

6) unity of the center. The central sign in the story should determine the meaning of the story. It does not matter whether the main character or the climactic event will be the center [Bakhtin 1996: 202].

Thus, the genre features of the story are: the unity of time, the unity of events and place, the unity of the character, and the unity of the center.

II. Stylistic characteristics of the short story "The Adjuster" by Francis Scott Fitzgerald

The material of the study is the short story "The Adjuster" by American writer Francis Scott Fitzgerald, written in 1926. However, before proceeding to the analysis of the work, it is worth referring to the biography of its creator.

The writer was born on September 24, 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in a family descended from an ancient Irish family. He received his name in honor of his distant relative on his father's side, Francis Scott Key, the author of the text of the US national anthem "The Star-Spangled Banner".

While at Princeton, F. Scott Fitzgerald played on the varsity football team and wrote short stories and plays that often won university competitions. By this time, he had already formed a dream to become a writer and author of musical comedies. During his years at Princeton, Fitzgerald had to deal with class inequality. He felt differences between himself and children from wealthier families. Later, he wrote that it was there that he developed "a strong distrust, hostility towards the class of idlers - not the convictions of a revolutionary, but the hidden hatred of the peasant." This is very clearly reflected in his works [Electronic source No. 4].

Francis Fitzgerald is the largest representative of the generation of writers whose creativity peaked between the First and Second World Wars. Fitzgerald is best known for The Great Gatsby, published in 1925, and for a number of novels and short stories about the American Jazz Age of the 1920s. The term "Jazz Age" was coined by Fitzgerald himself and referred to the period of American history from the end of World War I to the Great Depression of the 1930s. His best books, such as "The curious case of Benjamin Button" (1921), "This side of Paradise" (1920), "Tender is the Night" (1934) remained as a confirmation of the failure of bourgeois ideals, the collapse of the "American dream" and tragedies of people who followed imaginary moral guidelines [Electronic source No. 4].

The Adjuster is a short story about a young married couple, Charles and Louella Hemple, who live in New York City. At first glance, it seems that they are happy, they have a child, but in fact, the spouses are undergoing a serious discord in a relationship that is nearing completion. Charles is sick, but Louella does not dare to tell about it. He invites an old acquaintance, Dr. Moon, to the house in the hope that he can help them mend their relationship. Louella sees no need to accept help from a stranger. However, after Doctor Moon's visits to their home, she does not notice that she is beginning to change.

2.2 Text structure and stylistic elements of Francis S. Fitzgerald's short story "The Adjuster"

The quality of the text and its stylistic specificity depend on the structure of speech. This text is narrated in the third person. Distinctive features of this type of narration are a high degree of objectivity, relative completeness in the transfer of the inner world of other characters, in the description of the life around them. In the narration from the third person, there is a mobile correlation "the narrator's speech - the subject-speech plan of the characters".

An example is the following passage from the story: Luella Hemple was tall, with the sort of flaxen hair that English country girls should have, but seldom do. Her skin was radiant, and there was no need of putting anything on it at all, but in deference to an antiquated fashion-this was the year 1920-she had powdered out its high roses and drawn on it a new mouth and new eyebrows- which were no more successful than such meddling deserves. This, of course, is said from the vantage-point of 1925. In those days the effect she gave was exactly right.

This passage describes the appearance of the main character - Louella Hemple: her height, flaxen hair, radiant skin.

In addition, the text also contains second-person narration. The narrator, addressing the reader with "you", makes him feel like a character inside the story. The reader seems to be in the center of events, looking at what is happening with his own eyes. Let's look at an example: Moving your eyes around the slightly raised horse-shoe balcony you might, one spring afternoon, have seen young Mrs. Alphonse Karr and young Mrs.

In the story, someone else's speech is transmitted through direct speech. Direct speech is a bright stylistic color, the most important means of creating a character's character. It has a communicative and aesthetic function. In other words, direct speech is a means of lively, natural, expressive transmission of content, information, and disclosure of artistic intent. Direct speech allows diversifying the author's monologue, avoiding monotony [Solganik 2002: 175].

An example is Louella's conversation with a friend: " Ive been married three years,she was saying as she squashed out a cigarette in an exhausted lemon. "The baby will be two years old to-morrow. I must remember to get. She took a gold pencil from her case and wrote "Candles" and "Things you pull, with paper caps," on an ivory date-pad. Then, raising her eyes, she looked at Mrs. Karr and hesitated.

From the point of view of participation in the speech of one, two or more people, monologue, dialogue and polylogue are distinguished. It should be noted that in this text the dialogue form of speech prevails, and the narrative is presented as a background. Dialogic speech is the primary, natural form of linguistic communication. If we keep in mind everyday dialogues, then this, as a rule, is spontaneous, unprepared speech, to the least extent literary processed. Dialogic speech is characterized by a close meaningful connection of replicas, which is most often expressed in a question and an answer.

As G.Ya. Solganik, the abuse of direct speech, dialogues usually harms the artistry of the work. “Solid dialogues,” M. Gorky noted, “you can’t write essays, even if their material is saturated with drama. Such a manner of writing harms the picturesqueness of the presentation. a story of brightness, liveliness" [Solganik 2002: 182].

One of the main purposes of dialogue in fiction is the speech characterization of characters. Introducing direct statements of characters into the verbal fabric, the author thereby uses their replicas, monologues, dialogues for the speech characterization of the characters. For a deeper understanding, let's look at a few examples:

"Such a nice house, Mrs. Hemple," said Doctor Moon impersonally; "and let me congratulate you on your fine little boy.

"Thanks. coming from a doctor, thats a nice compliment." She hesitated.

"Do you specialize in children?

"Im not a specialist at all,he said. "Im about the last of my kind-a general practitioner,.

At the beginning of Luella's acquaintance with Doctor Moon, their dialogue characterized the girl as a modest person, but very interested in the personality and profession of the Doctor, while Doctor Moon appears mysterious, but gives the impression of a very intelligent person, competent in his field.

The following dialogue reveals other character traits of Louella Hemple:

"Dont be afraid, Mrs. Hemple," said Doctor Moon suddenly.This was forced upon me. I do not act as a free agent-"

"Im not afraid of you,she interrupted. But she knew that she was lying. She was a little afraid of him, if only for his dull insensitivity to her distaste.

"Tell me about your trouble,he said very naturally, as though she were not a free agent either. He wasn'tt even looking at her, and except that they were alone in the room, he scarcely seemed to be addressing her at all.

"Didn'tt you see him rubbing his face at dinner?she said despairingly. "Are you blind? Hes become so irritating to me that I think Ill go mad.

This dialogue characterizes the heroine as an impatient, quick-tempered and irritable girl. When the doctor asks a question about the reason for the discord in relations with her husband, Louella interrupts him and ends the dialogue with an annoyed answer.

There is also a polylogue in the text. Polylogue is a form of natural colloquial speech in which several speakers participate, for example, a family conversation, a feast, a group discussion of a topic. The common features of the dialogue - the connectedness of remarks, meaningful and constructive, spontaneity, etc. - are clearly manifested in the polylogue [Solganik 2002: 184].

Consider an example of a polylog:

"This is Doctor Moon-this is my wife. "A man a little older than her husband, with a round, pale, slightly lined face, came forward to meet her.

"Good evening, Mrs. Hemple," he said. "I hope Im not interfering with any arrangements of yours.

"Oh, no," Luella cried quickly. "Im delighted that youre coming to dinner. Were quite alone.

In this polylogue example, we see that three characters are involved in the conversation: Mrs. Hemple, Mr. Hemple, and Dr. Moon. Polylogue is used to characterize the characters, their relationships. In the example, Mr. and Mrs. Hemple show courtesy and hospitality, while Dr. Moon shows tact when they first meet Louella.

In the story, one can notice the prevalence of such functional and semantic types of speech as narration and description. "The description consists in depicting a whole series of signs, phenomena, objects or events that must be imagined all at the same time" [Kogan 1915: 89]. The first example of a description occurs at the beginning of the story. For example, the description of a room in the Ritz Hotel:

At five oclock the sombre egg-shaped room at the Ritz ripens to subtle melody-the light clat-clat of one lump, two lumps, into the cup, and the ding of the shining teapots and cream-pots as they kiss elegantly in transit upon a silver tray. There are those who cherish that amber hour above all other hours, for now the pale, pleasant toil of the lilies who inhabit the Ritz is over-the singing decorative part of the day remains.

The author uses lexical language means, namely epithets: sombre egg-shaped room, subtle melody, kiss elegantly, the shining teapots, the pale, pleasant toil of the lilies, the singing decorative part of the day.

Narration is a depiction of events or phenomena that do not occur simultaneously, but follow one after another or determine each other [Solganik, 2002: 142]. Sentences of narrative contexts do not describe actions, but narrate about them, i.e. the event itself, the action, is transmitted. Like other functional and semantic types of speech, narration is a reflection of reality in which a story, story, novel takes place. Here is an example of a story:

Mrs. Karr and Mrs. Hemple were twenty-three years old, and their enemies said that they had done very well for themselves. Either might have had her limousine waiting at the hotel door, but both of them much preferred to walk home (up Park Avenue) through the April twilight.

The author uses lexical language means denoting the place of action ( up Park Avenue)faces ( Mrs. Karr and Mrs. hemple)and notation of the actions themselves ( had done very well, preferred to walk home).

Integrity and coherence - these, in essence, the main, constructive features of the text - reflect the content and structural essence of the text. At the same time, researchers, in particular, distinguish between local connectivity and global connectivity. Both types of connection are traced in this text. Local connectivity is the connectivity of linear sequences (statements, interphrase units). It is determined by lexical and grammatical means.

Let's look at examples of parallel communication. The stylistic resources of parallel communication are also very significant. They have a whole range of stylistic shades - from neutral to solemn, even pathetic [Solganik, 2002: 159]. For example:

The one in the dress was Mrs. Hemple-when I say "the dress" I refer to that black immaculate affair with the big buttons and the red ghost of a cape at the shoulders, a gown suggesting with faint and fashionable irreverence the garb of a French cardinal, as it was meant to do when it was invented in the Rue de la Paix.

In this example, the sentences are united by one topic - a description of the appearance of Louella Hemple.

Reflecting the nature of thinking, naming actions, events, phenomena located nearby, parallel connections by their very nature are intended for description and narration [Solganik, 2002: 159].

The next type of connection between sentences is attachment. This is such a principle of constructing an utterance, in which part of it, in the form of separate, as it were, additional information, is attached to the main message. For example:

". a supper after the theater to meet some Russians singers or dancers or something, and Charles says he wont go. If he doesn'tt-then Im going alone.And that s the end .

Thus, in the text there are: parallel connection and connecting connection.

The artistic style differs from other functional styles in a special aesthetic function. Its implementation is due to the active use of various stylistic devices (tropes and figures of speech).

Epithets are distinguished by colorful definitions, figurative characterization of objects and actions, and vivid assessment [Derevyanko 2015: 164].

as interesting to me as a-as a boiler-room; it wasn'tt so bad as it seemed; the same shape as hers.

egg-shaped room ripens to subtle melody.

It should be noted that at the lexical level there are a large number of verbs, with the help of which the author shows the dullness, the everyday life of the heroine: hesitated, bores, get nervous, want to scream.

Comparisons and evaluative vocabulary are practically absent, but colloquial vocabulary is found, for example: vile(vile (colloquial) - mean, disgusting).

The syntactic level is quite simple: it traces the direct word order, but the author uses exclamatory and interrogative sentences to increase the expressiveness of the narrative. For example:

"No, I invited you! I ve got the money right here! ;

"That s right! Here, wait a minute, Chuck! ;

"Didn't t you see him rubbing his face at dinner? ;

Are you blind?

The title is one of the most important elements of the semantic and aesthetic organization of a literary text, so choosing a title is one of the author's most difficult tasks. The title is the associative center of the work. It sets up the reader and focuses his attention on the topic, the essence of which will be revealed in the subsequent text. That is why it is important to consider the title of the text to identify the author's assessment.

The title of the story, "The Adjuster" refers to a minor character, Dr. Moon, who nonetheless occupies an important place in the storyline. It is Doctor Moon who helps the Hemple family find a common language with each other and understand the importance of their relationship. In the story, this character appears as unexpectedly and mysteriously as he disappears, symbolizing the inevitability of what is happening. However, his image makes it clear to the heroes that everything in this life depends on them, and no matter how difficult the situation may seem, there is always a way out.

Thus, this story is told in the third person, which is characterized by the completeness of the transfer of the inner world of the characters. In addition, the text highlights the narration in the second person, which allows the reader to see what is happening with their own eyes. Someone else's speech in the story is transmitted through direct speech. Its main function is to create the character's character.

In the story, one can distinguish such functional and semantic types of speech as narration (image of events following one after another) and description (image of a number of signs, phenomena and events).

For a more colorful description of phenomena, objects and influence on the aesthetic perception of the reader, the author uses epithets, comparisons, etc. in the text.

Conclusion

In the first part of this study, we consider the main features of the artistic style, which include linguistic means of various styles, intertextual connections, explicit and implicit information, and aesthetic function. In addition, we consider the genre features of the story. The main features of the story as a genre include a small volume, limited time of action in the work, a single storyline, as well as the unity of place and character.

The second part of the study examined the main directions of the work of Francis Scott Fitzgerald, the creator of the term "Jazz Age", which revealed to the whole world the failure of ideals and the "American dream".

In the course of analyzing the work of Francis Scott Fitzgerald "The Adjuster" we also identify and describe the stylistic forming elements. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that in this story the narration is in the third person, description and narration prevail. In addition to dialogue, which plays the main role in the narrative, there is also a polylogue. Alien speech in the text is transmitted in the form of direct speech.

Thus, the stylistic analysis of the text allows revealing the ideological content of the work, its artistic features, and also contributes to the achievement of the correct perception of the work as a whole.

List of sources used

1.Bakhtin M.M. Literary-critical articles. - M., 1996. - S.159-206

2.Valgina N.S. Text theory. Tutorial. - M., 2003. - P.173.

.Galperin I.R. Text as an object of linguistic research. 4th edition, stereotypical. M: KomKniga, 2006. - P.144.

.Derevianko A.A., Nechiporuk T.V., Chernaya T.N., Chekh N.V. Features of the interaction of the epithet with other tropes in the poetic texts of A.A. Akhmatova // Young scientist. - 2015. - No. 11. - S.1599-1602.

.Kogan P.S. Theory of literature. - M., 1915, p.89.

.Larin B.A. The spoken language of Muscovite Russia // The initial stage of the formation of the Russian national language. L., 1961, pp. 22-34.

.Nikolina N.A. Philological analysis of the text: textbook. allowance for students. higher ped. textbook establishments. - M., 2003. - S.256.

.Solganik G.Ya. Text style: Textbook. - 4th edition. - M., 2002. - S.256.

.Jacobson R. Linguistics and poetics // Structuralism: "for" and "against". - M., 1975. - S. 204.

10.W. Chafe. Discourse, Consciousness, and Time: The Flow and Displacement of Conscious Experience in Speaking and Writing. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; P.137.

11. Electronic resources

12.1. #"justify">13. 2. https: // ru. wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A4%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B4%D0%B6%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BB%D1%8C%D0%B4 ,_%D0%A4%D1%80%D1%8D%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%B8%D1%81_%D0%A1%D0%BA%D0%BE%D1%82%D1%82 #. D0.91. D0. B8. D0. B.E. D0. B3. D1.80. D0. B0. D1.84. D0. B8. D1.8F (accessed 05/07/2016)

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The story is a small literary form; a narrative work of small volume with a small number of characters and the short duration of the events depicted. Or according to the "Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary" by V.M. Kozhevnikov and P.A. Nikolaeva: “A small epic genre form of fiction is a small prose work in terms of the volume of the depicted phenomena of life, and hence in terms of the volume of the text. Belinsky already distinguished the story and essay as small genres of prose from the novel and story as larger ones.In the second half of the 19th century, when essay works were widely developed in Russian democratic literature, it was believed that this genre is always documentary, while stories are created on the basis of creative imagination. According to another opinion, the story differs from the essay in the conflict of the plot, while the essay is a work mainly descriptive.

There is another kind of small prose work - a short story. Unlike the short story, a genre of new literature at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, which brought to the fore the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and gravitated towards detailed characteristics, the short story is the art of the plot in its purest form, which developed in ancient times in close connection with the ritual magic and myths, addressed primarily to the active, and not the contemplative side of human existence. The novelistic plot, built on sharp antitheses and metamorphoses, on the sudden transformation of one situation into another, directly opposite to it, is common in many folklore genres (fairy tale, fable, medieval anecdote, fablio, schwank).

The short story genre originated in America. Poe and Hawthorne were especially famous in this form, who had to intervene their talents in the "Procrustean bed" of a newspaper story. But the result turned out to be successful: the short story genre gained unprecedented depth and became a national American genre.

1. The emergence and main distinguishing features of the short story as one of the prosaic genres of literature.

The problem of literary genres traditionally attracts the attention of researchers and is actively developed in literary criticism and linguistics. Being not only a form of being of literature, but also a form of being of a language, the genre focuses in itself all the most important aspects of works of art: the nature of the reference in the text, the ambivalence of semantics, the plurality of interpretations of the word, absolute anthropocentrism.

The variety of life relations brings to life the variety of life forms in which we find different ways of depicting human characters in the most typical manifestations for them. One of these forms is the story.

Novella (Italian novella - news) is a narrative prose genre, which is characterized by brevity, a sharp plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism, and an unexpected denouement. Sometimes it is used as a synonym for a story, sometimes it is called a kind of story.

The short story is characterized by several important features: extreme brevity, a sharp, even paradoxical plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism and descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement. The plot structure of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler.

Goethe spoke about the action-packed nature of the novel, giving it the following definition: "an unheard-of event that has taken place."

The story emphasizes the meaning of the denouement, which contains an unexpected turn (pointe, "falcon turn"). According to the French researcher, "ultimately, one can even say that the whole short story is conceived as a denouement."

Among the predecessors of Boccaccio, the short story had a moralizing attitude. Boccaccio retained this motif, but his morality followed from the short story not logically, but psychologically, and often was only a pretext and a device. The later short story convinces the reader of the relativity of moral criteria.

Often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish: for example, A. S. Pushkin's Belkin's Tale is, rather, five short stories.

The story is similar to the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the emphasis on the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and the inclination towards detailed psychological characteristics.

The story is distinguished by the fact that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero's life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried.

When studying short stories, the idea of ​​M.M. Bakhtin about the unconditional communicative determinism of the speech genre and the dependence of the language structure and compositional construction on the genre specificity of the work. A similar perspective of the study suggests, when studying the genre from the standpoint of linguistic stylistics, the integration of data on the specific features of the story.

The study of genres is one of the most complex and insufficiently developed issues both in literary criticism and linguistic stylistics. The very term "genre" is polysemantic. They denote both the literary genre (epos, lyrics, drama), and the type of work of art (novel, story, short story), and genre form (for example, a science fiction story). Therefore, they talk about the genre of the story, and the genre of science fiction, and the genre of the science fiction story.

In literary criticism, "genre" is defined as "the unity of the compositional structure, repeated in many works throughout the history of the development of literature, due to the originality of the reflected phenomena of reality and the nature of the artist's attitude towards it." From the point of view of linguistics, a genre is a certain selection and combinatorics of linguistic means.

Genre is not a permanent system. It is updated, modified along with the era, reflecting its contemporary picture of the world in the language of a certain era. The works that form the genre differ significantly in form in the works of writers belonging to different literary movements and historical eras. At the same time, the genre does not lose the certainty and stability of the main structural features. The process of the birth of genres "never stops. A genre arises ... and subsides, turning into the rudiments of other systems." Traditional genres can mix, forming new ones. Modern genre theory does not limit their number.

The final design of the story as an independent genre in English-language prose falls on the 19th-20th centuries. By this time, the story takes on its characteristic outlines, the first works on the theory of the small genre appear (E. Poe in the USA, B. Matthews in England), in which researchers try to determine the properties inherent in the works of the "short story" genre.

The signs of the story reveal themselves in different genre forms in many different ways. The plot of a story can be driven by the power of individual psychological impulses, social contradictions, juxtaposition and opposition of pictures of the future, the present, and so on. Hence the variety of varieties of the story: psychological, social, sci-fi, etc. Despite the diversity of themes and issues that led to the existence of varieties of the story, some characteristic features of the story as a genre can be distinguished.

The story is characterized by the metonymic principle of reality coverage, according to which the artistic picture of the world, modeled in the story, is presented as a key fragment of the big world. Therefore, they say about the fragmentation of the story.

The metonymic principle of reflecting reality determines:

- single-event, single-problem story. The story usually explores the situation in which the hero shows himself most prominently (the boundary situation);

- small volume;

- a limited number of characters;

- integrity: the narration in the story is, as it were, pulled together to one node;

- conciseness, dynamism and tension. There is no redundant information. All elements of the text are informationally significant. A large artistic load is carried by a detail that allows you to create an image with a few strokes.

A story, like any other type of text, has its own temporal system that most adequately satisfies the structural, compositional and stylistic features of texts of this type. The continuum of the text of the story is generally characterized by the continuity of the sequence of events. Varieties of the story have their spatio-temporal parameters. Thus, the spatio-temporal parameters of a science fiction story are defined as "foreign" time and "foreign" space. The chronotope of a psychological and social story is "ordinary" time and "ordinary" space:

- a certain one-dimensionality of the speech style of the story is noted (a property due to its one-problem nature). It may have elements of typification, a stamp (for example, plot construction, characterization in a science fiction story);

- a single aspect of the epic vision, the predominance of one point of view on the events set forth in the story (monomodality);

- some researchers consider the "cinematic" visual techniques to be one of the properties of the story.

This property is reflected in the interchangeability of compositional-speech forms (CSF), in the ability to consider this phenomenon from different positions (spatial, temporal), to establish cause-and-effect relationships.

Throughout the period of research on the short story, attempts have been repeatedly made to formulate a definition of the story that would reflect the immanent properties of this genre. However, one cannot but agree with R. West's opinion that "the final definition of a short story will hardly ever be found .... to define a short story means to impose restrictions on it that would destroy its attractiveness in many ways."

2. The development of the short story genre in American literature. Innovation and tradition...

Short story, original American translation. short story, however, in Europe, due to the predominance of the short story, a special genre, a short epic prose intermediate form between the short story, essay and anecdote, characterized by a purposeful, linear, concise and conscious composition aimed at an inevitable resolution (calculated from the end), aimed at concussion or bringing ruin to life, or opening a way out. Condensation of an event rounded in itself at one decisive moment with an unforeseen pointe in a narrow space; outcomes of human life, esp. some an outsider animated by the moment; realistic. transmission of facts, provoking knowledge; turn into the surreal or into the impressionistic. the image of the mood form the scale of its possibilities, which must be comprehended in constant expansion.

Like all American literature, the short story is a relatively young genre: its origin dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. Bret Harte called the short story America's "national" genre. For American literature, this genre is special: it was born in the form of a story.

The origins of the American story are in the European romantic novel of the 18th-19th centuries, the oral story (tall-tale) of American trappers, Negro folklore, and Indian legends. Some researchers note the influence of the educational essay and essay of the 18th century. to form the genre of the story. The spread of magazines in the country contributed to the strengthening of the genre of the story. All of the above factors, against the background of national living conditions, the peculiarities of the historical and cultural development of the United States, determined the specifics of the American national story, which B. Garth saw in the presence of a sharp plot, humorous coloring, an unexpected ending, corresponding to the character and temperament of the American, and V.L. Parrington - in an effort to get rid of everything superfluous and love for technology brought to perfection.

W. Irving, E. Poe, N. Hawthorne, G. Melville stood at the origins of the national school in America. The traditions of the story were continued in the works of B. Garth, M. Twain, O'Henry, J. London, who laid the foundation for the "fable" story (on which basis the action genres were formed: detective story, science fiction).

The problem of the articulation of the text and the allocation of units that make it up attracts the attention of many researchers.

As you know, according to the context-variable division in the author's speech, forms are distinguished that are traditionally called compositional speech - narration, description, reasoning. With this type of segmentation, the image of a fragment of artistic reality is carried out in a subjective-authorial refraction: the author describes phenomena from temporal or spatial positions or establishes causal relationships between them. Thus, each compositional-speech form is based on a certain way of cognizing reality: following in time (narration), direct observation (description), establishing cause-and-effect relationships (reasoning).

As you know, according to the context-variable division in the author's speech, forms are distinguished that are traditionally called compositional speech - narration, description, reasoning. With this type of segmentation, the image of a fragment of artistic reality is carried out in a subjective - author's refraction: the author describes phenomena from temporal or spatial positions or establishes causal relationships between them. Thus, each compositional-speech form is based on a certain way of cognizing reality: following in time (narration), direct observation (description), establishing cause-and-effect relationships (reasoning).

Each of the compositional-speech forms is different and has its own set of language tools. A sign of dynamism is the content of the narrative form of speech, static character is characteristic of the description, reasoning conveys information of an abstract, panchronic nature. Compositional-speech forms presuppose organization and a certain closure of the structure, however, they are rarely found in a "pure" form. When creating a speech work, CRFs undergo all sorts of changes depending on the content of the work, the speech genre, and the author's individual stylistic manner. The composition of the work presents a wide variety of forms in the form of concentrated and dispersed structures (classical, derivative, free and mixed) in a wide variety of combinations.

Differences in the formation of the CRF in the story can affect both the set and the nature of the CRF (their scope, boundaries, structure).

The works of classical prose are characterized by a clear opposition of types of narration, the alternation of the plans of the narrator and the character, dynamic segments and static segments, suspending the course of the narration.

In the stories of writers of the first half of the XIX century. the author's speech dominates, static units predominate: description in its varieties (landscape, portrait, characterization), author's digressions in the form of reasoning, which leads to the length and slowness of the narrative. Personal and improperly direct speech are represented by occasional inclusions. Short prose works in US literature 20-30 years. XIX century, for the most part, was characterized by "a monstrously prolonged exposition, sketchy descriptiveness, poor elaboration of characters, plot sluggishness, open structure"

Themes and problems of Edgar PO's stories and O. Henry's short story "Gifts of the Magi".

The social orientation of the novels.

O. Henry is not the first original master of the "short story", he only developed this genre, in its main features already established in the work of T. B. Aldrich (Thomas Bailey Aldrich, 1836-1907). The originality of O. Henry was manifested in the brilliant use of jargon, sharp words and expressions, and in the general colorfulness of the dialogues.

Already during the life of the writer, the "short story" in his style began to degenerate into a scheme, and by the 1920s it turned into a purely commercial phenomenon: the "method" of its production was taught in colleges and universities, numerous manuals were published, etc.

All the work of O. Henry is imbued with attention to the inconspicuous "little" people, whose troubles and joys he so vividly and vividly depicted in his works. He wants to draw attention to those genuine human values ​​that can always serve as support and comfort in the most difficult life situations. And then something amazing happens: the most seemingly deplorable endings of his short stories begin to be perceived as happy or, in any case, optimistic.

In The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, a husband sells a watch to buy his young wife a set of hair combs. However, she will not be able to use the gift because she sold her hair in order to buy her husband a watch chain in turn. But the gift, alas, will not be useful to him either, since he no longer has a watch. Sad and ridiculous story. And yet, when O. Henry says in the finale that "of all the donors, these two were the wisest", we cannot but agree with him, for the true wisdom of the heroes, according to the author, is not in the "gifts of the Magi", but in their love and selfless devotion to each other.

The joy and warmth of human communication in the full range of its manifestations - love and participation, self-denial, true, disinterested friendship - these are the life guidelines that, according to O. Henry and Chekhov, can brighten up human existence and make it meaningful and happy.

The social nature of O. Henry is primarily manifested in his demonstrative and emphasized democracy. The writer seeks to draw the attention of the privileged part of society to people deprived of benefits in this society. And so he often makes the heroes of his short stories those who, in modern terms, are "near the poverty line."

Another prominent American short story writer is Edgar Allan Poe.

Numerous experiments undertaken by Edgar Allan Poe in the field of the short story led him over time to attempt to create a theory of the genre.

The theory of the Poe novel can best be represented as the sum of the requirements that every writer working in this genre must reckon with. The first of these concerns the volume or length of the work. A novella, Poe argues, should be short. A long story is no longer a story. However, in striving for brevity, the writer must observe a certain measure. A work that is too short is incapable of making a deep and strong impression, for, in his words, "without some stretch, without repetition of the main idea, the soul is rarely touched." The measure of the length of a work is determined by the ability to read it all at once, in its entirety, so to speak, "in one sitting."

It should be noted that in many discussions about the art of prose, Poe operates not with literary terminology, but rather with architectural and construction terminology. He will never say: "the writer wrote the story," but certainly - "the writer built the story." An architectural structure, a building, are the most organic metaphors for Poe when it comes to a story.

Poe's understanding of the plot and its function is unconventional and has a certain breadth. He repeatedly insisted that the plot cannot be reduced to plot or intrigue. If we put together all Poe's thoughts on the plot, we can conclude that the writer understood the plot as the general formal structure of the work, the chain of actions, events, characters, objects. The plot, as he interprets, rests on the principles of necessity and interdependence. There should not be anything superfluous in it, and all its elements should be interconnected. The plot is like a building in which the removal of one brick can cause a collapse. the indestructible expediency of all elements of the plot is achieved by complete subordination to its general plan. Each episode, each event, each word in the story should serve to implement the plan and achieve a single effect.

It should be emphasized that Poe assigned such an important role to the plot only in the story. He admitted the possibility of the existence of a "plotless" novel or poem. But he perceived the expression "plotless story" as a contradiction in terms.

In The Gold Bug, Poe takes the reader to Sullivan Island near Charleston, where his hero Legrand leads a mysterious and secluded life. In this short story, murder, kidnapping, and similar crimes give way to the specific theme of treasure hunting, which will continue throughout American literature, appearing in the work of such masters as Twain and Faulkner.

As a result of a combination of accidents and coincidences, a secret paper about the buried treasures of the famous pirate falls into Legrand's hands. Next comes the technical question of deciphering the cryptogram, which Legrand carries out with convincing clarity.

The author dwells in detail on the details of real American reality, which help him create the impression of the authenticity of the events taking place. So, at the beginning of the story, the writer, describing his hero, says that "he was previously rich, but the failures that followed one after another brought him to poverty." Therefore, "to avoid the humiliation associated with the loss of wealth, he left New Orleans, the city of his ancestors, and settled on ... an island." In this description, the author reveals a typically American outlook on life. A person who has lost his capital suffers humiliation in American society, they treat him with contempt, not even considering him a person. The writer seems to emphasize that the master of American society is the dollar, which has taken possession of the minds and souls of his compatriots. Perhaps that is why the obsession with returning the lost wealth completely absorbs Legrand.

The symbol of the desire to get rich again is in the story the golden bug, which Legrand finds under very mysterious circumstances. Both Legrand and his negro servant constantly say that this beetle is made of pure gold. Although, the description of the beetle shows, it is just a rather rare specimen of the exotic fauna of those places where the hero of the story lives. Jupiter, Legrand's servant, says that the golden bug bit his master, which made him very ill. In these words of the writer, which he puts into the mouth of a Negro, there is a hint of American reality. The citizens of America are all striving by hook or by crook to find the golden beetle, and when they find it, this beetle bites so hard that most of them fall ill with a terrible disease that wears a person like a worm from the inside, aiming him on the path of hoarding and profit. This is probably why the Negro servant does not want to pick up the golden bug, fearing to catch this disease, which in the future can lead him to hardening of the soul. In the meantime, Jup manages not to become infected with a passion for wealth and remain a man who serves his master not for money, but at the behest of his heart (although he is a freed slave).

Legrand's meeting with the beetle reminded him of his lost wealth, and the beetle itself seemed to him a god who would help him get rich again: "This beetle will bring me happiness<…>he will give me back my lost wealth. Is it any wonder that I appreciate him so much? He is sent down by fate itself and will return wealth to me, if only I correctly understand his instructions.

In the burning desire of the hero to find the buried wealth there is also a purely American "invincible premonition of great luck." It does not deceive the hero, and after a series of fascinating episodes, he, together with his companion, who acts as a narrator, compiles a complete list of the found jewelry and calculates their value. “That night we valued the contents of our chest at one and a half million dollars. Later, when we sold precious stones and gold items<…>it turned out that our assessment of the treasure was too modest."

Thus, as you can see, the story ends on an optimistic note, in the spirit of the values ​​of American society. The hero not only sought to get rich - he managed to do it.

The author-narrator in the structure of the narrative

In the ideological clashes of characters, if not the bearer of truth, then more than others approaching it, it is always not the one whose logic is stricter and the idea is more convincingly justified, but the one whose purely human qualities arouse the author's great sympathy. And O. Henry is full of participation and sympathy for those of his heroes who most of all need help and protection.

Events in the works of Chekhov and O. Henry are not prepared either compositionally or by other stylistic means; they are not distinguished. There is no sign on the reader's path: "Attention: event"!

In the "House with a mezzanine" there is an unexpected and fleeting first meeting of the artist with the Volchaninov sisters: "Once, returning home, I accidentally wandered into some unfamiliar estate<…>at the white stone gates that led from the courtyard into the field, at the old fortress gates with lions, stood two girls. "But the next meeting, which served as the beginning of all further events, was prepared in the narrative no more carefully: one of the holidays, we remembered the Volchaninovs and went to see them in Shelkovka. "Meetings, the beginnings of all events occur as if unintentionally, by themselves," somehow "; the decisive episodes are fundamentally not significant.

To his touching story about the life of the poor ("Gifts of the Magi"), O. Henry gives the character of a literary riddle, and the reader does not know what the outcome of events will be.

The writer enriched the art of creating an unexpected denouement with the introduction of "two denouements - a pre-denouement and a true denouement, which complements, explains or, on the contrary, completely refutes the first one." And if the first can still be guessed in the course of reading, then the second is not able to foresee the most insightful writer. And this betrays the short stories of O. Henry a truly irresistible charm. This naturalness of presentation was picked up by the writer of another literary era - I. A. Bunin: "The goal of the artist is not to justify any task, but to reflect in depth and essential reflection of life.<…>The artist must proceed not from the depths of external life data, but from the soil of life, listening not to the noise of party positions and disputes, but to the inner voices of living life, speaking of the layers and layers in it, created against all desires, according to the immutable laws of life itself. Needless to say, intuitive artistic comprehension is more expensive and valuable than all the solemn broadcasts prompted by the journalism of one camp or another!

More than any other of his contemporaries, Poe cared about the reader's trust in the author. Therefore, the principle of the reliability of the narrative, or, as he said, "the powerful magic of credibility", is one of the cornerstones of the theory of the story. The peculiarity of Poe's view lies in the fact that he demanded the extension of this principle to the image of obviously improbable, fantastic events and phenomena. The author had to win the absolute trust of the reader, to convince him of the reality of the fantastic and the possibility of the incredible. Without this, according to Poe, an artistically convincing realization of the original idea is impossible.

Most readers and many critics very often identified the narrator of short stories, including the short stories "Golden Beetle", with the author himself, putting an equal sign between him and his character. It is not difficult to understand their delusion. The narrator in logical stories is an almost abstract figure. He has no name, no biography, and even his appearance is not described. True, the reader may conclude something about his inclinations, interests, way of life, but this information is scarce, they come across by chance, by the way, since he is not talking about himself, but about his hero. The little that we know about him - broad education, love of scientific pursuits, attraction to a solitary lifestyle - fully allows for his identification with the author. However, the similarity here is purely external, not extending to the way of thinking. In this regard, the narrator is the exact opposite of the author.

It is characteristic that the tone of the narration, where the narrator undertakes to talk about Legrand, often takes on a condescending tone. And this happens not because he is smarter than the hero, but just the opposite, because he is unable to understand him to the end. He vaguely senses that there is more to the operations of Legrand's intellect than pure logic unwinding the chains of induction and deduction, but he cannot grasp what it is. The idea of ​​"miracles of intuition" seems to him doubtful. Legrand's astounding success in unraveling the mystery is due to his "analytical abilities" manifesting themselves through impeccably rigorous and subtle inductive-deductive constructions. Everything else, in his eyes, is nothing more than "a consequence of a sick mind." When he accurately conveys the hero's reasoning, he often tells the reader more than he himself understands. No wonder the "phenomenal" results of the investigation conducted by the hero invariably stun him.

Nevertheless, the role of the narrator in Poe's short story is great, because it is the narrator who helps the reader to reveal the character and psychology of the protagonist, who shares his innermost thoughts and feelings with his friend.

Humorous element of stories.

The humor in the stories reveals the inferiority of life, emphasizing, exaggerating, hyperbolizing it, making it tangible, concrete in the works. Humorous element in A.P. Chekhov and O. Henry is one of the most attractive aspects of their work. The humor of O. Henry is rooted in the tradition of the comic story that existed among the first settlers of America. In O. Henry, humor is often associated with comic situations that underlie many plots. They help the writer to debunk certain negative phenomena of reality. Resorting to parody and paradox, O. Henry reveals the unnatural essence of such phenomena and their incompatibility with the normal practice of human behavior. O. Henry's humor is unusually rich in nuances, impetuous, whimsical, he keeps the author's speech as if under a current, and does not allow the narrative to go along a predicted channel. It is impossible to separate irony and humor from O. Henry's narration - this is his "element, the natural environment of his talent. The situation of short stories is far from always humorous; and yet, no matter what emotional keys the author presses, the invariably ironic turn of his mind gives a very special shade to everything happening."

O. Henry is a remarkable master of humor in American literature.

The overwhelming majority of O. Henry's stories are, in essence, devoted to the most ordinary phenomena of life. His characters are driven by a feeling of love, friendship, the desire to do good, the ability to sacrifice themselves, while negative personalities act under the influence of hatred, anger, money-grubbing, careerism. Behind the unusual in O. Henry, in the end, there is always the ordinary.

The writer has a mocking or ironic tone in most of his stories. The development of the action and the behavior of the characters, and sometimes very serious phenomena in O. Henry's short stories, always come down to a joke, to a funny denouement.

O. Henry notices the funny in people, in their behavior, in those situations that develop in the process of clashes between the characters. Laughter O. Henry is good-natured, there is no rudeness and cynicism in it. The writer does not laugh at the physical shortcomings of his heroes, at their real misfortunes. He is deeply alien to that cruel gloomy humor, which is sometimes inherent in the writers of the West.

O. Henry's laughter is noble, because the basis of the writer's humor is a deep faith in a person, love for him, hatred for everything that disfigures life and people.

O. Henry has a story called Soul Mates, which tells how a burglar breaks into the house of a wealthy man at night and finds him lying in bed. The bandit orders the man in the street to put his hands up. The inhabitant explains that due to an acute attack of rheumatism, he cannot do this. The bandit immediately remembers that he, too, suffers from this disease. He asks the patient what means he uses. So they talk, and then go out to drink together: "Okay," says the thief, "drop it, I invite you. Enough for a drink."

The comical idyll depicting a robber and his possible victim walking arm in arm into a tavern cannot but cause a smile. It's funny, of course, not that in the heroes of O. Henry unexpectedly human is revealed. It's funny that the human shows up in such an unexpected, abnormal form. In O. Henry's humor, therefore, there is a significant amount of irony in relation to the order of life that gives rise to such inconsistencies. Behind this irony lies the sadness that is so characteristic of the humor of humanist writers, depicting the funny grimaces of life.

Here is an example of a humorous story, where the same idea appears in a different version - "The Stockbroker's Romance". Having renounced for a short time the atmosphere of the stock market rush, the broker proposes to his stenographer to marry him. The stenographer behaved very strangely. At first she seemed to be amazed, then tears welled up from her astonished eyes, and then she smiled sunnyly through her tears. "... I get it," she said softly, "it's the stock market that has pushed everything else out of your head." And she tells Harry that they got married yesterday.

It is impossible to say more clearly: the exchange has ousted all natural, normal feelings from a person.

So, we have before us two stories that seem to cause only "light laughter". Meanwhile, as we can see, their humor is based on a deeply humane and democratic outlook on life. Pondering the content of other stories, we find the same view. That's why O. Henry's laugh is a noble laugh.

The inventiveness of O. Henry in creating the endings of novels and stories is simply amazing. Sometimes it seems that all the efforts of the writer are aimed only at surprising us with an unexpected ending. The ending of the stories, like a bright flash of lightning, illuminates everything that used to be hidden in the darkness, and the picture immediately becomes clear.

Although O. Henry constantly laughs in his stories, it happens that he laughs while his soul is shedding tears. But the writer believed in life, in people, and his stories are illuminated by a spark of true humanity.

Lyrical intonations

We celebrate the pathos of the novels. In addition to the satirical and comic, the lyrical beginning, a sincere feeling persistently emerges in the prose under study. This is achieved by the personification of objects and their impact on the narrator and the author. In O. Henry, the lyrical feeling is expressed just as simply, but no less elegantly:

"... I have here told you an unremarkable story below about two stupid children from an eight-dollar apartment who, in the most unfortunate way, sacrificed their greatest treasures for each other"

In O. Henry, along with linguo-stylistic parameters in short stories, the artistic originality of the description of intonation and its reproduction is very important. The intonation is set and determined by the syntactic structure of the sentence and is fixed by punctuation marks. It is, of course, so. But it is far from the only way. In addition to the syntactic construction of the sentence itself, lyrical intonation in a work of art is born and formed depending on many specific conditions, the main point of which is the poetic perception of reality. O. Henry poetically recreates such a situation of utterance, likening it to the atmosphere of live, colloquial speech (dialogization of stories). If the situation of living, colloquial speech is most often spontaneous, unique, inimitable, if intonation lives and is perceived only at the very moment of utterance, then in a work of art "such an ability is organized by the writer."

Speaking about lyrical motifs in the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, it is necessary to emphasize their presence in almost all of his works. Let's turn to the stories The Mask of the Red Death and The Oval Portrait and examine them for lyrical intonations. In the examples given, we observe the author's lyrical digressions and lyrics in the descriptions.

That the right and left, the middle of each wall, a tall and narrow Gothic window looked out upon a closed corridor which pursued the windings of the suite. These windows were of stained glass whose color varied in accordance with the prevailing hue of the decorations of the chamber into which It opend.	In each room, to the right and left, in the middle of the wall, there was a high, narrow Gothic-style window opening onto a covered gallery, which repeated the zigzags of the enfilade. These windows were of colored glass, and their color was in harmony with all the decoration of the room.
There are chords in the hearts of the most reckless which cannot be touched without emotion. Even with the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jests, there are matters of which no jest can be made. The whole company, indeed, seemed now to deeply feel that in the costume and bearing of the stranger neither wit nor propriety existed. The figure was tall and gaunt, and shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.	There are strings in the most reckless heart that cannot be touched without making them tremble. The most desperate people, who are ready to joke with life and death, have something that they do not allow themselves to laugh at. It seemed that at that moment each of those present felt how unfunny and out of place the alien's outfit and manners were. The guest was tall, emaciated, and wrapped in a shroud from head to toe.
His plans were bold and fiery, and his conceptions glowed with barbaric luster. There are some who would have thought him mad. His followers felt that he was not.	Each of his ideas was bold and unusual and embodied with barbaric luxury. Many would consider the prince insane, but his minions were of a different opinion.
She was a maiden of rare beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee. And evil was the hour when she saw, and loved, and wedded the painter. He, passionate, studious, austere, and having already a bride in his Art; she a maiden of rare beauty, and not more lovely than full of glee: all light and smiles, and frolicksome as the young fawn: loving and cherishing all things: hating only the Art which was her rival: dreading only the pallet and brushes and other untoward instruments which deprived her of the countenance of her lover.	She was a maiden of the rarest beauty, and her gaiety equaled her charms. And the hour was marked by evil fate when she saw the painter and fell in love with him and became his wife. He, obsessed, stubborn, stern, was already betrothed - to Painting; she, a maiden of the rarest beauty, whose gaiety equaled her charm, all light, all smile, playful as a young doe, hated only Painting, her rival; she was afraid only of palettes, brushes and other powerful tools that deprived her of the contemplation of her lover.
That I now saw aright I could not and would not doubt; for the first flashing of the candles upon that canvas had seemed to dissipate the dreamy stupor which was stealing over my senses, and to startle me at once into waking life.	Now I could not and did not want to doubt that I was seeing correctly, for the first ray that fell on the canvas, as it were, drove away the sleepy stupor that had taken possession of my feelings, and at once returned me to wakefulness.

Edgar Allan Poe Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Moscow: Literature in Foreign Languages ​​2009

According to E. Collected works in three volumes. T. 2. - M.: Milestones 1997.

Edgar Allan Poe Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Moscow: Literature in Foreign Languages ​​2009

The lyrical intonation sounds especially distinct in the images of the heroine of the short story "Gifts of the Magi" by O. Henry - Della. To reveal the lyrical feeling, we compiled a table of examples where we encounter them.

Linguistic aspect in the analysis of literary texts.

A feature of the work of Edgar Allan Poe is symbolism. In all his works, it is heterogeneous and is expressed with varying degrees of abstractness. So, if in most fantastic works the symbols are general cultural and very abstract, in psychological short stories, without losing their general cultural character, they express the instability of a frustrated consciousness, then in detective short stories the degree of abstractness is minimal, and the symbols acquire the status of authorial and close to specifics.

The theme of the momentary, the perishability of life is evident in the short story "The Red Mask of Death", where the significance of death is emphasized and further deepened as something incomprehensible and controlled not by a person, but by another, powerful force. The novel is literally filled with symbolism: these are the colors of the rooms (blue, red, green, orange, white, purple, black), and the orchestra, and the clock in the seventh, black room, and the image of the Death Mask itself.

In many of his short stories, Poe attaches great importance to color, which helps to reveal the psychologism of his works more deeply. For example, in the story "The Mask of the Red Death", which tells about the epidemic that hit the country, Poe describes the palace of the prince of this country, who decided to escape death by closing himself in his castle. E. Po takes one episode from the life of the castle as the basis of the story. On the evening described by the writer, the prince holds a masquerade ball in the castle, which was attended by many guests. The name "Red Death" is not accidental, because red is the color of blood. Bloody death is identified with the plague. "The "Red Death" had long devastated the country." The color of the rooms, in our opinion, symbolizes the very life of a person, the periods of his growing up, formation and aging. That is why the white room is next to the black one: “gray-haired” old age at the same time has chastity. Their lighting is also interesting, when the light falls from the lanterns outside the window: this echoes Plato's concept of the world, where our world is just a shadow. Discarded by the ideal world.

And if the rooms are human existence in reality, then the author describes this existence as follows: “All this seemed to be the product of some crazy hot delirium. visions of our dreams roamed about in all seven rooms, writhing and wriggling, flashing here and there, just the echo of their footsteps." Let us pay attention to the meaning of shadows - these are our delusions and judgments, and the sounds of the orchestra are likened to our wild and clumsy dance of life. And so life passes - at a wild pace, immersed in the phantoms of reason and feeling. And only the battle of the black clock makes everyone freeze in fright before Eternity and inevitability.

The mask of the Red Death also includes the semantics of Eternity and Inevitability, a fate from which one cannot escape. Interestingly, Prince Prospero finds the news about the Mask in the blue room, located at the opposite end from the black one. The author calls the room an oriental-style room. Blue is the color of serenity and dreams.

In many of his short stories, Poe attaches great importance to color, which helps to reveal the psychologism of his works more deeply. For example, in the story "The Mask of the Red Death", which tells about the epidemic that hit the country, Poe describes the palace of the prince of this country, who decided to escape death by closing himself in his castle. Egar Poe takes one episode from the life of the castle as the basis of the story. On the evening described by the writer, the prince holds a masquerade ball in the castle, which was attended by many guests. The name "Red Death" is not accidental, because red is the color of blood. Bloody death is identified with the plague. "The Red Death had long devastated the country."

The high degree of abstractness of the symbol in Poe's fantastic short stories often coincides with the fact that the symbols themselves can be considered at the general cultural level. So, in the short story "In death - life" the writer uses the symbol of the portrait as a symbol of the transition from one world to another. The theme of reflection, the imprinted image of a person, is an old one and gives rise to symbols close to this system: a mirror, a reflection in water, etc. The semantic meaning of this symbol is not only the meaning of the transition to another world, but also the loss of the soul. It is worth remembering in this context that so far in the tribes that have survived untouched by civilization (at least in many of them), photographing oneself is considered theft of the soul. In the literature, this topic is also not new and continues to develop. The most famous in this regard is "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

The composition of the short story - a story within a story - allows the author to introduce the reader into a romantic worldview. First, we learn that the character is addicted to opium and, in order to relieve pain, takes an unreasonably large dose of the drug. This introduces both him and the readers into a transitional, foggy, strange world. And already in this state, the character finds a portrait that stuns him with its liveliness.

Then, in the story of the portrait, we meet the artist and his wife. The artist is also a romantic hero. His strangeness and gloom frighten many, but this strangeness is just a sign of being chosen.

The work ends with the fact that, having completed the portrait and looking at it, the artist exclaims: “But this is life itself!”. And then, looking back at the dead wife, whose life, as it were, turned into a portrait, he says: "But is this really death?"

All modern detective genres originate from the classic form of detective storytelling that developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was then that certain laws of the genre arose on the basis of extensive literary material. in the late 1920s the first attempt was made to formulate them. This was done by the writer S. Van Dyne. The patterns of the genre that he outlined are the result of observations on the specific features of detective literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries (they are derived from the writings of Gaboriau and Conan Doyle). But nevertheless, despite the fact that the merits of Gaboriau and Conan Doyle in the development of detective literature are great, many researchers still consider Edgar Poe to be the discoverer of the detective genre, who developed the main aesthetic parameters of the genre.

The glory of Edgar Poe as the founder of the detective genre relies on just four stories: "Murder on the Rue Morgue", "The Secret of Marie Roger", "The Gold Bug" and "The Stolen Letter". Three of them are aimed at solving a crime, the fourth is about deciphering an old manuscript, which contains information about the location of a treasure buried by pirates in ancient times.

He transferred the action of his stories to Paris, and made the Frenchman Dupin a hero. And even in the case when the narrative was based on real events that took place in the United States (the murder of the saleswoman Mary Rogers), he did not violate the principle by renaming the main character Marie Roger, and moved all the events to the banks of the Seine.

Edgar Allan Poe called his stories about Dupin "logical". He did not use the term "detective genre", because, firstly, this term did not yet exist, and secondly, his stories were not detective stories in the sense that had developed by the end of the 19th century.

In some of E. Poe's stories ("The Stolen Letter", "Gold Bug" there is no corpse and there is no talk of murder at all (which means that, based on Van Dyne's rules, it is difficult to call them detectives). All Poe's logical stories are replete with "long descriptions" , "subtle analysis", "general reasoning, which, from the point of view of Van Dyne, is contraindicated in the detective genre.

The concept of a logical story is broader than the concept of a detective story. From a logical story to a detective story, the main, and sometimes the only plot motif has passed: the disclosure of a secret or a crime. The type of narration has also been preserved: a story-task subject to a logical solution.

One of the most important features of Poe's logical stories is that the main subject on which the author's attention is focused is not the investigation, but the person conducting it. The character is at the center of the story, but the character is rather romantic. His Dupin has a romantic character, and in this capacity he approaches the heroes of psychological stories. But Dupin's reclusiveness, his penchant for solitude, his urgent need for solitude, has origins that do not directly correlate with psychological novels. They go back to some moral and philosophical ideas of a general nature. Characteristic of the American romantic consciousness of the middle of the 19th century.

When reading logical short stories, the almost complete absence of external action attracts attention. Their plot structure has two layers - superficial and deep. On the surface - the actions of Dupin, in the depths - the work of his thought. Edgar Allan Poe does not just talk about the intellectual activity of the hero, but shows it in detail and detail, revealing the process of thinking. its principles and logic.

The deep psychologism of the narrative also refers to the main stylistic features of Edgar Allan Poe's stories. One of the classic examples of the psychological story of Edgar Poe is considered to be "The Fall of the House of Usher" - a semi-fantastic story about the last visit of the narrator to the old estate of his friend, about the strange illness of Lady Madeleine, about the mysterious inner connection between brother and sister and the super-mysterious connection between the house and its inhabitants , about a premature funeral, about the death of a brother and sister, and, finally, about the fall of the House of Usher into the gloomy waters of the lake and about the flight of the narrator, who barely escaped at the moment of the catastrophe.

"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a comparatively short work of deceptive simplicity and clarity that conceals depth and complexity. The artistic world of this work does not coincide with the world of everyday life. This story is psychological and scary. On the one hand, the main subject of the image in it is the painful state of the human psyche, consciousness on the verge of insanity, on the other hand, the soul is shown here, trembling with fear of the coming and inevitable horror.

The House of Usher, taken in its symbolic meaning, is a kind of world that is in a state of deep decay, fading, dying, on the verge of complete disappearance. Once upon a time it was a beautiful world, where human life flowed in an atmosphere of creativity, where painting, music, poetry flourished, where Mind was the law, and Thought was the ruler. Now this house is depopulated, desolate and has acquired the features of a semi-reality. Life has gone from him, leaving only embodied memories. The tragedy of the last inhabitants of this world stems from the irresistible power that the House has over them, over their consciousness and actions. They are unable to leave him and are doomed to die, imprisoned in the memories of the ideal.

Stylistic devices in short stories

A stylistic device, being a generalization, typification, and condensation of means objectively existing in a language, is not a naturalistic reproduction of these means, but qualitatively transforms them. So, for example, improperly direct speech (see below) as a stylistic device is a generalization and typification of the characteristic features of inner speech. However, this technique qualitatively transforms inner speech. This latter, as is well known, has no communicative function; improperly direct (depicted) speech has this function.

It is necessary to distinguish between the use of the facts of the language (both neutral and expressive) for stylistic purposes and the already crystallized stylistic device. Not every stylistic use of language means creates a stylistic device. So, for example, in the above examples from Norris's novel, the author repeats the words I and you in order to create the desired effect. But this repetition, possible in the mouths of the heroes of the novel, only reproduces their emotional state.

In other words, in emotionally excited speech, the repetition of words, expressing a certain mental state of the speaker, is not designed for any effect. The repetition of words in the author's speech is not a consequence of such a mental state of the speaker and aims at a certain stylistic effect. This is a stylistic means of emotional impact on the reader. On the other hand, the use of repetition as a stylistic device must be distinguished from repetitions, which serve as one of the means of stylization.

Thus, it is known that oral folk poetry widely uses the repetition of words for various purposes: slowing down the narration, giving a song character to the tale, etc.

Such repetitions of folk poetry are expressive means of a living folk language. Stylization is the direct reproduction of the facts of folk art, its expressive possibilities. The stylistic device is only indirectly connected with the most characteristic features of colloquial speech or with the forms of oral creativity of the people.

Interestingly, A. A. Potebnya also distinguishes between the use of folklore traditions in the repetition of words and phrases, on the one hand, and repetition as a stylistic device, on the other. "As in a folk epic," he writes, instead of references and indications of the above - a literal repetition of it (which is more figurative and poetic); so Gogol - within the period when speech becomes more animated, (then, as a manner) ... " .

Here the opposition of "animated speech" and "manner" attracts attention. Under "animate speech", obviously, one must understand the emotional function of this linguistic means of expression; under "manner" - the individual use of this stylistic device.

Thus, many facts of language can underlie the formation of a stylistic device.

Unfortunately, not all language means that have an expressive function have been subjected to scientific consideration. Therefore, a number of turns of live colloquial speech are not yet distinguished by grammarians as normalized forms of logical or emotional emphasis.

In this regard, we return to the ellipsis. It seems more appropriate to consider the ellipsis as a stylistic category. In fact, we have already said that in dialogic speech we have not the omission of any member of the sentence, but its natural absence. In other words, in live colloquial dialogical speech there is no conscious literary processing of the facts of the language. But, being transferred to another environment, from the oral-colloquial type of speech to the literary-bookish, written type of speech, such an absence of any member of the sentence is a conscious act, and therefore becomes a fact of stylistics. This is not an absence, but an omission. This technique was typified in written speech as a means of concise, emotionally colored speech.

This stylistic device typifies, enhances the features of oral speech, applying them in another type of speech - written.

It is known that in the language some categories of words, especially qualitative adjectives and qualitative adverbs, can lose their main, subject-logical meaning in the process of use and appear only in the emotional meaning of enhancing the quality, for example: awfully nice, terribly sorry, dreadfully tired, etc. e. In such combinations, when restoring the internal form of the word, attention is drawn to the logically excluding each other concepts contained in the components of the combination. It was this feature in a typified form that brought to life a stylistic device called an oxymoron.

Combinations such as:

a pleasantly ugly face (S. Maugham) and others are already stylistic devices.

In the analysis of the stylistic devices of the English language, where possible, we will try to show their relationship with the expressive and neutral means of the language, at the same time pointing out the linguistic nature of these devices and their stylistic functions.

Lexical means of expressive speech

In American short stories, all kinds of expressive means are widely used. Let's dwell on expressive means in the stories of O. Henry and Edgar Allan Poe.

Edgar Poe and O. Henry use antonyms in their stories. Antonyms are different words related to the same part of speech, but opposite in meaning. The opposition of antonyms in speech is a bright source of speech expression, which establishes the emotionality of speech.

In stories, hyperbole is also often used - a figurative expression that exaggerates any action, object, phenomenon. Hyperbole is used to enhance the artistic impression.:

Short stories make extensive use of metaphor. Metaphor is a hidden comparison based on the similarity between distant phenomena and objects. At the heart of any metaphor is an unnamed comparison of some objects with others that have a common feature.

In a metaphor, the author creates an image - an artistic representation of the objects, phenomena that he describes, and the reader understands exactly what similarity the semantic connection between the figurative and direct meaning of the word is based on: There were, are, and, I hope, always will be more good people in the world, than bad and evil ones, otherwise disharmony would have set in in the world, it would have warped ... capsized and sank. Epithet, personification, oxymoron, antithesis can be considered as a kind of metaphor.

A detailed metaphor is a detailed transfer of the properties of one object, phenomenon or aspect of being to another according to the principle of similarity or contrast. Metaphor is particularly expressive. Possessing unlimited possibilities in bringing together a wide variety of objects or phenomena, metaphor allows you to rethink an object, reveal, expose its inner nature. Sometimes it is an expression of the individual author's vision of the world.

Thus, in Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Tell-Tale Heart," the hero-narrator tells how he kills an old man and exposes himself in the presence of the police, with the metaphor of a clockwork. For seven nights in a row, the hero spies on the sleeping old man, silently pushing a secret lantern through the door. "On the eighth night, I opened the door even more cautiously than usual. The minute hand on the clock moves faster than my hand sneaked)".

The old man wakes up, and the narrator watches as he, sitting on the bed, listens to the fuss of the grinder beetle - "just like I used to, night after night." The original is a play on words: hearkening to the death watches in the wall; death watch means the vigil of the dead; moreover, it is a mechanical combination of the two keywords of the story "death" and "hours". “It was then that I heard some kind of quiet, indistinct, hastily chirping sound, as if a clock wrapped in cotton was ticking ... That was the beat of the old man’s heart ... It beat all the more rolling, I tell you that not a moment, louder and louder! are you following?" The hero-narrator bursts into the room "with a deafening scream" and kills his victim: "The old man's hour has struck!" The hero acts like a perfectly coordinated mechanism: the movement of the hand-arrow, the murder at the appointed hour.

Metonymy is the transfer of meanings (renaming) according to the adjacency of phenomena. The most common cases of transferring meaning from a person to his any external signs:

Are you alive? - asked James looking at the portrait

Are you alive? James asked, looking at the portrait.

An oxymoron is a combination of contrasting words that create a new concept or idea. This is a combination of logically incompatible concepts, sharply contradictory in meaning and mutually exclusive. This technique sets the reader to the perception of contradictory, complex phenomena, often - the struggle of opposites. Most often, an oxymoron conveys the author's attitude to an object or phenomenon: Sad fun continued ...

In "Premature Burial" through the metaphor of the mechanism, the state of catalepsy is described - a complete, deep loss of consciousness. "It is known that in some diseases the appearance of a complete cessation of vital activity is created, although this is not yet the end, but only a delay. Just a pause in the course of an incomprehensible mechanism (incomprehensible mechanism). A certain period passes - and, obeying some mysterious law, the magic pinions and the wizard wheels start up again." If the body is a mechanism, then it is "incomprehensible", "mysterious", unwilling to submit to the control of the mind and treacherously changing it.

Now we note the global metaphorization in the work. This phenomenon is observed in a short story by Edgar Poe. Another example is the "Red Death" ("The Mask of the Red Death"), a disease that seems to have a specific name and well-defined symptoms (although not really existing) and, nevertheless, is far from common. References to several real (recognizable by the modern reader) ailments at once make it a mysterious super-disease, an absolute, metaphysical evil. In terms of symptoms, destructive power, and metaphor, the Red Death is closest to the plague.

Personification is one of the types of metaphor, when the transfer of a sign is carried out from a living object to an inanimate one. When personified, the described object is externally used by a person: Trees, bending down towards me, extended their thin arms. Even more often, actions that are permissible only to people are attributed to an inanimate object: Rain splashed bare feet along the paths of the garden.

In the stories of O. Henry, inanimate objects are often endowed with the properties of living animate objects, for example:

	smart book
	gentle wind

In short stories, so-called evaluative vocabulary is often used. Evaluative vocabulary is a direct author's assessment of events, phenomena, objects.

Comparison is one of the means of expressiveness of the language, helping the author to express his point of view, create whole artistic pictures, and give a description of objects. In comparison, one phenomenon is shown and evaluated by comparing it with another phenomenon. Comparison is usually joined by unions: like, as if, as if, exactly, etc. but it serves for a figurative description of the most diverse features of objects, qualities, and actions.

Phraseologisms are almost always vivid expressions. Therefore, they are an important expressive means of language used by writers as ready-made figurative definitions, comparisons, as emotional and pictorial characteristics of heroes, the surrounding reality, etc.

An epithet is a word that highlights in an object or phenomenon any of its properties, qualities or signs. An epithet is an artistic definition, i.e. colorful, figurative, which emphasizes some of its distinctive properties in the word being defined. Any meaningful word can serve as an epithet, if it acts as an artistic, figurative definition for another:

Edgar Allan Poe Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Moscow: Literature in Foreign Languages ​​2009

O. Henry Short stories - M.: Literature in foreign languages ​​2005

Edgar Allan Poe Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - Moscow: Literature in Foreign Languages ​​2009

Aesthetics of works of art

In order to understand how it is possible to think of an artistic and aesthetic event in relation to a work of art, it is necessary to understand the question of what an event is in general and an artistic and aesthetic event in particular, and then to determine the constitutive moments of a work of art. Let's start with the event.

Event and eventfulness in ordinary language mean an incident, a case. We learn about such events-incidents every day from television news or from the mouth of an interlocutor. Sometimes we ourselves become participants or witnesses of an incident. Such events usually make our daily life dynamic or simply create the illusion of dynamics. One way or another, they do not affect us in our very being and do not transform all our ordinary connections and relationships to the world and to ourselves.

The philosophical discourse of the 20th century sharply contrasted such an event-incident, sometimes without an ontological basis, with the event of being, i.e., the accomplishment of being itself within our existence, returning us to ourselves. M. Heidegger and M. M. Bakhtin were the first to follow this path. And if for Heidegger the problem of the event became decisive in the search for the meaning of being, then for Bakhtin it is the problem of the "responsible act" of the eternally "living life" that does not know its completion within this event. One way or another, both thinkers proceeded from the ontology of human existence, that is, from the position that a person is initially immersed in being, is involved in being.

However, Bakhtin reveals the principle of eventfulness only within the framework of ethics as a philosophy of action and does not extend it to aesthetic issues. In his opinion, eventfulness, if we proceed from itself, does not know its end, cannot finally take shape, come true. The aesthetic, according to Bakhtin, cannot be eventful at all levels. In order for a work of art to become artistic, a “position of being outside” is necessary in relation to the hero and the artistic world, from which only aesthetic vision is possible as the completion and design of the integrity of the work.

Later, working on the problems and poetics of Dostoevsky's novels, Bakhtin departs from the traditional view of a work of art as necessarily complete and integral. Having put forward the principle of dialogical relations between the author, the hero and the reader, Bakhtin substantiates the aesthetic (in the genre form of the novel) not as completed and become, but as striving for completion in the endless perspective of dialogue. It is important for us here to point out that Bakhtin, in fact, re-constitutes the eventfulness in the infinity of dialogue. However, neither in Bakhtin himself, nor in the researchers of his concept, and even more so of his Western interpreters (Yu. Kristeva and others), we do not find further thinking and deployment of the problem of eventfulness, which refers not to actions, not to dialogic relations, but to the very artistic and aesthetic phenomenon.

And only M. Heidegger at the late stage of his work brought together being, language and poetry, shifting the ontological center from man to the sphere of aesthetics. Language, according to Heidegger, is the soil in which man is ontologically rooted. Language is the possibility of being to testify to itself. The way in which being testifies to itself (reveals itself) is, according to Heidegger, art (poetry). The poet speaks, listening to the silence, to the call of being. Genesis speaks through the poet about itself. The essence of poetry is to give voice to being, to create conditions for its self-disclosure. Following Heidegger's thought, we can say that art (a work of art is a revelation of being in a perfective, eventful way. "Truth as enlightenment and shutting of being is accomplished, being composed poetically," says Heidegger.

Based on the conceptual message of these two thinkers, as well as taking into account modern theories of ontological aesthetics, we continue to think through the eventful way of being a work of art and propose further development of the ontology of the artistic and aesthetic phenomenon. For this, it seems necessary to introduce the concept of "artistic and aesthetic event", with the help of which it is possible to overcome the shortcomings of the epistemological (subject-object) model of research. The concept of "artistic and aesthetic event" allows, on the one hand, to preserve the meaning of "event" as an "event of being", as "sympathetic thinking" (Bakhtin), "thinking being", "event of self-disclosure of being" (Heidegger), and on the other – to specify it as the field of aesthetics and art.

In our understanding, an artistic and aesthetic event is based on the event of being, that is, the accomplishment of "my" existence as "mine". An artistic and aesthetic event is a mode of the event of being, the way in which I am accomplished in my authenticity, being involved in the accomplishment of the discovery of aesthetic phenomena, "for creation is only valid when we ourselves tear ourselves away from all our everyday life, intruding into the open creation, and when we thus we affirm our essence in the truth of being."

The concept of the artistic and aesthetic event that we introduce allows us to embrace (cover) the process of the event as the co-presence of the author, the work of art and the recipient. A work of art (artifact) becomes a work of art only when it is involved

into an artistic and aesthetic event. An artistic and aesthetic event is indecomposable into separate elements and is a combination (but not a merger) of the author, work and recipient in an accomplished aesthetic phenomenon. Under the aesthetic phenomenon, it is necessary to understand self-disclosure, self-discovery of various aesthetic modifications (beautiful, sublime, terrible, tragic, etc.) in an eventful way.

An artistic and aesthetic event is characterized by spontaneity, probability, suddenness. Within the artistic and aesthetic event there is no distinction between the subject and the object of perception, there is no reflection in the sense of clear self-awareness and opposition to the artistic world, the spatio-temporal coordinates of the artistic and real worlds are mixed, transformed into the pure duration of what is happening, the boundary between them is blurred, the external and internal distance between author, work, and recipient dissipates and loses its existential and ontological significance.

An artistic and aesthetic event is the realization of the energy of creation through the disclosure of its sources in an aesthetic phenomenon. An artistic and aesthetic event is not given as a phenomenon and is not reducible to artistic activity, since its source, driving force is the energy of being.

One can "think" a work of art as an event only on the basis of the very eventfulness (capture, involvement in what is happening), being soulfully filled with the energy of accomplishment, rediscovering and problematizing one's authenticity and the authenticity of the world in the light of aesthetic phenomena.

Literature

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7. Edgar Allan Poe Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe - M .: Literature in foreign languages ​​2009

8 Edgar Allan Poe The Masque of the Red Death

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11. Grishina O.N. Problems of context-variable segmentation of the text in the style of the language of artistic and scientific prose // Functional styles and teaching foreign languages: Sat. articles / Editorial board: M.Ya. Zwilling (responsible ed.), etc., M.: Nauka, 1982.

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14. Kovalev Yu. E.A. Po. Novelist and poet. L.: Lenizdat 1984

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17. Kroshkin B.G. Creativity O. Henry. - M .: Prosvet 2009

18. Kubryakova E.S. Text and its understanding // Russian text, 1994, No. 2. P. 18-27.

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20. O. Henry Complete Works - M .: Prospect 2007

21. Oleneva V.I. Modern American novel. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1973.

22. Oleneva V.I. Modern American novel. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 1973.

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24. According to E.A. Selected works in two volumes. Volume 2.M.: Fiction, 1972.

25. According to E.A. Poems. Novels. The Tale of the Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym. : Per. from English. / E.A. By. - M .: "Publishing house ACT", 2003.

26. Sokolova I.V. Modern English short story (On the question of the poetics of the genre): Abstract of the thesis. dis... cand. philol. Sciences. M., 1979.

27. Timofeev L.I., Turaev S.V. Brief dictionary of literary terms. Moscow: Enlightenment, 1985.

28. Tynyanov Yu. Archaisms and innovators. M., 1929, p.8. Cit. according to the book: Fed N. Genres in a changing world. M.: Sov. Russia, 1989

Literary art has a large number of means of conveying the intention of the author. At the same time, the genre of the work plays a certain role in expressing the author's intention, since the choice of the genre of the work determines its structure, the features of the use of language means, the process of creating characters' images, the expression of the author's attitude to the events and characters presented, etc. All the variety of epic genres in literature can be classified on the basis of volume and the following forms can be distinguished: large (novel), medium (story, short story) and small (story). This paper considers only a small form of the epic genre - a story.

The concept of "story" can be given the following definition: A story is a small prose (occasionally poetic) genre, correlated with a story, as a more detailed form of epic narration. [encyclopedia].

N. A. Gulyaev (N. A. Gulyaev. Theory of Literature. - M., Higher School, 1985.) gives the following interpretation of the concept of "story": Story-small epic form. It differs in a smaller volume, it is focused on the image of a single event, often in the life of one person, revealing one of his traits. One-sidedness, one-problemness are the characteristic features of the story as a genre. Usually, the narrator explores the situation in which the hero is at his best. The story is usually based on some individual case from life, a story that is characterized by “isolation” (it has a beginning and an end). The features of the revealed event or human character are quite fully presented in it. The story requires the greatest skill from the writer, the ability to fit a lot into a small space. The originality of the small epic form, therefore, lies in the exceptional brevity of presentation, compression, artistic richness.

F. M. Golovenchenko gives the following definition of the concept of "story": a story is a short narrative work depicting a bright event, a social or psychological conflict and the characters associated with it. This form of the epic genre is most commonly used in literature, as it allows the most active intervention in life. The story represents a particular period in someone's life, beginning long before the story is told and continuing long after the story is over. This period of life must necessarily be bright, characteristic of those conditions, that environment, those people whom the author intends to introduce to the reader.

The story may relate to a wide variety of issues of spiritual and social life, but due to genre features, it is deprived of the opportunity to provide a versatile and broad picture of life that big form of the epic genre (novel, poem, story). This form of the epic genre is characterized by such characteristic features as the brevity and intensity of the narrative, the absence of side digressions, the utmost brevity, the rapid development of the plot, and the completion of a spectacular ending. Usually there are few characters in the story, and each of them is described only in the most essential features for resolving the ideological and artistic design. In addition, the details and detail that are needed in the larger forms of the epic genre are not allowed. The characters here are not given in development: each person appears already formed and is revealed from any one side; in the same way, events are taken such that unfold over a short period of time.

Stories can be divided, according to F. M. Golovenchenko, depending on the leading motive into everyday, adventurous, social or psychological. However, it is not always possible to find stories of only one of the named types. Most often, elements of psychologism, adventurism and everyday life are intertwined. Then the character of the story is determined by the dominant motive.

However, in literary criticism, the story is opposed to other epic forms. There is a so-called story problem. On the one hand, the possibility of correlating the story, in contrast to both the short story and the story, with both of these “simple” genres, which are considered the sources and prototypes of the named middle forms. On the other hand, the story should be correlated - through the story - with the novel.

There are several criteria for distinguishing between genres. [Tamarchenko's theory of literature]

1) "Small form" as a criterion. On the one hand, the difference in the volume of texts is a convincing criterion for distinguishing between the genres of the story and the story. In accordance with the above criterion, it is easier to identify a story than a story: for this, an approximate idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe boundary to which the volume of text can be considered minimal is sufficient. For example, in the Western scientific tradition, where much more attention is paid to the volume of the text, it is customary in the definition of a story (it is no coincidence that this form is called “short story”, “Kurzgeschichte”) include indications of the number of words: “a short realistic narrative” should contain less than 10,000 words. . (Shaw H. Dictionary of Literary Terms. - N. Y., 1972. - P. 343) The length of the text is an important but insufficient criterion. The division of the text into chapters or the absence of such a division should also be taken into account. This moment is more obviously connected with the content: with the number of events and episodes. But in relation to episodes and events, the quantitative approach must become more differentiated and must be combined with qualitative criteria. When it comes not only to the elements of the text, but also to the work. Two aspects stand out here: the “objective” plan of the image (Thursabout depicted: the event, the space and time in which it occurs) and the “subjective” plan (who depicts the event and with what forms of speech). Friedman N. points out that a story can be short because its action is small, or because its action, being large, is reduced in volume using selection, scale, or point of view techniques. (quoted from: Smirnov I.P. On the meaning of brevity // Russian short story: Problems of history and theory: collection of articles. - St. Petersburg, 1993. - P. 5.)

As Smirnov I.P. showed, the minimum of events in a short story is not one, but two, since artistry, no matter what genre form it takes, is based on parallelism (on equivalence). (Smirnov IP On the meaning of brevity. - p. 6) A similar principle also exists in the story and in the novel. However, outside the "small form", in addition to the main "parallel" events, there are others that duplicate or vary this parallelism.

To the subject planepisode , i.e., that part of the text where the same place and time of action and a set of actors are preserved, in addition to the event, the spatio-temporal conditions for its commission are included. It should be emphasized that without an analysis of these conditions, the event composition of the action may not be clear. According to Tamarchenko N.D., the minimum in terms of the subject matter of content, which is inherent in the “small form”, consists of two principles: two spatio-temporal spheres, on the borders of which an event takes place, i.e. movement of the character across the boundary of the semantic field. (Lotman Yu. M. The structure of a literary text. - M., 1970. - P. 282) Outside the "small form" - in the story and the novel - a greater number of scenes of action is possible. But their correlation with each other is formed aroundmain opposition and diversevaries his.

In addition, the subjective plan of each episode is created by a certain complex of compositional forms of speech, which always has two poles: the speech of the depicting subject (narrator or narrator) and the speech of the characters. In this case, the number of episodes is determined by whether the authorvary ratio main points of view:representing and depicting (external and internal), i.e. whether the idea of ​​binary is realized. Thus, J. Van der Eng tried to extend the idea of ​​binarity to all aspects of the “small form” structure. He says that it is characterized by a cross-cutting combination of two so-called "variation series" of motives of "action, characteristics and environment": "integral" and "dispersed". (Van der Eng J. The art of the short story. The formation of variation series as a fundamental principle of narrative construction // Russian short story: Problems of history and theory. - P. 197 - 200)

Based on the foregoing, the specifics of the small form can be defined as follows: the volume of the text is sufficient to implement the principle of binary in the main aspects of the artistic whole - in the organization of space-time and plot and in the subjective structure materialized in the compositional forms of speech. At the same time, the volume is minimal in the sense that this principle is implemented everywhere in a single variant.

One more concept of "small form" should also be pointed out. According to quantitative criteria, this concept leaves aside the question ofstructural differences between short stories and short stories . The existing definitions of the concept of "story" either do not clearly distinguish it from the short story, or this distinction is based on an explicit or implicit convergence of the story with the story. Wilpert G. (von Sachwörtebuch der Literatur) gives the following definition of the concept of “story”: “... a special genre, a short epic prose intermediate form between a short story, an essay and an anecdote, characterized by a purposeful, linear, concise and conscious composition aimed at an inevitable solution (calculated to the end), which has the purpose of shaking or bringing ruin to life, or opening an exit. A similar definition is given by Shaw H. (Dictionary of Literatury Terms. P. 343): “In a story, attention is focused on one character in one specific situation at a specific moment. ... Dramatic conflict - the confrontation of opposing forces - is at the center of any story. Another definition in which a story is similar to a short story can be found in V. Kozhinov (Story // Dictionary of Literary Terms. - M., 1974. - P. 309 - 310): “A novel and a story are distinguished as a narrative with a sharp, distinct expressed plot, tense action (short story) and, on the contrary, an epic calm narrative with a naturally developing plot (story)"). From the same position, Sierowinski S. (Slownik terminow litreackich. - Wroclaw, 1966. - S. 177) considers the concept of "story": "an epic work of small size, which differs from the short story in the greater prevalence and arbitrariness of compositions." However, such a convergence of the story with the story and the short story naturally leads to the removal of the story beyond the "small form" - unlike the short story, it reveals an "expansion" of the volume of the text due to "non-fable elements": "the story in this case allows for greater authorial freedom of narration, expansion of descriptive, ethnographic, psychological, subjective-evaluative elements ... ”(Ninov A. Story // KLE. T.6. - Pt. 190 - 193) Thus, in order to understand the genre specifics of the story, it is necessary to oppose it to the short story, while remaining in within the "small form". At present, this problem has no solution, although this question has long been raised in an article by K. Locks: “While the Italian novel of the Renaissance ... is a solid literary genre ... this cannot be said about the “story”. … All these considerations force us to begin the definition of the term “story” not from its theoretically and abstractly established type, but rather from a general manner, which we will designate asspecial tone of the story, giving it the features of a "story". ... The tone of storytelling presupposes ... strict factuality, economy (sometimes consciously calculated) of visual means, immediate preparation of the main essence of what is being told. The story, on the contrary, uses the means of slow tonality - it is all filled with detailed motivation, side accessories, and its essence can be distributed at all points of the story itself with almost uniform tension. story. Its relatively small volume, which they tried to legitimize as one of the signs, is entirely due to these basic properties. (Locks K. Story // Literary encyclopedia. Dictionary of literary terms: In 2 vols. - Vol. 1. - P. 693 - 695) However, in this work there is also a focus on identifying common features of the prosaic "small form"; the center of tension of the story is in no way delimited from the novelistic center of tension.

In addition to the volume of the work, artistic tasks play an important role in determining the form of the work. The novella creates a new vision of the everyday situation, but lessons are never learned from it (as from an anecdote). The accentuated rethinking of the plot of the story in the final event, separated from the main story, gives the entire story told a teaching meaning. This feature arises from the use of parable elements in the story - rethinking in the final of the results of the central event - tests, their evaluation. As a rule, the final meaning of the story is an open situation of the reader's choice between an "anecdotal" interpretation of everything told and its "parable" perception as an example of a temporary deviation from the universal law and subsequent internal merging with it. Such duality and incompleteness characterizes in general the semantic structure of the story as a genre.