Short story, short story, tale as epic genres. Genre story: features, history of development, examples

The story is designation of the small prose epic genre. So called “lyrical stories” are close to “poems in prose” (“First Love”, 1930, I.A. Bunina), but can be larger in volume and express broader issues. The words “story”, “tale”, “narration” initially did not have a genre meaning and were basically synonymous. The word “story” retains the meaning of “narration” or generally “the history of some event” even later. With the growth in the volume of Russian stories in the 1830s, prerequisites for the genre isolation of stories arose. In the 1840s, V.G. Belinsky already separated the story and essay as small genres from the novel and story. But the difference between a story and a story was based not so much on the volume of the text, but on the degree of literary processing of the plot: the story was considered closer to reality that had not been creatively transformed. Since the 1830s, and especially since the second half of the 19th century, “stories from Russian history” have been spreading - fictionalized accounts of historical episodes or biographies of famous people. These are the ones that deserve the approval of A.S. Pushkin historical stories for the children of A.O. Ishimova, later - similar essays, also called stories, by A.N. Maykov, A.S. Suvorin, N.S. Leskov, historians S.M. Solovyov, N.I. Kostomarov. But there were also stories that were only a stylization of an unartistic narrative, as a rule, with a narrator who verbally recounts an incident that actually took place or was presented by the author as such.

Belinsky saw in M.Yu. Lermontov’s “Hero of Our Time” three stories, obviously written by Pechorin, and two short stories, i.e. the story of Bela, allegedly told orally by Maxim Maksimych and only then written down by an officer-traveler, and the psychological sketch “Maksim Maksimych” with a relatively undeveloped plot. Typical story the second half of the 19th century - “The Stupid Artist” (1883) by Leskov, which has the subtitle “A Story at the Grave.” The sign of volume was finally approved as a genre only by A.P. Chekhov, whose small and medium genres are outwardly clearly distinguished, although not by the volume of the plot: his stories often cover, like stories, actually history whole life(“Man in a Case”, 1898, “Ionych”, 1898, “Darling”, 1899, “Bishop”, 1902). The boundary between a story and a story is sometimes quite vague among writers Silver Age(L.N. Andreev). In Soviet literature there were works of small volume with a very broad content: stories or a short story by A.G. Malyshkin “The Fall of Dire” (1923) - the same attempt to revive heroic epic, like A.S. Serafimovich’s story “The Iron Stream” (1924). The story “The Fate of a Man” (1956) by M.A. Sholokhov was called an “epic story” by literary critic L.G. Yakimenko. In the 20th century, the classic of short stories is Bunin; I.E. Babel, K.G. Paustovsky, V.M. Shukshin, Yu.P. Kazakov, satirists and humorists Teffi, A.T. Averchenko, M.M. Zoshchenko showed themselves mainly in the genre of stories.

In the West, the story corresponds to a short story. It is considered a type of story, distinguished by a sharp, often paradoxical plot, compositional precision, and lack of descriptiveness. The genre developed in Italy during the Renaissance. One hundred short stories include “The Decameron” (1350-53) by G. Boccaccio. Novellas were written by Margarita of Navarre, M. Cervantes and others. Recognized masters of the genre in the 19th century - E. T. A. Hoffmann, P. Merimee, E. A. Poe, later G. de Maupassant, O. Henry, L. Pirandello , Bret Harte, J. London, S. Zweig. IN English language The term “story” is synonymous with the concept of “short story”.

Literary genre is a group literary works, which has common historical development trends and is united by a set of properties in its content and form. Sometimes this term is confused with the concepts of “type” and “form”. Today there is no single clear classification of genres. Literary works are divided according to a certain number of characteristic features.

History of genre formation

First systematization literary genres was presented by Aristotle in his Poetics. Thanks to this work, it began to appear that literary genre is a natural stable system that requires the author to fully comply with the principles and canons a certain genre. Over time, this led to the formation of a number of poetics that strictly prescribed to authors exactly how they should write a tragedy, ode or comedy. Long years these requirements remained unshakable.

Decisive changes in the system of literary genres began only end of the XVIII century.

At the same time literary works aimed at artistic exploration, in their attempts to distance themselves as much as possible from genre divisions, gradually came to the emergence of new phenomena unique to literature.

What literary genres exist

To understand how to determine the genre of a work, you need to familiarize yourself with existing classifications and the characteristic features of each of them.

Below is an approximate table for determining the type of existing literary genres

Division of genres by content

Classification literary trends based on content includes comedy, tragedy and drama.

Comedy is a type of literature, which involves a humorous approach. Varieties of comic direction are:

There are also comedy of characters and sitcoms. In the first case, the source of humorous content is internal features characters, their vices or shortcomings. In the second case, comedy is manifested in current circumstances and situations.

Tragedy - dramatic genre with an obligatory catastrophic outcome, the opposite of the comedy genre. Typically, tragedy reflects the deepest conflicts and contradictions. The plot is of the most intense nature. In some cases, tragedies are written in poetic form.

Drama is a special kind fiction , where the events taking place are conveyed not through their direct description, but through monologues or dialogues of the characters. Drama like literary phenomenon existed among many peoples even at the level of works of folklore. Originally in Greek, this term meant a sad event that affects one specific person. Subsequently, drama began to represent a wider range of works.

The most famous prose genres

The category of prose genres includes literary works of various lengths, written in prose.

Novel

A novel is a prose literary genre that involves a detailed narrative about the fate of the heroes and certain critical periods of their lives. The name of this genre dates back to the 12th century, when knightly stories arose “in the folk Romance language” as the opposite of Latin historiography. The short story began to be considered a plot type of novel. IN late XIX- at the beginning of the 20th century such concepts as a detective novel appeared in literature, women's novel, a fantasy novel.

Novella

A short story is a type of prose genre. Her birth was caused by the famous collection "Decameron" Giovanni Boccaccio . Subsequently, several collections based on the model of the Decameron were published.

The era of romanticism introduced elements of mysticism and phantasmagorism into the short story genre - examples include the works of Hoffmann and Edgar Allan Poe. On the other hand, the works of Prosper Merimee bore the features of realistic stories.

Novella as short story with a sharp plot became characteristic genre For American literature.

Characteristics the novellas are:

1. Maximum brevity of presentation.
2. The poignancy and even paradoxical nature of the plot.
3. Neutrality of style.
4. Lack of descriptiveness and psychologism in the presentation.
5. An unexpected ending, always containing an extraordinary turn of events.

Tale

A story is prose of a relatively small volume. The plot of the story, as a rule, is in the nature of reproducing natural life events. Usually the story reveals the fate and personality of the hero against the backdrop of current events. A classic example is “Tales of the late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by A.S. Pushkin.

Story

A short story is a small form of prose work, which originates from folklore genres - parables and fairy tales. Some literary experts as a type of genre review essays, essays and short stories. Usually the story is characterized by a small volume, one storyline and a small number of characters. Stories are characteristic of literary works of the 20th century.

Play

It's called a play dramatic work, which is created for the purpose of subsequent theatrical production.

The structure of the play usually includes phrases from the characters and the author's remarks describing the environment or the actions of the characters. At the beginning of the play there is always a list of characters With brief description their appearance, age, character, etc.

The whole play is divided into large parts - acts or actions. Each action, in turn, is divided into smaller elements - scenes, episodes, pictures.

The plays of J.B. have won great fame in world art. Moliere (“Tartuffe”, “The Imaginary Invalid”) B. Shaw (“Wait and see”), B. Brecht (“The Good Man from Szechwan”, “The Threepenny Opera”).

Description and examples of individual genres

Let's look at the most common and significant examples of literary genres for world culture.

Poem

A poem is a large work of poetry that has a lyrical plot or describes a sequence of events. Historically, the poem was “born” from the epic

In turn, a poem can have many genre varieties:

1. Didactic.
2. Heroic.
3. Burlesque,
4. Satirical.
5. Ironic.
6. Romantic.
7. Lyrical-dramatic.

Initially, the leading themes for the creation of poems were world-historical or important religious events and themes. An example of such a poem would be Virgil's Aeneid., “The Divine Comedy” by Dante, “Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, “ Lost heaven"J. Milton, Voltaire's Henriad, etc.

At the same time, it developed romantic poem- “The Knight in Leopard’s Skin” by Shota Rustaveli, “Furious Roland” by L. Ariosto. This type of poem to a certain extent echoes the tradition of medieval chivalric romances.

Over time, moral, philosophical and social themes began to take center stage (“Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” by J. Byron, “The Demon” by M. Yu. Lermontov).

IN XIX-XX centuries the poem begins more and more become realistic(“Frost, Red Nose”, “Who Lives Well in Rus'” by N.A. Nekrasov, “Vasily Terkin” by A.T. Tvardovsky).

Epic

An epic is usually understood as a set of works that are combined common era, nationality, subject.

The emergence of each epic is conditioned by certain historical circumstances. As a rule, an epic claims to be an objective and authentic account of events.

Visions

This unique narrative genre, when the story is told from a person's point of view ostensibly experiencing a dream, lethargy, or hallucination.

1. Already in the era of antiquity, under the guise of real visions, fictitious events began to be described in the form of visions. The authors of the first visions were Cicero, Plutarch, Plato.
2. In the Middle Ages, the genre began to gain momentum in popularity, reaching its peak with Dante in his " Divine Comedy", which in its form represents a detailed vision.
3. For some time, visions were an integral part of church literature in most European countries. The editors of such visions were always representatives of the clergy, thus gaining the opportunity to express their personal views, supposedly on behalf of higher powers.
4. Over time, new acute social satirical content was put into the form of visions (“Visions of Peter the Plowman” by Langland).

In more modern literature the genre of visions began to be used to introduce elements of fantasy.

small form epic kind literature; small in volume prose work. Unlike an essay, a story has a plot and conflict and is less documentary, i.e. it contains fiction. A short story differs from a short story in its dynamic construction and, as a rule, an unexpected outcome of the plot. Depending on the content, there are two types of stories: novelistic and essay types. The basis of a short story is a certain incident that reveals the development of the character of the main character. Such stories record either a moment that changed the hero’s worldview, or several events that led to this moment: “Belkin’s Tales” by A. S. Pushkin, “The Bride” and “Ionych” by A. P. Chekhov, “the tramp” stories of M. Gorky. A story of this type goes back to the literature of the Renaissance, where many stories of the novelistic type were combined into a larger work: this is how “Don Quixote” by M. Cervantes, “Gilles Blas” by A. R. Lesage, “Till Eulenspiegel” by C. de Coster are constructed. A story of an essay type captures a certain state of the world or society; its task is to show not a key point, but an ordinary, normal life any group of people or one person, choosing the most typical moment for this: “Notes of a Hunter” by I. S. Turgenev, “ Antonov apples"I. A. Bunin, "Cavalry" by I. E. Babel. Such stories are often included in more major work, unfolding a morally descriptive picture, often with satirical pathos; for example, in J. Swift, M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin. A story can combine both trends: the author uses the novelistic form for morally descriptive content; for example, “Mumu” ​​by I. S. Turgenev, “Death of an Official” by A. P. Chekhov, etc.

Among the stories, detective and fantasy stories stand out. Detective stories describe a criminal incident; their plot is based on the search for a criminal. Writers often create cycles of detective stories united by a central character: for example, Sherlock Holmes by A.C. Doyle or Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple by A. Christie. Fantasy stories place the action in fictional world(the future or another planet), showing the life of the heroes among technical innovations in conditions of almost unlimited possibilities, for example. fantastic stories by R. Bradbury.

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

Cheat sheet for the writer:

STORY - rules of construction.

Story- a small form of epic prose, correlated with the story as a more developed form of storytelling. Or according to "Literary encyclopedic dictionary"V.M. Kozhevnikov and P.A. Nikolaev: “Small epic genre form fiction - a small prose work in terms of the volume of depicted phenomena of life, and hence in terms of the volume of text.”

Story goes back to folklore genres(fairy tale, parable); how the genre became isolated in written literature; often indistinguishable from a short story, and since the 18th century. - and an essay. Sometimes a short story and an essay are considered as polar varieties story.

In the 1840s, when the unconditional predominance of prose over poetry in Russian literature was fully evident, V.G. Belinsky already distinguished story and the 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 received the widest development in Russian democratic literature, there was an opinion that this genre was always documentary, stories are created on the basis creative imagination. According to another opinion, story differs from an essay in the conflicting nature of the plot, while an essay is a primarily descriptive work. Story contains a small number of characters, and also, most often, has one storyline.Inherent story patterns:

Unity of time. Validity time in story limited. Not necessarily - just for a day, like the classicists. Nevertheless, stories, the plot of which covers the entire life of the character, are not found too often. Appear even less frequently stories, in which the action lasts for centuries.

Temporary unity is conditioned and closely connected with another - the unity of action. Even story covers a significant period, it is still devoted to the development of one action, more precisely, one conflict (for proximity story It seems that all researchers of poetics point to drama).

Unity of action is related to unity of events. As Boris Tomashevsky wrote, “a short story usually has a simple plot, with one fabular thread (the simplicity of constructing a plot has nothing to do with the complexity and intricacy of individual situations), with a short chain of changing situations, or, rather, with one central change of situations.” In other words, story either it is limited to the description of a single event, or one or two events become the main, culminating, meaning-forming events in it. Hence the unity of the place. Action story occurs in one place or in a strictly limited number of places. There may still be two or three, but it’s unlikely that there will be five (they can only be mentioned by the author).

Character unity. In space story, as a rule, there is one main character. Sometimes there are two of them. And very rarely - several. That is minor characters, in principle, there can be quite a lot, but they are purely functional. The task of the minor characters in story- create a background, help or hinder the main character. No more.

One way or another, all of the listed unities come down to one thing - the unity of the center.

A story cannot exist without some central, defining sign that would “pull together” all the others. Ultimately, it makes absolutely no difference whether this center becomes a climactic event or a static descriptive image, or significant gesture character, or the development of the action itself. In any story there must be a main image, through which everything rests compositional structure, which sets the theme and determines the meaning of the story.

The practical conclusion from discussions about “unities” suggests itself: the basic principle compositional construction story“lies in the economy and expediency of motives” (Tomashevsky called the motive the smallest unit of text structure - be it an event, character or action - which can no longer be decomposed into components). And, therefore, the most terrible sin the author - oversaturation of the text, excessive detail, a pile of unnecessary details.

This happens all the time. Oddly enough, this mistake is very typical for people who are extremely conscientious about what they write. There is a desire to express yourself to the maximum in each text. Young directors do exactly the same thing when staging graduation performances or films (especially films where fantasy is not limited by the text of the play). What are these works about? About everything. About life and death, about the fate of man and humanity, about God and the devil, etc. The best of them contain a lot of finds, a lot most interesting images, which... would be enough for ten performances or films.

Authors with a developed artistic imagination love to introduce static descriptive motifs into the text. The main character may be chased by a pack of cannibal wolves, but if dawn begins, reddened clouds, dimmed stars, and long shadows will certainly be described. It’s as if the author said to the wolves and the hero: “Stop!” - admired the nature and only after that allowed him to continue the chase.

All motives in story should work on meaning, reveal the topic. The gun described at the beginning simply must fire at the end of the story. It is better to simply erase motives that lead astray. Or look for images that would outline the situation without excessive detail. Remember, Treplev says about Trigorin (in “The Seagull” by Anton Chekhov): “The neck of a broken bottle shines on his dam, and the shadow of a mill wheel turns black - that’s it.” Moonlight night I’m ready, but I have a flickering light, and the quiet twinkling of stars, and the distant sounds of a piano, fading in the quiet fragrant air... It’s painful.”

However, here we must take into account that violating traditional ways of constructing text can be effective. artistic device.Story can be built practically on descriptions alone. However, he cannot do without action entirely. The hero is obliged to take at least a step, at least raise his hand (that is, make a significant gesture). Otherwise, we are not dealing with story, but with a sketch, a miniature, and a prose poem. Other characteristic feature story- a meaningful ending. The romance, in fact, can go on forever. Robert Musil was never able to finish his "Man Without Qualities." You can search for lost time for a very, very long time. "The Glass Bead Game" by Hermann Hesse can be supplemented with any number of texts. The novel is not limited in scope at all. This shows its kinship with the epic poem. The Trojan epic or the Mahabharata tend to infinity. In the early Greek novel, as Mikhail Bakhtin noted, the hero's adventures can continue as long as desired, and the ending is always formal and predetermined.

Story is built differently. Its ending is very often unexpected and paradoxical. It was with this paradoxical ending that Lev Vygotsky associated the emergence of catharsis in the reader. Today's researchers (Patrice Pavy, for example) consider catharsis as a kind of emotional pulsation that arises as one reads. However, the significance of the ending remains the same. It can completely change the meaning of the story, make you rethink what is stated in story.

By the way, it doesn’t have to be just one final phrase. In Sergei Paliya's Kohinoor, the ending is stretched over two paragraphs. And yet the last few words resonate most powerfully. The author seems to be saying that practically nothing has changed in his character’s life. But... “now his angular figure was no longer like wax.” And this tiny circumstance turns out to be the most important. If this change had not happened to the hero, there would be no need to write story.

So, unity of time, unity of action and unity of events, unity of place, unity of character, unity of center, meaningful ending and catharsis - these are the components of a story. story Of course, all this is approximate and unsteady, the boundaries of these rules are very conditional and can be violated, because, first of all, talent is needed, and knowledge of the laws of construction

or another genre will never help teach you to write brilliantly, on the contrary - violation of these laws sometimes leads to amazing effects, becoming a new word in literature. The short story genre is one of the most popular in literature. Many writers turned to him and continue to turn to him. After reading this article, you will learn what the features of the short story genre are, examples of the most famous works

, as well as popular mistakes that authors make. The story is one of the small literary forms

A Brief History of the Short Story Genre

V. G. Belinsky (his portrait is presented above) back in the 1840s distinguished sketches and stories as small prose genres from the story and novel as larger ones. Already at this time, the predominance of prose over poetry was fully evident in Russian literature.

A little later, in the 2nd half of the 19th century, the essay received the widest 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 conflicting nature of the plot. After all, an essay is characterized by the fact that it is mainly a descriptive work.

Unity of time

In order to more fully characterize the short story genre, it is necessary to highlight the patterns inherent in it. The first of them is the unity of time. In a story, the time of action is always limited. However, not necessarily only one day, as in the works of classicists. Although this rule is not always followed, it is rare to find stories in which the plot covers the entire life of the main character. Even less often are works created 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 entire fate of a character is revealed, one can note “The Death of Ivan Ilyich” (author Leo Tolstoy) and It also happens that not the whole life is presented, but a long period of it. For example, in Chekhov's "The Jumper" a series of significant events in the fate of the heroes, their environment, the difficult development of relationships between them. However, this is given in an extremely condensed and condensed manner. It is the conciseness of the content, greater than in the story, that is common feature story and, perhaps, the only one.

Unity of action and place

There are other features of the short story genre that need to be noted. The unity of time is closely connected and conditioned by another unity - action. A short 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. This is where the unity of the place comes from. 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, in the space of a work of this genre there is one main character. Occasionally there may be two of them, and very rarely - several. As for the secondary characters, there can be quite a lot of them, but they are purely functional. A short story is a genre of literature in which the task minor characters limited to creating a background. They can hinder or help the main character, but nothing 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, which is impossible neither in a story nor in a novel.

Unity of the center

Like the genres listed above, one way or another they come down to the unity of the center. Indeed, it is impossible to imagine a story without some defining, central sign that “pulls together” all the others. It doesn’t 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. Main image must be in any story. It is due to him that the entire composition is held together. It sets the theme of the work and determines the meaning of the story being told.

The basic principle of constructing a story

The conclusion from thinking about “unities” is not difficult to draw. The thought naturally suggests itself that the main principle of constructing the composition of a story is the expediency and economy of motives. Tomashevsky called the smallest element a motive. This could be an action, a character or an event. This structure can no longer be decomposed into components. This means that the author’s greatest sin is excessive detail, oversaturation of the text, a pile-up of details that can be omitted when developing this genre of work. The story should not dwell on details.

You need to describe only the most significant things to avoid a common mistake. It is very typical, 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 thing when they stage their graduation films and performances. This is especially true for films, since the author’s imagination 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 the main character of the work is being chased by a pack of cannibal wolves. However, if dawn begins, they always stop at describing long shadows, dim stars, reddened clouds. The author seemed to admire nature and only then decided to continue the chase. Genre fantastic story 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 we are interested in, all motives should reveal the theme and work towards meaning. For example, the gun described at the beginning of the work must certainly fire in the finale. Motives that lead astray should not be included in the story. Or you need to look for images that outline the situation, but do not overly detail it.

Features of the composition

It should be noted that it is not necessary to adhere to traditional construction techniques literary text. Breaking them can be spectacular. A story can be created almost on descriptions alone. But it’s still impossible to do without action. The hero simply must at least raise his hand, take a step (in other words, make a significant gesture). Otherwise, the result will not be a story, but a miniature, a sketch, a poem in prose. Another important feature of the genre that interests us is a meaningful ending. For example, a novel can last forever, but a story is constructed differently.

Very often its ending is paradoxical and unexpected. This is precisely what was associated with the appearance of catharsis in the reader. Modern researchers (in particular, Patrice Pavy) view catharsis as an emotional pulsation that appears as one reads. However, the significance of the ending remains the same. The ending can radically change the meaning of the story and prompt a rethinking of what is stated in it. This must be remembered.

The place of the story in world literature

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

Advantages of the short story over other genres

The genre that interests us allows us to highlight particularly clearly this or that typical case, this or that aspect of our life. It makes it possible to depict them so that the reader's attention is completely focused on them. For example, Chekhov, describing Vanka Zhukov with a letter “to his grandfather in the village,” full of childish despair, dwells in detail on the contents of this letter. It will not reach its destination and because of this it becomes especially strong from the point of view of exposure. In the story “The Birth of Man” by M. Gorky, the episode with the birth of a child, which occurs on the road, helps the author in revealing the main idea - the affirmation of the value of life.