How to write an essay about a work. Imagery values ​​reflected in portrait essays in Russian and Latvian media

Literature and journalism are rich in various genres. One of these genres is the essay. The first acquaintance with the essay occurs at school during Russian language lessons, and those who in the future study at the Faculty of Philology or Journalism study the essay in more detail.

Definition of essay

In order to understand the essence of the issue and understand what an essay is, you need to know its definition. Essay is literary work not very large in size, which describes true events or incidents. Any essay is always based on a description of facts or events that happened earlier. A distinctive feature of such a story is its descriptive nature through the eyes of an eyewitness. An essay is an inexhaustible source of truthful historical information about certain people, events, and facts. There is no time frame in the essay. The event that is presented to the reader can be either past or present. The main thing is that the actions or incidents described in the essay are important to society. Such a story excludes the use of the author’s own assumptions and subjective assessment.

Place of the essay in literature

What place does the essay take in cultural development person, why is this important? literary genre, and what is an essay in literature? The main purpose of an essay in literature is to convey to the reader information about an event “uncut,” for example, about war or reforms, about any events in any country. The focus is not on the person, but on what is happening. A short narrative, called an essay, makes it possible to accurately and reliably learn about dates and specific people. In modern literary world You can observe events in the country and the world thanks to newspaper essays. There is not a single area of ​​human activity where this method of reporting factual events is not used. We can come to the conclusion: the essay is one of the most important literary genres, in which you can learn a lot of necessary, and most importantly, truthful information.

There are several types of literary essay, each of which reveals to the reader a specific problem. The main types of essays: travel, portrait and problem.

Travel essay

The author of such an essay talks about his own or someone else’s journey, describing the entire path. Everything that the author saw, heard or tried - true information. Such an essay is characterized by a description of the culture, customs and characteristics of the area visited by the author.

Portrait sketch

The basis of such an essay is a detailed, true story about this or that historically significant or interesting person for readers. For example, it could be a president, a politician, famous artist or poet. Many examples can be found in biographical articles and memoirs.

Problem essay

A story that accurately and without exaggeration describes important historical event or a problem of society - war, revolution, reforms, etc. To write this type of work, one takes as a basis an event that was important to others, which took place in the world or country and influenced the development and course of history.

Types of essay

Portrait sketch

The hero of a portrait sketch is a specific person who has certain advantages and disadvantages. In a portrait essay, the author gives not only a portrait in the narrow sense of the word, but also a description of the environment in which the hero of the essay lives and works, talks about his work, interests, hobbies, and his relationships with others. All this together helps to reveal the inner world of the hero of the essay.

However, it should be remembered that a real portrait sketch arises as a result of an artistic analysis of the hero’s personality, based on the study of its various aspects (moral, intellectual, creative, etc.), i.e. as a result of identifying the character of the hero. An example is portrait sketches of M. Gorky. Finding a full-fledged portrait essay on the pages of the modern Russian press is quite difficult.

An artistic analysis of the qualities of a hero can lead the author-artist to slightly different conclusions than an analysis, say, from the perspective of his political, business, and intellectual characteristics. The author-artist and the author-thinker seem to enter into polemics with each other. The artistic method helps the author to make his image more typical, to clear it of everything random, superficial, superficial, and makes it possible to identify the deep, spiritual principles of the personality, which will not always coincide with the tasks of political, business, professional, economic or some other analysis.

The difference in the conclusions that follow from artistic analysis and from analysis of another type (for example, professional) acts as a difference that exists between the goals of moral-aesthetic and other (the same professional) development of people and society. At times this difference can reach the point of conflict. And in this case, the author of the publication can resolve this conflict by “forceful” means, subordinating, for example, artistic analysis political purposes. In this case, he can specifically “emphasize” some characteristics of his hero in order to use them to convince the audience, say, of the morality of his political conclusion.

Problem essay

The problematic essay examines socially significant issues: political, economic, moral and ethical, etc. The author of the essay tries to intervene in the solution of important problems and enters into polemics with his opponents.

In this genre of journalistic style of speech, portrait sketches can be used, but the main thing here is not the character of this or that person, but his attitude to these issues, different points of view, different views. In such an essay you can also find travel notes and sketches. But they also serve as confirmation of the author’s position in the dispute, an expression of a certain view, and one of the means of proof. An essay of this type is polemical in nature.

In its logical structure, a problem essay may be similar to such a representative of analytical genres as an article. The reason for this similarity is, first of all, the dominance of the research principle in the process of displaying the problem situation. As in the article, in a problem essay the author finds out the reasons for the occurrence of a particular problem, tries to determine its further development, and identify solutions.

At the same time, a problematic essay can always be fairly easily distinguished from a problematic article. The most important difference is that in a problem essay the development of a problem situation is never presented, so to speak, “in its bare form,” i.e. in the form of statistical patterns or generalized judgments, conclusions, etc., which is characteristic of the article as a genre. The problem in the essay appears as an obstacle that very specific people with their advantages and disadvantages are trying to overcome. On the surface of a particular activity that the essayist examines, the problem very often manifests itself through a conflict (or conflicts), through clashes of people’s interests. By examining these conflicts and their development, he can get to the core of the problem.

At the same time, observing the development of a conflict in an essay is usually accompanied by all sorts of experiences, both on the part of the heroes of the essay and on the part of the author himself. Trying to comprehend the essence of what is happening, a journalist often attracts all sorts of associations, parallels, and deviations from the topic. In an essay, this is a common thing, while in a problem article they are inappropriate. It is impossible to write a problem essay without understanding the field of activity that it touches on. Only a deep penetration into the essence of the matter can lead the author to an accurate understanding of the problem that underlies the situation under study, and describe it accordingly in his essay.

Travel essay

A travelogue is a description of certain events, incidents, meetings with different people that the author encounters during his creative journey (trip, business trip, etc.) Of course, a good travel essay cannot be a simple listing or presentation of everything that the author saw during his trip, and a journalist is unlikely to be able to publish everything he saw afford the publication for which the essay is being prepared. One way or another, the essayist has to select the most interesting, the most important. What is considered the most interesting and important depends on the idea that he develops during the journey. Of course, the idea can arise long before the creative trip. The source material for it can be both the journalist’s past personal observations and newly received information from the same newspapers, magazines, radio and television. But it is possible that the journalist will receive a specific assignment from his editor, or that the idea will arise under the influence of some other factors (say, as a result of the journalist’s participation in some political action). As in the process of preparing any serious and voluminous material (and travel essays are just like that), during the preparation of the essay, already at the stage of collecting information, this plan can be adjusted or even radically changed - it all depends on the nature of the information that comes at the disposal of the journalist.

It is precisely this fully formed plan, or, as it is also called in another way, the main idea of ​​the future work that all the facts and impressions collected by the author during the creative trip should work on. If they go beyond the scope of such a plan, then they have to be left in the journalist’s notebook.

Travel essays can serve a variety of purposes. Thus, the main thing for a journalist may be to show how one problem is solved in different cities or regions through which he passes (for example, how the state takes care of people with disabilities). He can set himself a different goal, for example, to study how the population different cities spends his free time from work, what hobby he prefers. He can talk about how cultural monuments are preserved along the route he follows. Or he can meet with those living in populated areas, through which it passes, participants of the Great Patriotic War, having the title of Hero of the USSR or being full holders of the Order of Glory. There are an infinite number of such goals. As a result of their implementation, travel essays of very different content may appear. In any case, the journalist must be able to use the advantages that a travel essay provides him.

Structural organization of the essay

The specific structure of the essay follows from the characteristics of this genre, which has a complex and multifaceted nature. On the one hand, the essay is constructed according to the laws of fiction, and on the other, journalism and science.

The main types of compositional forms must correspond to the types of connections characteristic of the surrounding reality - temporary and cause-and-effect. In accordance with this, we will highlight the following types of essay structures:

Chronicle construction of the essay

Description of phenomena, events, human life in their time sequence;

Construction based on the logic of cause-and-effect relationships

An essay-research, analysis, where there is no story about an event, phenomenon or any segment of the hero’s life “in time,” but the entire narrative is built on the principle of logical sequence. These structures are based not on the logic of presentation, as in the first case, but on the logic of research);

Essayistic, free form of construction, based on complex associative connections and figurative generalizations

This form is most common in the practice of newspaper essays. It, as a rule, combines elements of both previous types and is characterized by the greatest polyphony, versatility, variety of used compositional techniques and funds.

Let's look at how these types of connections are used in the essay.

First type compositional structure The essay - chronicle - is distinguished by the presence of an event core. In this case, the essay is built on the basis of a sequential change different periods, episodes and actions. There are two principles for displaying an event in an essay: direct and shifted chronology.

With a direct chronological display, the author unfolds the narrative, sequentially describing the most significant moments in the hero’s life. Despite the apparent simplicity in writing such an essay, a journalist faces a number of difficulties. The first of them is related to the layout of the material: it is impossible to fit a story about the hero’s entire life into one essay. Therefore, insignificant periods are omitted without violating the chronological principle of description. The second problem is related to the dynamics of the narrative: a sluggish description of biographical data is unlikely to interest anyone. Therefore, it is desirable that a chronological essay be based on a clearly defined plot, the development of which would be interesting for the reader to follow.

In essays with a shifted chronology, along with an event reflecting a certain fragment of reality, a meta-event may also be present. This term refers to “the activities of a journalist to study the phenomenon of reality.” Thanks to metatextual elements, the author can combine impressions that are very heterogeneous in time into meta-events. If there is no meta-event in the essay, then different events are united by a common theme.

A portrait sketch, constructed as a chronological description of the hero’s life, requires special skill from the journalist. Here, first of all, the most careful selection is necessary. biographical facts. At the same time, “the essayist is always in danger of getting carried away by purely external (which can be vivid, even sensational) details of everyday life, the vicissitudes of fate, to the detriment of the main thing, the main thing - revealing the inner essence of a contemporary, his worldview, his social person, without which it is impossible to imagine social role the hero - his profession, his deeds.” Journalists make this kind of mistake especially often when portrait sketches with an action-packed event beginning. Being carried away by the development of the plot, the authors sometimes forget to convey to the reader the thoughts of the hero, their own thoughts about the event being described.

The second type of compositional structure of an essay - logical - is based on the logic of cause-and-effect relationships. In such works, it is important for the author to show the development of his own thoughts by putting forward a system of provisions and evidence. By identifying various cause-and-effect relationships between the phenomena of reality or exploring the inner world of the characters, the motives of their behavior, etc., the author builds the work according to the logic of his thoughts.

The third type of essay structure is essayistic - a free form of constructing essay material requires special skill from the essayist, since only at first glance it may seem that the laws of composition do not apply here. The main difficulty lies in the need to arrange heterogeneous content elements in the essay as harmoniously as possible. To do this, the journalist needs:

clearly think through the concept of the work;

consider various options for placing thematic and figurative text units;

determine what connections and digressions will be used in the essay;

think over the basic methods of mounting dissimilar composite elements, etc.

All this will allow you to avoid carelessness in presentation, forced gaps between different parts of the text, as well as fragmentation of the narrative.

Thus, the diverse arrangement of content elements in an essay depends on in various ways thematic development of the material.

Having considered the essay as a genre, having studied it theoretical basis and features, we can conclude that it is the main and leading genre of visual-figurative journalism, since it combines both rational knowledge of reality and emotional empathy for the events displayed, and also, at the same time, it acts as a special way of solving certain tasks, problems, reflection of modern reality.

A distinctive feature of the essay is the depth of the author's understanding. He not only describes, comments or analyzes a fact, but also melts it into the creative consciousness of the author. Basic character traits essay as a genre: documentary, rich; reliability of facts and events; depth of author's understanding; The narration is told on behalf of the author.

The concept of a literary essay appeared in Russian literary language from the 30-40s of the 19th century. The flourishing of the essay is observed: during the years of industrial growth, when the capitalization of certain circles of the nobility intensified and the bourgeoisie grew stronger (1840s), “physiological essays” became widespread; during the years of the rapid rise of the revolutionary democratic movement (1860-1870s) - an educational and populist essay; in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat - a problematic essay.

The word essay in the Russian language of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as in modern Russian, has three main meanings: contour, outline; description, presentation, survey research, giving general idea about the essence of a topic or question; a short literary work containing a brief, expressive description of something. There are three types of essay: portrait, problem, travel, and according to the structure of construction it is divided into three types: chronicle construction of the essay; construction based on the logic of cause-and-effect relationships; essayistic, free form of construction, based on complex associative connections and figurative generalizations.

Nowadays, the essay, unfortunately, has lost a little of its original popularity, since from the point of view of preparation it is one of the most labor-intensive genres, and modern journalists often have to write material in a short time.

Summarizing all of the above, it should also be noted that the essay is a unique genre - not only because it combines two principles, but also because, having begun its existence as a genre of exclusively fiction, it was able to move and strengthen itself in the system of journalistic genres. Information that is successfully presented in an “essay” form is perceived much easier and with great interest, because it’s as if we are holding it in our hands for a moment. good book and we plunge into another world, just like in those moments when we read works of fiction with interest. And after reading the essay, something can radically change in any person’s worldview, for example, some problem may suddenly seem not at all scary, but easily solvable. And why all? Because a journalist, writing a good, full-fledged essay, not only strives to convey important information, but at the same time he comprehends it, puts part of his soul into the text, and readers undoubtedly feel this.

During the research, we also made another sad conclusion: essays are extremely rare on the pages of the modern press, not only because writing them requires more time and “understanding” into the subject you are writing about; the fact is that this genre has become unprofitable. After all, any good essay somehow reflects eternal moral values, but who needs that? After all, the main emphasis is on negative information, since it best attracts attention and “touches the soul” the most. But, fortunately, full-fledged essays have not completely disappeared and this statement will be proven in the second part of the work.

Essay as a genre of artistic and journalistic style

History of the genre

The essay is one of the most common genres of journalism. During the study, we came to the conclusion that almost no author can give an absolutely clear definition of this genre, or offers several definitions to choose from. Therefore, first, let’s analyze information about the essay from various sources, and then, based on the data obtained, we will formulate our own definition.

First, let's look at what definitions are given for an essay in dictionaries.

a short literary work short description life events (usually socially significant). Documentary, journalistic, everyday essay;

A general statement of a question. Essay on Russian history.

1) in fiction, one of the types of stories, characterized by great descriptiveness, deals primarily with social problems;

2) journalistic, including documentary essay, presents and analyzes various facts and phenomena public life, usually accompanied by a direct interpretation by their author.

So, based on dictionary definitions, we can conclude that characteristic features essay are documentary, authenticity of facts, events about which we're talking about. It names the real names and surnames of the persons depicted, real and not fictitious places of events, describes the real situation, and indicates the time of action. In an essay, as in a work of fiction, we use visual arts, elements of artistic typification are introduced.

Now let’s look at how such authors as Tertychny A.A., Shostak M.I. explain the nature of the essay. and Kroychik L.E.

Starting to consider the essay as a genre, Tertychny immediately notes that it “as the name of journalistic publications certain type is of unknown origin." Next, he provides the reader with a brief curriculum vitae(tells who is involved in the appearance of the essay, lists its founders) and only after all this information says that “the essence of the essay is largely predetermined by the fact that it combines reportage (visual-figurative) and research (analytical) principles.<…>The extensiveness of the reportage principle is perceived as the predominance of the artistic method, while the author’s emphasis is on the analysis of the subject of the image and the identification of its interrelations acts as the dominance of the research, theoretical method.”

Shostak M.I. immediately begins to present information to the essence of the matter and reveals the most important feature of the essay as a genre: “the essay visually presents events and characters to the reader, thereby developing the “reporting direction” of the newspaper’s work. But in this genre, the development of the author’s thought about the subject of the image is also clearly and in detail presented. And, therefore, the essay continues the research and reviewer line, using its own specific means for this.”

Kroichik L.E. classifies the essay as a research and news text and immediately notes that for this genre “the method of imaginative cognition of reality is decisive.” In this author we find two definitions of the essay as a genre:

“An essay is an analytically based picture of reality: the system of evidence in it is based on the development of the conflict, on the interaction of characters, on the special nature of the narrative, which includes both a description of the actions of the characters and the author’s reasoning”;

“Essay is a journalistic genre that figuratively explores the laws of human social and moral existence and development social processes, as well as specific situations of reality."

Based on all of the above, we formulated the definition of an essay as follows:

An essay is an artistic and journalistic genre that combines reportage (visual-figurative) and research (analytical) principles, figuratively exploring the patterns of social and moral existence of a person and the development of social processes, as well as specific situations of reality.

The depth of the author's understanding - distinguishing feature essay. He not only describes, comments or analyzes a fact, but also melts it into the creative consciousness of the author. The personality of the author is no less important in an essay than a fact or event. The correct choice of means of expression is of fundamental importance. Expressive means include:

selection of images, comparisons and epithets;

composition, etc.

Personality in the essay takes on special quality literary hero, she stands apart. An essay, as a rule, is structured according to strict dramatic laws; it is polyphonic - it has many different lines.

The predominance of one method or another during the preparation of an essay depends primarily on the purpose and subject of the study. So, if the subject of research is some kind of problematic situation, then it would be advisable to study it theoretical method. If the subject of journalistic interest has become a personality, then an artistic method will be more suitable for identifying its character, allowing, so to speak, more naturally penetrate into the psychology of personality, without an idea of ​​which it is difficult to judge the merits or demerits of any person, including the hero of the essay.

A modern essay is most often characterized by documentary richness, often to the detriment of artistry. This is obviously due to the fact that the source material, i.e. the actual events reported by the essayist are often so dramatic, their plots are so unpredictable, the secrets revealed are so tempting and sensational that they themselves are capable of attracting the reader’s attention and being perceived by him at the level of information drawn from the most interesting works of fiction. In this case, the need for intensive processing of initial information often becomes unnecessary.

Based on all of the above, it is also possible to identify the main characteristic features of the essay as a genre:

documentary, richness;

reliability of facts and events;

History of the genre

The concept of "feature" as a name for a certain type of journalistic publication has unclear origins. Although there is an opinion that A.M. was involved in its appearance. Gorky, who in one of his letters to a colleague in the craft of words indicated that the starting point in defining a text that has a known literary form like "outline" is the verb "outline".

The accuracy of this opinion is difficult to determine. However, the fact that the publications that A.M. Gorky called them “essays”, did not appear at the moment when he had the idea to call them by this “name”, there is no doubt.

The concept of a literary essay appeared in the Russian literary language from the 30s-40s of the 19th century, and then became very widespread. The essay is found in the history of Russian literature in a wide variety of eras, but at a certain time it acquires especially important significance, moving to the forefront of literary life.

The flourishing of the essay is observed:

during the years of industrial growth, when the capitalization of certain circles of the nobility intensified and the bourgeoisie grew stronger (1840s);

during the years of the rapid rise of the revolutionary democratic movement (1860-1870s);

in the era of the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The essays in the 1840s were called "physiological essays." They took shape under the influence of French bourgeois essays, many of which were translated and republished into Russian (“Physiology” by Balzac, “Physiology of the Pleasure Lover” by James Rousseau and many others). Of the original Russian physiological essays, the most interesting collections are:

“Ours, copied from life by Russians” (1841, compiled by Bashutsky);

“Physiology of St. Petersburg” (1844-1845, ed. Nekrasov);

“Essays on Russian morals, or the front and back of the human race” (1843, 6 issues, Bulgarina);

“Tales, fairy tales and stories” by Cossack Lugansky (1846, 4 parts);

In the bourgeois magazine “Finnish Bulletin” (1845-1847), a special department “Moral Writer” was organized, where “physiological essays” were published from issue to issue.

“Physiological essays” in the 40s. became a significant phenomenon in different class literatures: liberal-noble (Bashutsky, Grigorovich, Turgenev and others), bourgeois (Bulgarin and others), liberal-petty-bourgeois (Dal and others) and raznochinsky, revolutionary-democratic (Belinsky, Nekrasov and others. ). The heroes of the “physiological essays” were mainly people of the “lowest rank”, inhabitants of the basements and outskirts of the capitalist city, who for the first time became the subject of artistic knowledge V great literature. Despite all the different approaches to their topic, the writers of each of the indicated class groups focused on the professional and everyday characteristics of the social type. The desire to reproduce the type from nature, to capture the professional differentiation, which became a characteristic expression of the division of labor of the developing commodity economy - this was the main thrust of the physiological essay. Physiological essays were great importance in the history of Russian literature as one of the most important genres of the natural school.

In the literature of the 60-70s. The educational essay became widespread. Unlike the noble and bourgeois essays of the previous era, the educational essays of the 60-70s. provided richer factual material and a much more correct depiction of the social position of the exploited lower classes, primarily the peasant. Essay literature took over in the 60-70s. position dangerous competitor dominant noble-bourgeois literature.

In the 80s The populist essay became widespread, the main representative of which was Gleb Uspensky. Liberal populism of the 80s. gave big number essays (Zlatovratsky, Vl. Korolenko, etc.), which, however, did not have the same significance as essays on revolutionary democracy. Revolutionary-democratic (enlightenment and populist) essays did not develop into significant stories and novels, since peasant democracy, due to unfavorable conditions, could not widely develop its artistic culture at that time.

In the conditions of the proletarian dictatorship and the construction of socialism, the development of the essay acquires a number of significant features. First of all wealth practical activities of the proletariat, the development of new areas of reality, the restructuring of people's relationships to each other and to work led to the expansion of the themes of essay creativity. The Soviet essay began to exist in the first years of the restoration period (essays by L. Reisner about the civil war, about the Urals, Donbass, about the revolutionary movement in the West, essays by M. Shaginyan on industrial topics, essays by D. Furmanov). Lively sketches of the events of the era civil war, travel observations - this is the main direction of the Soviet essay of this period.

The essay receives another impetus in its development in the context of the country's transition to socialist reconstruction. A problematic essay appears, devoted to the issues of restoring production, a new way of life, recruiting workers, etc. Like all Soviet literature, the essay is diverse depending on the class ideology of the writer-essayist. So, for example, the petty-bourgeois group of writers “Lef” put forward a number of authors who gave examples of essayistic creativity in which objectivist depiction, demonstration of things, economic processes, or bare business activity was established. B. Kushner gave industrial still lifes. Practicality, efficiency, and transfer of the organizational and business side of the process prevailed in S. Tretyakov’s essays. This focus of the Lef essayists on conveying the facts themselves was combined with ignoring the phenomena of the class struggle, with the inability to show the role of man, with the muting of their author's attitude to reality. IN further development Soviet essay, the narrowness of the creative practice and theory of the Lefist essayists becomes especially clear. And then a galaxy of proletarian essayists made production and the construction of new relations in the countryside the theme of their work. In the essays of V. Stavsky, I. Zhiga and other proletarian essayists, the facts of reality were subjected to generalization and typification, and the world-historical significance of the observed examples was revealed. The impact on the reader was achieved not only by the selection of eloquent phenomena in themselves, but also by the partisan nature of their coverage. The essay played a significant role in Soviet literature. Many aspiring writers used the essay genre in their first literary experiments (essays by Tarasevich, Salov, Mikhailov, etc.).

The development of the Soviet essay, its diversity caused different estimates and debates about the place of this genre in fiction. Discussion on this issue developed widely in 1928-1929. between Lef and Marxist criticism. Objecting to the underestimation of the essay, against treating it as “inferior” artistic genre, which has only agitation and propaganda significance (a point of view in which the prejudices of the nobility of bourgeois theoreticians and aesthetes were reflected), “Lef” promptly came to his defense.

A meeting of essayists held in preparation for the All-Union Congress of Writers (June 1934) showed the enormous importance of the essay at the stage of social construction. The essay won a place of honor not only in the central press, but also in district and regional newspapers, as well as in many other publications.

These days, the essay, unfortunately, has lost a little of its original popularity. As Tertychny correctly notes, from the point of view of preparation, the essay is “one of the most labor-intensive.<…>A journalist can write a good essay only if he is confident in the various methods of depicting reality that exist in his craft.” But we must take into account that when preparing an essay, it is not enough to find a suitable subject of speech, successfully collect and analyze the material, but also to rethink it accordingly and translate it into an “essay” form. Since a “hyperdynamic style of work” dominates in modern media, essays are rarely found on the pages of printed publications and are often characterized by “documentary richness to the detriment of artistry.”

The word essay in the Russian language of the 19th and 20th centuries, as well as in modern Russian, has three main meanings:

Contour, outline;

Based on this meaning, the widespread use of the word essay in painting and in the visual arts arose;

For example: “We went to London together; I asked him details, little things about his friends - little things without which faces cease to be alive and remain in memory as large sketches, profiles.”

Description, presentation, survey research, giving a general idea of ​​the essence of a topic or issue;

On the basis of this meaning, the designation “essays” grows for scientific works, which are a series of internally related sketches, sketches, and articles.

For example: “Essays on the history of the Russian literary language”

A short literary work containing a brief, expressive description of something.

For example: essays on folk life

The third meaning, which developed in the Russian literary language from the 30-40s of the 19th century, then became widespread. In this meaning, the word essay became especially productive in Soviet literature. On its basis a series of new derivative words grew: ocherkist, ocherkistka, ocherkistskiy, ocherkovy, ocherkizm. In the system of modern Russian language, the word essay is closer to book style than to household oral speech. At the same time, its original meaning - contour, outline - becomes obsolete. Meanwhile, it is precisely this meaning that developed at the end of the 18th - early XIX century formed the basis for the entire subsequent semantic history of the word essay.

Essay on this epic, prose genre with a pronounced organizing role of the author’s “I”. It is located at the intersection of fiction and journalism. The boundaries separating the Essay from other epic genres are very conditional and fluid. The essay retains its features figurative reflection life, using the means of artistic representation, and in connection with this approaches the story From the story and story, distinguished by the sequence of events arising from one another and conditioned conflict situations between characters, the essay is distinguished by a free composition organized by a “storyteller” or an ideological “task.” " The essay genre has its own specific, difficult and only partially overcome weaknesses - fragmentation, small coverage of reality, inevitable conciseness, locality. But the essay has advantages that many other types of verbal art do not have. It can combine a plot story, a skit, a statistical calculation, a journalistic attack, and a lesson."(Shcheglov).

The first Essays (moral descriptive and moralizing) appeared during the Enlightenment in England on the pages of the magazines “Chatterbox” (1707-11) and “Spectator” (1711-14) by R. Steele and J. Addison. Borrowings from English moralizing journalism predetermined the appearance of Essays describing everyday reality and the ordinary hero in Germany, Italy, and Russia (satirical magazines by N.I. Novikov “Drone”, 1769-70 and “Painter”, 1772-73). In the 18th century, not only various forms of essay literature were developed, but also the specific genre content of Essays was established - “characteristics” of types, carriers of common shortcomings and “vices” that were subjected to satirical sharpening and ridicule. In the essayistic works of Charles Dickens (“Sketches of Bose,” 1836, defined by the author as “small sketches of true life and morals”) and W. M. Thackeray (“The Book of Snobs,” 1847), the motives and themes of their future novels were outlined. A large series of Essays outlining the main types of “Human Comedy” was published by O. Balzac. His story “Gobsek” (1830) grew out of the essays “The Moneylender” (1829). Unlike the enlighteners, in whose work the Essay was a characteristic of a certain “universal human” vice, the authors of “physiological essays” (and above all Balzac), who tried to apply new methods of the natural sciences (hence the name “physiology”) to understand the laws of social life, The essay turns into a description of social types, representatives of various walks of life. In the 20th century, the Russian "" polemically contrasted the literature of fact fiction, trying to substantiate the leading importance of the factual Essay in the development of literature (similar views were expressed by representatives of the French “literature of fact” of the 1930s - R. Dorgeles, A. Londre, P. Ami). At the same time, an essay permeated with various lyrical and philosophical reflections was becoming widespread: “The Green Hills of Africa” (1936), “Death in the Afternoon” (1932) by E. Hemingway, “Planet of People” (1939) by A. de Saint-Exupery. In 1929, the magazine “Our Achievements”, founded by M. Gorky, who believed that the Essay occupies an intermediate place between research and story, began to be published - a kind of laboratory of Soviet essayists. The flow of essay literature was generated by the second World War(J. Laffitte, J. Aldridge, K. Simonov, V. Grossman, J. Ehrenburg, L. Leonov).

Types of Essay

There are literary and journalistic-documentary essays.. An artistic essay creatively typifies the characters, conveying the “statics” of their existence, depicts stable relationship between people that have developed in their public and private lives. The object of “moral descriptive” analysis in an artistic essay is not only the environment as a whole or its typical representatives, but also an individual person, taken in its moral and psychological aspect. “Generalized”, “non-addressed” characters in the Essay are one of the signs of its artistry. Artistic Essays include “Notes of a Hunter” (1852) by I.S. Turgenev, “Essays on the Bursa” (1862-63) by N.G. Pomyalovsky, essays by V.A. Gilyarovsky, K.G. Paustovsky. The artistic essay is presented in various compositional varieties: essay memoirs, essay biography, lyrical-philosophical essay. Travel Essay is the most “ancient” artistic variety of the genre: “An excerpt of a trip to *** I*** T***”, published in N.I. Novikov’s magazine “Painter” in 1772; “A Trip to Revel” (1821) by A.A. Bestuzhev, “Journey to Arzrum” (1835) by A.S. Pushkin, essay prose by I.A. Goncharov (“Frigate “Pallada”, 1855-57), A.P. .Chekhov (“From Siberia”, 1890, and “Sakhalin Island”, 1893-94), M. Koltsov, I. Ehrenburg, M. Shaginyan. The journalistic-documentary essay is usually considered as a genre of journalism.

How to write an essay

“A good essay makes readers remember
who they are at their core, what they want, what they dream of”

K. Paustovsky

Feature article- one of the most interesting genres. It exists at the intersection of journalism and literature. Unfortunately, most schoolchildren and students write essays the same way they would write essays or articles for a school newspaper.

Sketch - one of the varieties of small form epic literature- a story that differs from its other form, the short story, in the absence of a single, acute and quickly resolved conflict and in the greater development of the descriptive image. Both differences depend on the specifics of the essay's problems. This is a semi-fictional, semi-documentary genre that describes real events and real people.

The essay is both a documentary-scientific understanding of reality and an aesthetic exploration of the world. It is no coincidence that an essay is compared with works of art and even with painting, emphasizing: if a story is a picturesque picture, then sketch - a graphic drawing or sketch for a painting. It seems to be on the verge between a document and a generalized artistic image.

The essay introduces the reader to new, emerging forms of life and its daily course, awakens public opinion and forms an understanding of the right to put forward and defend advanced thoughts, combining an objective assessment of reality with subjective opinion, comparisons and parallels between them.

The main feature of the essay- writing from life.

There are three main types of essays - portrait, problem and travel.

In the center portrait essay - a person’s personality, his life, his aspirations, joys and sorrows. In addition to interest in the hero (if this famous person), portrait sketches are needed by readers in order to compare their system of moral values ​​with the views of another person. A portrait essay is a compressed story about someone's life. The famous journalist Yuri Rost said about this: “I try to feel my interlocutor. I ask him what he regrets most in life, what he is proud of. My interest is sincere, and it helps me create, first within myself and then on paper, the image of my hero.”

IN problematic In the essay, the focus is on some problem; in the essay it can act as a conflict that its characters are trying to resolve. In a problem essay, parallels and deviations from the topic are appropriate; the problem is analyzed more using artistic means than statistical information.

Traveler An essay is a description of some events, incidents, meetings with people that occur during the author’s journey. This is a genre that allows the author to demonstrate his imagination and literary skill to the greatest extent. the main problem- this is always a selection of information, because there are usually a lot of impressions as a result of trips, and the task is to select the most interesting and important. A travel essay can have several goals - for example, to show how people live in other cities and countries.

Note:

If the essay contains elements of dialogue, then the speech of the characters should bear the imprint of their social environment. (So, for example, a street child says the word “aunt” and does not say “woman”). The author has the right to correct speech if the characters communicate using invective.

Helpful Tips:

Brilliant publicist Mikhail Koltsov at one time he advised aspiring authors to pay attention to two things: composition and language.

The essay should touch upon social issues important topics. The author must rely on facts, draw logical conclusions, and clearly indicate his author’s position.

Before writing an essay, you need to sketch out its structure: outline social problem, analyze how it is solved, and connect the author’s reasoning with the characters of the most striking characters. You can start an essay with an artistic sketch, with a description of the scene, with sociology and statistics. The essay is interesting because it almost does not limit the author’s imagination and curiosity.

It is necessary to avoid dry official phrases and speech cliches. And read Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Gilyarovsky. Gilyarovsky is one of the brilliant essayists and journalists of the 19th century.

When preparing an essay, artistic and visual means play a huge role. The strength of the essayist lies in the wide and skillful use of landscape, portrait, dialogue, description, speech characteristics, etc.

But even the most colorful and sophisticated artistic images, metaphors and comparisons will not help you if your intention and structure of the text are not clearly built.

“Colorfulness” does not consist at all in adding fat to the “dish”, but in constructing an essay, in the ability to somehow endlessly arrange the material in a new way, so that its individual pieces and particles electrify each other, so that they add up to an overall design and this design would not only rush forward, but would also stay in “place” by itself (M. Koltsov).

How is the outline of a text achieved?

Firstly, documentary. We must strive to present in detail what happened, without missing a single significant detail. But the fact in itself is not important. The main thing is how characteristic it is of the journalistic idea, the problem of the essay.

Secondly, the subject of the essay is a typical, classic case in the conditions of the present time. That is, a case that clearly characterizes and illustrates the stage of social development.

Third, this typical case is a manifestation of an obvious or hidden conflict (contradiction). Drama is an inherent feature of the essay.

Fourth, the image is of great importance in the essay. Emotional, dramatic and organically rich, it represents “a generalization of life and an assessment of life phenomena.”

Particular attention should be paid to the language.

Plan for working on an essay (example):

1. Problem

A portrait sketch is not just a description of a person, it is material written in connection with the awareness of some socially significant problem.

Formulate and describe in general outline the problem you will develop in the essay.

2. Collective image

If you simply describe your desk neighbor, you won’t get a portrait sketch. This could be called a description or sketch. Your task is to see the connection between the image of a particular person and collectively modern representative younger generation. Show the general in the particular, and the particular in the general.

Write down as many characteristics as possible of the collective image of a representative of the younger generation.

3. Controversy

The essence of the sketch's image is a contradiction. The essay will not work if you fail to see and show all the drama of the collision and coexistence of opposing qualities.

In two or three sentences, “draw” a positive and negative portrait of a hero of our time.

4. Accents

As a rule, “newspaper portraits” are schematic: 3-4 details plus a “leading” detail that characterizes the character. It is no coincidence that it is believed that the word “essay” comes from the word “to outline,” that is, literally to outline with strokes or features.

Write down 3-4 details that are most important, in your opinion, for characterizing the hero. Try to find a dominant, “leading” detail.

5. Character description

Describe your character’s face, clothes, movements, facial expressions, his manner of behavior and communication.

6. Personality Traits

Write down as many character traits of your hero as possible: what he is like at home, in the classroom, at work, in an informal setting.

7. Situation

This or that situation best characterizes a person. Remember a time when your hero behaved in a way that was unexpected to you.

8. Connections: hero - image - problem

Write a sentence or several sentences that will connect the image of your hero with the collective image and the identified problem.

Formulate your attitude towards the character. Your task is to unobtrusively and as if even imperceptibly for the reader to convey your assessment in a few words included in the text of the essay. What words could these be?

You need to be able to give an essay something like this
didactic character, which
awakens thought and forces the reader
contemplate the material with you,
push him internally.
Mikhail Koltsov

Essay evaluation criteria

1.Is there an attractive unique title that reflects main idea essay? (HEADING)

2. Does the essay have a unique idea - a main paragraph containing the main idea (climax phrase) of the work? (IDEA)

3.Is the image of the hero/object of research fully presented? (STUDY)

4. Is the sphere of the main interests of the hero shown, where he realizes the meaning of his life/the role and significance of the object in the sociocultural situation of our time? (COMPETENCE)

5. Is there any sensational, unique information about the hero and his activities? Doesn't the essay sound like a dry resume? (NON-STANDARD)

6.Is there a clear composition, a logical sequence of paragraphs? (LOGICS)