The belonging of a work to one type or another leaves an imprint on the very course of analysis and dictates certain techniques, although it does not affect the general methodological principles. Differences between literary genres have almost no effect on the analysis of artistic content, but almost always, to one degree or another, affect the analysis of form.

Among literary families epic has the greatest visual potential and the richest and most developed structure of form. Therefore, in previous chapters (especially in the section "Structure work of art and its analysis"), the presentation was carried out primarily in relation to the epic genre. Let us now see what changes will have to be made to the analysis, taking into account the specifics of drama, lyricism and lyric-epic.

Drama is in many ways similar to epic, so the basic methods of analysis for it remain the same. But it should be taken into account that in drama, unlike epic, there is no narrative speech, which deprives drama of many artistic possibilities inherent in epic. This is partly compensated by the fact that drama is mainly intended for production on stage, and, entering into synthesis with the art of the actor and director, acquires additional visual and expressive capabilities. In the literary text of the drama itself, the emphasis moves to the actions of the characters and their speech; Accordingly, drama gravitates towards such stylistic dominants as plot and heteroglossia. Compared to the epic, drama is also distinguished by an increased degree of artistic convention associated with theatrical action. The conventionality of the drama consists of such features as the illusion of the “fourth wall”, remarks “to the side”, monologues of the characters alone with themselves, as well as the increased theatricality of speech and gesture-facial behavior.

The construction of the depicted world is also specific in drama. We get all the information about him from the conversations of the characters and from the author’s remarks. Accordingly, drama requires more imagination from the reader, the ability to imagine, using meager hints, the appearance of the characters, the objective world, the landscape, etc. Over time, playwrights make their stage directions more and more detailed; there is also a tendency to introduce a subjective element into them (for example, in the stage directions to the third act of the play “At the Lower Depths,” Gorky introduces an emotional and evaluative word: “In the window near the ground - erysipelas. Bubnov"), an indication of the general emotional tone of the scene appears (the sad sound of a broken string in Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard"), sometimes the introductory remarks expand into a narrative monologue (B. Shaw's plays). The image of the character is drawn more sparsely than in the epic, but also with more vivid, powerful means. The characterization of the hero comes to the fore through the plot, through actions, and the actions and words of the heroes are always psychologically rich and thus characterological. Another leading technique for creating a character’s image is his speech characteristics, his manner of speech. Auxiliary techniques include a portrait, the hero’s self-characterization and his characterization in the speech of other characters. To express the author's assessment, characterization is mainly used through the plot and individual manner of speech.

Psychologism is also unique in drama. It is devoid of such common forms in epic as the author's psychological narration, internal monologue, dialectic of the soul and stream of consciousness. The internal monologue is brought out, formalized in external speech, and therefore the psychological world of the character itself turns out to be more simplified and rationalized in drama than in epic. In general, drama gravitates mainly towards bright and catchy ways of expressing strong and prominent emotional movements. The greatest difficulty in drama is the artistic mastery of complex emotional states, the conveyance of the depth of the inner world, vague and fuzzy ideas and moods, the sphere of the subconscious, etc. Playwrights learned to cope with this difficulty only towards the end of the 19th century; Indicative here are the psychological plays of Hauptmann, Maeterlinck, Ibsen, Chekhov, Gorky and others.

The main thing in drama is action, development starting position, and the action develops thanks to the conflict, therefore it is advisable to begin the analysis of a dramatic work with a definition of the conflict, subsequently tracing its movement. The development of the conflict is subject to dramatic composition. The conflict is embodied either in the plot or in a system of compositional oppositions. Depending on the form of embodiment of the conflict, dramatic works can be divided into action plays(Fonvizin, Griboyedov, Ostrovsky), mood plays(Maeterlinck, Hauptmann, Chekhov) and discussion plays(Ibsen, Gorky, Shaw). Depending on the type of play, the specific analysis also moves.

Thus, in Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm,” the conflict is embodied in the system of action and events, that is, in the plot. The conflict of the play is two-dimensional: on the one hand, there are contradictions between the rulers (Dikaya, Kabanikha) and the ruled (Katerina, Varvara, Boris, Kuligin, etc.) - this is an external conflict. On the other hand, the action moves thanks to Katerina’s internal, psychological conflict: she passionately wants to live, love, be free, while clearly realizing at the same time that all this is a sin leading to the destruction of the soul. The dramatic action develops through a chain of actions, twists and turns, one way or another changing the initial situation: Tikhon leaves, Katerina decides to have a relationship with Boris, publicly repents and, finally, rushes into the Volga. The dramatic tension and attention of the viewer is supported by interest in the development of the plot: what will happen next, what the heroine will do. The plot elements are clearly visible: the plot (in the dialogue between Katerina and Kabanikha in the first act an external conflict is revealed, in the dialogue between Katerina and Varvara - an internal one), a series of climaxes (at the end of the second, third and fourth acts and, finally, in Katerina’s last monologue in the fifth act ) and denouement (Katerina’s suicide).

The plot basically implements the content of the work. Sociocultural issues are revealed through action, and actions are dictated by the prevailing morals, relationships, and ethical principles in the environment. The plot also expresses the tragic pathos of the play; Katerina’s suicide emphasizes the impossibility of a successful resolution of the conflict.

Mood plays are structured somewhat differently. In them, as a rule, the basis of the dramatic action is the conflict of the hero with a way of life hostile to him, which turns into a psychological conflict, which is expressed in the internal disorder of the heroes, in a feeling of mental discomfort. As a rule, this feeling is characteristic not of one, but of many characters, each of whom develops his own conflict with life, so in mood plays it is difficult to identify the main characters. The movement of the stage action is concentrated not in plot twists and turns, but in changes in emotional tonality; the chain of events only enhances this or that mood. This kind of play usually has psychologism as one of its stylistic dominants. The conflict develops not in plot, but in compositional oppositions. The reference points of the composition are not plot elements, but the culmination of psychological states, which, as a rule, occur at the end of each action. Instead of a beginning - the discovery of some initial mood, a conflicting psychological state. Instead of a denouement, there is an emotional chord in the finale, which, as a rule, does not resolve the contradictions.

Thus, in Chekhov’s play “Three Sisters” there is practically no continuous sequence of events, but all the scenes and episodes are connected with each other by a common mood - quite heavy and hopeless. And if in the first act a mood of bright hope still glimmers (Irina’s monologue “When I woke up today ...”), then in the further development of the stage action it is drowned out by anxiety, melancholy, and suffering. The stage action is based on the deepening of the characters’ experiences, on the fact that each of them gradually gives up the dream of happiness. The external destinies of the three sisters, their brother Andrei, Vershinin, Tuzenbach, Chebutykin do not work out, the regiment leaves the city, vulgarity triumphs in the Prozorovs’ house in the person of the “rough animal” Natasha, and the three sisters will never be in the coveted Moscow... All events not related to each other with a friend, have the goal of strengthening the general impression of trouble, disorder of life.

Naturally, in mood plays, psychologism plays an important role in style, but the psychologism is peculiar, subtextual. Chekhov himself wrote about this: “I wrote to Meyerhold and convinced him in the letter not to be harsh in his portrayal of a nervous person. After all, the vast majority of people are nervous, the majority suffer, the minority feels acute pain, but where - on the streets and in houses - do you see people rushing about, jumping, grabbing their heads? Suffering must be expressed the way they are expressed in life, that is, not with your feet or hands, but with your tone, your gaze; not with gestures, but with grace. Thin emotional movements, inherent in intelligent people, and outwardly need to be expressed subtly. You say: stage conditions. No conditions allow lying” (Letter to O.L. Knipper, January 2, 1900). In his plays and, in particular, in “Three Sisters,” stage psychologism is based precisely on this principle. The depressed mood, melancholy, and suffering of the characters are only partly expressed in their remarks and monologues, where the character “brings out” his experiences. An equally important technique of psychologism is the discrepancy between the external and the internal - mental discomfort is expressed in meaningless phrases (“At Lukomorye there is a green oak tree” by Masha, “Balzac got married in Berdichev” by Chebutykin, etc.), in causeless laughter and tears, in silence, etc. etc. The author’s remarks play an important role, emphasizing the emotional tone of the phrase: “left alone, she’s sad,” “nervous,” “tearful,” “through tears,” etc.

The third type is a discussion play. The conflict here is deep-seated, based on differences in worldviews; the problems, as a rule, are philosophical or ideological-moral. “In the new plays,” wrote B. Shaw, “ dramatic conflict is built not around the vulgar inclinations of man, his greed or generosity, resentment and ambition, misunderstandings and accidents and everything else that does not in itself give rise to moral problems, but around the clash of different ideals.” Dramatic action is expressed in a clash of points of view, in the compositional opposition of individual statements, therefore, primary attention in the analysis should be given to heteroglossia. A number of heroes are often drawn into a conflict, each with their own life position, therefore, in this type of play it is difficult to distinguish between main and minor characters, just as it is difficult to identify positive and negative heroes. Let us again refer to Shaw: “The conflict “…” is not between right and wrong: the villain here can be as conscientious as the hero, if not more. In fact, the problem that makes the play interesting “...” is figuring out who is the hero and who is the villain. Or, to put it another way, there are no villains or heroes here.” The chain of events serves mainly as a reason for the characters’ statements and provokes them.

In particular, M. Gorky’s play “At the Depths” is built on these principles. The conflict here is a clash of different points of view on human nature, on lies and truth; in general terms, this is a conflict of the sublime, but unreal, with the base real; philosophical problems. The first act sets up this conflict, although from a plot point of view it is little more than exposition. Despite the fact that no important events occur in the first act, the dramatic development has already begun, the brutal truth and the sublime lie have already come into conflict. On the very first page this key word “truth” sounds (Kvashnya’s remark “A-ah! You can’t stand the truth!”). Here Satin contrasts the hateful “human words” with the sonorous but meaningless “organon”, “sycambre”, “macrobiotics”, etc. Here Nastya reads “ Fatal love“The actor remembers Shakespeare, the Baron remembers coffee in bed, and all this is in sharp contrast to the everyday life of the flophouse. In the first act, one of the positions in relation to life and truth has already been sufficiently manifested - what can, following the author of the play, be called “the truth of the fact.” This position, essentially cynical and inhumane, is represented in the play by Bubnov, calmly stating something absolutely indisputable and equally cold (“Noise is not a hindrance to death”), skeptically laughing at the romantic phrases of Ash (“But the threads are rotten!”), expressing his position in a discussion about his life. In the very first act, Bubnov’s antipode, Luka, appears, contrasting the soulless, wolfish life of the flophouse with his philosophy of love and compassion for one’s neighbor, no matter what he may be (“in my opinion, not a single flea is bad: all are black, all jump ..."), comforting and encouraging people at the bottom. Subsequently, this conflict develops, drawing into the dramatic action more and more new points of view, arguments, reasoning, parables, etc., sometimes - at the reference points of the composition - resulting in a direct dispute. The conflict reaches its climax in the fourth act, which is an already open, practically unrelated to the plot discussion about Luke and his philosophy, turning into a dispute about law, truth, and understanding of man. Let us pay attention to the fact that the last action takes place after the completion of the plot and the outcome of the external conflict (the murder of Kostylev), which is of an auxiliary nature in the play. The ending of the play is also not a plot resolution. It is associated with a discussion about truth and man, and the Actor’s suicide serves as another replica in the dialogue of ideas. At the same time, the ending is open; it is not intended to resolve the philosophical debate going on on stage, but, as it were, invites the reader and viewer to do it themselves, affirming only the idea that life without an ideal is unbearable.

Lyrics as a literary genre are opposed to epic and drama, therefore, when analyzing it, the generic specificity should be taken into account to the highest degree. If epic and drama reproduce human existence, the objective side of life, then poetry is the human consciousness and subconscious, the subjective moment. Epic and drama depict, lyrics express. One might even say that lyric poetry belongs to a completely different group of arts than epic and drama - not figurative, but expressive. Therefore, many techniques for analyzing epic and dramatic works are not applicable to a lyrical work, especially with regard to its form, and literary criticism has developed its own techniques and approaches for the analysis of lyric poetry.

What has been said concerns primarily the depicted world, which in lyric poetry is constructed completely differently than in epic and drama. The stylistic dominant towards which the lyrics gravitate is psychologism, but it is a peculiar psychologism. In epic and partly in drama, we are dealing with a depiction of the hero’s inner world as if from the outside, but in lyric poetry the psychologism is expressive, the subject of the statement and the object of the psychological image coincide. As a result, lyrics master the inner world of a person from a special perspective: it takes primarily the sphere of experience, feelings, emotions and reveals it, as a rule, statically, but more deeply and vividly than is done in the epic. The sphere of thinking is also subject to lyricism; many lyrical works are built on the development not of experience, but of reflection (though it is always colored by one feeling or another). Such lyrics (“Am I wandering along the noisy streets...” of Pushkin, “Duma” by Lermontov, “Wave and Thought” by Tyutchev, etc.) are called meditative. But in any case, the depicted world of a lyrical work is primarily a psychological world. This circumstance should be especially taken into account when analyzing individual figurative (it would be more correct to call them “pseudo-figurative”) details that can be found in lyrics. Let us note first of all that a lyrical work can do without them altogether - for example, in Pushkin’s poem “I loved you...” all the details, without exception, are psychological, substantive detail is completely absent. If object-pictorial details do appear, then they still perform the same function of psychological image: either indirectly creating the emotional mood of the work, or becoming the impression of the lyrical hero, the object of his reflection, etc. Such, in particular, are the details of the landscape. For example, in A. Fet’s poem “Evening” there does not seem to be a single psychological detail, but only a description of the landscape. But the function of the landscape here is to create a mood of peace, tranquility, and silence using the selection of details. The landscape in Lermontov’s poem “When the yellowing field is agitated...” is an object of comprehension, given in the perception of the lyrical hero, changing pictures of nature constitute the content of the lyrical reflection, ending with an emotional-figurative conclusion-generalization: “Then the anxiety of my soul is humbled...”. Let us note by the way that in Lermontov’s landscape there is no precision required of a landscape in an epic: a lily of the valley, a plum and a yellowing field cannot coexist in nature, since they belong to different seasons, from which it is clear that the landscape in the lyrics, in fact, is not a landscape as such, but only the impression of a lyrical hero.

The same can be said about the details of the portrait and the world of things found in lyrical works - they perform an exclusively psychological function in the lyrics. Thus, “red tulip, Tulip in your buttonhole” in A. Akhmatova’s poem “Confusion” becomes a vivid impression of the lyrical heroine, indirectly denoting the intensity of the lyrical experience; in her poem “Song of the Last Meeting,” an objective detail (“I put on the Glove from my left hand on my right hand”) serves as a form of indirect expression of an emotional state.

The greatest difficulty for analysis are those lyrical works in which we encounter some semblance of a plot and a system of characters. Here there is a temptation to transfer to the lyrics the principles and techniques of analyzing the corresponding phenomena in epic and drama, which is fundamentally wrong, because both the “pseudo-plot” and the “pseudo-characters” in the lyrics have a completely different nature and a different function - primarily, again, psychological. Thus, in Lermontov’s poem “The Beggar,” it would seem that an image of a character arises who has a certain social status, appearance, age, that is, signs of existential certainty, which is typical for epic and drama. However, in fact, the existence of this “hero” is dependent, illusory: the image turns out to be only part of a detailed comparison and, therefore, serves to more convincingly and expressively convey the emotional intensity of the work. There is no beggar as a fact of existence here, there is only a rejected feeling conveyed through allegory.

In Pushkin’s poem “Arion” something like a plot arises, some kind of dynamics of actions and events are outlined. But it would be pointless and even absurd to look for a beginning, climax and denouement in this “plot”, to look for the conflict expressed in it, etc. The chain of events is the understanding by Pushkin’s lyrical hero of the events of the recent political past, given in an allegorical form; what is in the foreground here is not actions and events, but the fact that this “plot” has a certain emotional overtones. Consequently, the plot in the lyrics does not exist as such, but acts only as a means of psychological expressiveness.

So, in a lyrical work we do not analyze either the plot, or the characters, or the substantive details outside of their psychological function - that is, we do not pay attention to what is fundamentally important in the epic. But in lyric poetry, the analysis of the lyrical hero acquires fundamental significance. Lyrical hero - this is the image of a person in the lyrics, the bearer of experience in the lyrical work. Like any image, the lyrical hero carries within himself not only unique personality traits, but also a certain generalization, therefore his identification with the real author is unacceptable. Often the lyrical hero is very close to the author in terms of personality and the nature of his experiences, but nevertheless the difference between them is fundamental and remains in all cases, since in each specific work the author actualizes some part of his personality in the lyrical hero, typifying and summarizing lyrical experiences. Thanks to this, the reader easily identifies himself with the lyrical hero. We can say that the lyrical hero is not only the author, but also everyone who reads this work and experiences the same experiences and emotions as the lyrical hero. In a number of cases, the lyrical hero correlates only to a very weak extent with the real author, revealing a high degree of conventionality of this image. Thus, in Tvardovsky’s poem “I was killed near Rzhev...” the lyrical narration is told from the perspective of a fallen soldier. In rare cases, the lyrical hero even appears as the opposite of the author (“ Moral man"Nekrasova). Unlike a character in an epic or dramatic work, a lyrical hero, as a rule, does not have existential certainty: he does not have a name, age, portrait features, and sometimes it is not even clear whether he belongs to the male or female sex. The lyrical hero almost always exists outside of ordinary time and space: his experiences take place “everywhere” and “always.”

Lyrics tend to be small in volume and, as a result, tense and complex composition. In lyric poetry, more often than in epic and drama, compositional techniques of repetition, contrast, amplification, and montage are used. Of exceptional importance in the composition of a lyrical work is the interaction of images, which often creates biplane and multifacetedness. artistic meaning. Thus, in Yesenin’s poem “I am the last poet of the village...” the tension of the composition is created, firstly, by the contrast of color images:

On the path blue fields
The Iron Guest will be out soon.
Oatmeal, spilled by dawn,
Will collect it black a handful of.

Secondly, the technique of amplification attracts attention: images associated with death are constantly repeated. Thirdly, the opposition of the lyrical hero to the “iron guest” is compositionally significant. Finally, the cross-cutting principle of personification of nature links together individual landscape images. All this together creates a rather complex figurative and semantic structure in the work.

The main supporting point of the composition of a lyrical work is in its finale, which is especially felt in works of small volume. For example, in Tyutchev’s miniature “Russia cannot be understood with the mind...” the entire text serves as a preparation for the last word, which contains the idea of ​​the work. But even in more voluminous works this principle is often followed - let’s name as examples “Monument” by Pushkin, “When the yellowing field is agitated...” by Lermontov, “On the Railway” by Blok - poems where the composition represents a direct ascending development from the beginning to the last, shock stanza.

The stylistic dominants of lyricism in the field of artistic speech are monologism, rhetoric and poetic form. In the overwhelming majority of cases, a lyrical work is constructed as a monologue of the lyrical hero, so we do not need to highlight the narrator’s speech in it (it is absent) or give speech characteristics of the characters (they are also absent). However, some lyrical works are constructed in the form of a dialogue between “characters” (“Conversation between a bookseller and a poet,” “Scene from Pushkin’s Faust,” Lermontov’s “Journalist, Reader and Writer”). In this case, the “characters” entering into the dialogue embody different facets of lyrical consciousness, and therefore do not have their own speech manner; The principle of monologism is maintained here as well. As a rule, the speech of a lyrical hero is characterized by literary correctness, so there is also no need to analyze it from the point of view of a special speech manner.

Lyrical speech, as a rule, is speech with increased expressiveness of individual words and speech structures. In lyric poetry there is a greater proportion of tropes and syntactic figures compared to epic and drama, but this pattern is visible only in the general body of all lyrical works. Some lyrical poems, especially from the 19th–20th centuries. may also differ in the lack of rhetoric and nominativity. There are poets whose style consistently eschews rhetoric and gravitates towards the nominative - Pushkin, Bunin, Tvardovsky - but this is rather an exception to the rule. Such exceptions as the expression of the individual uniqueness of the lyrical style are subject to mandatory analysis. In most cases, an analysis of both individual techniques of speech expressiveness and the general principle of organization of the speech system is required. So, for Blok the general principle will be symbolization, for Yesenin - personifying metaphorism, for Mayakovsky - reification, etc. In any case, the lyrical word is very capacious, containing a “condensed” emotional meaning. For example, in Annensky’s poem “Among the Worlds,” the word “Star” has a meaning that clearly exceeds the dictionary one: it is not for nothing that it is written with a capital letter. The star has a name and creates a polysemantic poetic image, behind which one can see the fate of the poet, and a woman, and a mystical secret, and an emotional ideal, and, perhaps, a number of other meanings acquired by a word in the process of a free, albeit text-directed, course of associations.

Due to the “condensation” of poetic semantics, lyrics gravitate towards rhythmic organization, poetic embodiment, since the word in verse is more loaded with emotional meaning than in prose. “Poetry, in comparison with prose, has an increased capacity of all its constituent elements...” The very movement of words in verse, their interaction and comparison in the conditions of rhythm and rhymes, the clear identification of the sound side of speech given by the poetic form, the relationship of rhythmic and syntactic structure and etc. - all this is fraught with inexhaustible semantic possibilities, of which prose, in essence, is deprived "..." Many beautiful poems, if translated into prose, will turn out to mean almost nothing, for their meaning is created mainly by the very interaction of the poetic form with words."

The case when lyrics use not a poetic, but a prosaic form (the genre of so-called prose poems in the works of A. Bertrand, Turgenev, O. Wilde) is subject to mandatory study and analysis, since it indicates individual artistic originality. A “poem in prose,” without being rhythmically organized, retains such general features of lyricism as “small volume, increased emotionality, usually plotless composition, and a general focus on expressing a subjective impression or experience.”

Analysis of the poetic features of lyrical speech is largely an analysis of its tempo and rhythmic organization, which is extremely important for a lyrical work, since tempo rhythm has the ability to objectify certain moods and emotional states and necessarily evoke them in the reader. So, in the poem by A.K. Tolstoy’s “If you love, so without reason...” the tetrameter trochee creates a cheerful and cheerful rhythm, which is also facilitated by adjacent rhyme, syntactic parallelism and end-to-end anaphora; the rhythm corresponds to the cheerful, cheerful, mischievous mood of the poem. In Nekrasov’s poem “Reflections at the Front Entrance,” the combination of a three- and four-foot anapest creates a slow, heavy, sad rhythm, which embodies the corresponding pathos of the work.

In Russian versification, only iambic tetrameter does not require special analysis - this is the most natural and frequently occurring meter. Its specific content consists only in the fact that the verse, in its tempo, approaches prose without, however, turning into it. All other poetic meters, not to mention the dolnik, declamatory-tonic and free verse, have their own specific emotional content. In general, the content of poetic meters and versification systems can be indicated in this way: short lines (2–4 feet) in two-syllable meters (especially in trochae) give the verse energy, a cheerful, clearly defined rhythm, and, as a rule, express a bright feeling, a joyful mood (“Svetlana” by Zhukovsky, “Winter is angry for good reason...” by Tyutchev, “ Green noise"Nekrasova). Elongated to five or six stops or more, iambic lines convey, as a rule, the process of reflection, the intonation is epic, calm and measured (“Monument” by Pushkin, “I don’t like your irony...” by Nekrasova, “O friend, do not torment me with a cruel sentence... " Feta). The presence of spondees and the absence of pyrrhichis makes the verse heavier, and vice versa - a large number of pyrrhichis contributes to the emergence of free intonation, close to conversational, gives the verse lightness and euphony. The use of three-syllable meters is associated with a clear rhythm, usually heavy (especially when the number of feet increases to 4-5), often expressing despondency, deep and difficult experiences, often pessimism, etc. moods (“Both boring and sad” by Lermontov, “ Wave and Thought” by Tyutchev, “No matter what year, the strength decreases...” by Nekrasov). Dolnik, as a rule, gives a nervous, ragged, whimsical, capricious rhythm, expressing an uneven and anxious mood (“A girl sang in the church choir...” by Blok, “Confusion” by Akhmatova, “Nobody took anything away...” by Tsvetaeva). The use of the declamatory-tonic system creates a clear and at the same time free rhythm, energetic, “offensive” intonation, a sharply defined mood and, as a rule, elevated (Mayakovsky, Aseev, Kirsanov). It should, however, be remembered that the indicated correspondences of rhythm to poetic meaning exist only as tendencies and may not appear in individual works; here, much depends on the individual specific rhythmic originality of the poem.

The specificity of the lyrical genre also influences the content analysis. When dealing with a lyric poem, it is important first of all to comprehend its pathos, to grasp and determine the leading emotional mood. In many cases, the correct definition of pathos makes it unnecessary to analyze the remaining elements of artistic content, especially the idea, which often dissolves in pathos and does not have an independent existence: for example, in Lermontov’s poem “Farewell, Unwashed Russia” it is enough to determine the pathos of the invective, in Pushkin’s poem “The daylight has gone out” luminary..." - the pathos of romance, in Blok's poem "I am Hamlet; the blood runs cold..." - the pathos of tragedy. Formulating an idea in these cases becomes unnecessary and practically impossible (the emotional side significantly prevails over the rational), and the definition of other aspects of the content (topics and problems in the first place) is optional and auxiliary.

Lyric-epic works are, as the name suggests, a synthesis of epic and lyrical principles. From the epic, the lyric-epic takes the presence of a narrative, a plot (albeit weakened), a system of characters (less developed than in the epic), and a reproduction of the objective world. From lyricism - the expression of subjective experience, the presence of a lyrical hero (united with the narrator in one person), a tendency towards a relatively small volume and poetic speech, often psychologism. In the analysis of lyric-epic works, special attention should be paid not to the distinction between epic and lyrical principles (this is the first, preliminary stage of analysis), but to their synthesis within the framework of one artistic world. For this, analysis of the image of the lyrical hero-narrator is of fundamental importance. Thus, in Yesenin’s poem “Anna Snegina” the lyrical and epic fragments are separated quite clearly: when reading, we easily distinguish the plot and descriptive parts, on the one hand, and the lyrical monologues, rich in psychologism (“The war has eaten away my whole soul...”, “The moon laughed, like a clown...", "Our meek homeland is poor...", etc.). Narrative speech easily and imperceptibly turns into expressive-lyrical speech, the narrator and the lyrical hero are inseparable facets of the same image. Therefore - and this is very important - the narration about things, people, events is also imbued with lyricism; we feel the intonation of the lyrical hero in any text fragment of the poem. Thus, the epic transmission of the dialogue between the hero and heroine ends with the lines: “The distance was thickening, foggy... I don’t know why I touched her gloves and shawl,” here the epic beginning instantly and imperceptibly turns into a lyrical one. When described as if purely external, a lyrical intonation and a subjectively expressive epithet suddenly appears: “We have arrived. House with a mezzanine sat a little on the facade. Its wattle palisade smells excitingly of jasmine.” And the intonation of subjective feeling slips into the epic narrative: “In the evening they left. Where? I don’t know where,” or: “Severe, menacing years! But is it possible to describe everything?

This penetration of lyrical subjectivity into the epic narrative is the most difficult to analyze, but at the same time the most interesting case of the synthesis of the epic and lyrical principles. It is necessary to learn to see the lyrical intonation and the hidden lyrical hero in an objectively epic text at first glance. For example, in D. Kedrin’s poem “The Architects” there are no lyrical monologues as such, but the image of the lyrical hero can nevertheless be “reconstructed” - it manifests itself primarily in the lyrical emotion and solemnity of artistic speech, in the loving and sincere description of the church and its builders, in an emotionally rich final chord, redundant from a plot point of view, but necessary to create a lyrical experience. We can say that the lyricism of the poem is manifested in the way the famous historical plot is told. There are also places in the text with special poetic tension; in these fragments the emotional intensity and the presence of the lyrical hero - the subject of the narrative - are especially clearly felt. For example:

And above all this shame
That church was
Like a bride!
And with his matting,
With a turquoise ring in his mouth
Indecent girl
Stood at Lobnoe Mesto
And, marveling,
Like a fairy tale
I looked at that beauty...

And then the sovereign
He ordered these architects to be blinded,
So that in his land
Church
There was one standing like this,
So that in the Suzdal lands
And in the lands of Ryazan
And others
They didn’t build a better temple,
What is the Church of the Intercession!

Let us pay attention to the external ways of expressing lyrical intonation and subjective emotion - breaking the line into rhythmic segments, punctuation marks, etc. Let us also note that the poem is written in a rather rare meter - pentameter anapest - giving the intonation solemnity and depth. As a result, we have a lyrical story about an epic event.

The category of genre in the analysis of a work of art is somewhat less important than the category of gender, but in some cases, knowledge of the genre nature of the work can help in the analysis and indicate which aspects should be paid attention to. In literary studies, genres are groups of works within literary genres, united by common formal, content or functional characteristics. It should be said right away that not all works have a clear genre nature. Thus, Pushkin’s poem “On the hills of Georgia lies the darkness of the night...”, Lermontov’s “The Prophet”, plays by Chekhov and Gorky, Tvardovsky’s “Vasily Terkin” and many other works are indefinable in the genre sense. But even in cases where a genre can be defined quite unambiguously, such a definition does not always help the analysis, since genre structures are often recognized by a secondary feature that does not create any special originality of content and form. This applies mainly to lyrical genres, such as elegy, ode, epistle, epigram, sonnet, etc. But still, sometimes the category of genre is important, indicating the content or formal dominant, some features of the problematic, pathos, and poetics.

In epic genres, what is important is, first of all, the opposition of genres in terms of their volume. The established literary tradition distinguishes here the genres of great (novel, epic) average (story) and small (story) volume, however, in typology it is realistic to distinguish only two positions, since the story is not an independent genre, in practice it gravitates either to the short story (“Belkin’s Tales” by Pushkin) or to the novel (his “The Captain’s Daughter”). But the distinction between large and small volume seems essential, and above all for the analysis of a small genre - a story. Yu.N. Tynyanov rightly wrote: “The calculation for a large form is not the same as for a small one.” The small volume of the story dictates unique principles of poetics and specific artistic techniques. First of all, this is reflected in the properties of literary figurativeness. The story is highly characterized by “economy mode”; it cannot contain long descriptions, therefore it is characterized not by details, but by symbolic details, especially in the description of a landscape, portrait, or interior. Such a detail acquires increased expressiveness and, as a rule, appeals to the reader’s creative imagination, suggesting co-creation and conjecture. This principle was used to build his descriptions, in particular, the master artistic detail Chekhov; Let us remember, for example, his textbook image of a moonlit night: “In descriptions of nature, one must grasp at small details, grouping them in such a way that after reading, when you close your eyes, a picture is given. For example, you will get a moonlit night if you write that on the mill dam a piece of glass from a broken bottle flashed like a bright star and the black shadow of a dog or wolf rolled like a ball” (Letter to Al. P. Chekhov dated May 10, 1886). Here the details of the landscape are guessed by the reader based on the impression of one or two dominant symbolic details. The same thing happens in the field of psychologism: for the writer it is important here not so much to reflect the mental process in its entirety, but to recreate the leading emotional tone, atmosphere inner life hero in this moment. The masters of such psychological stories were Maupassant, Chekhov, Gorky, Bunin, Hemingway and others.

In the composition of a story, as in any small form, the ending is very important, which is either in the nature of a plot denouement or an emotional finale. Also noteworthy are those endings that do not resolve the conflict, but only demonstrate its intractability; so-called “open” endings, as in Chekhov’s “The Lady with the Dog.”

One of the genre varieties of the story is novella. A short story is an action-packed narrative, the action in it develops quickly, dynamically, and strives for a denouement that contains the whole meaning of the story: first of all, with its help, the author gives an understanding of the life situation, pronounces a “sentence” on the characters depicted. In short stories, the plot is compressed and the action is concentrated. A rapidly developing plot is characterized by a very economical system of characters: there are usually just enough of them to allow the action to continuously develop. Episodic characters are introduced (if they are introduced at all) only to give impetus to the plot action and then immediately disappear. As a rule, there are no side stories in a novella. storylines, author's digressions; only what is absolutely necessary for understanding the conflict and the plot is revealed from the characters’ pasts. Descriptive elements that do not advance the action are kept to a minimum and appear almost exclusively at the beginning: then, towards the end, they will interfere, slowing down the development of the action and distracting attention.

When all these trends are brought to their logical conclusion, the short story acquires a pronounced structure of an anecdote with all its main features: a very small volume, an unexpected, paradoxical “shock” ending, minimal psychological motivations for actions, the absence of descriptive moments, etc. The anecdote story is widely used by Leskov, early Chekhov, Maupassant, O'Henry, D. London, Zoshchenko and many other short story writers.

A novella, as a rule, is based on external conflicts in which contradictions collide (inception), develop and, having reached the highest point in development and struggle (culmination), are more or less quickly resolved. In this case, the most important thing is that the confronting contradictions must and can be resolved as the action develops. For this, the contradictions must be sufficiently defined and manifested, the heroes must have some psychological activity in order to strive to resolve the conflict at all costs, and the conflict itself must at least in principle be amenable to immediate resolution.

Let us consider from this angle the story by V. Shukshin “The Hunt to Live.” A young city guy comes into the forester Nikitich's hut. It turns out that the guy escaped from prison. Suddenly, the district authorities come to Nikitich to hunt, Nikitich tells the guy to pretend to be asleep, puts the guests to bed and falls asleep himself, and when he wakes up, he discovers that “Kolya the Professor” has left, taking with him Nikitich’s gun and his tobacco pouch. Nikitich rushes after him, overtakes the guy and takes his gun from him. But in general, Nikitich likes the guy, he feels sorry to let him go alone, in winter, unaccustomed to the taiga and without a gun. The old man leaves the guy a gun so that when he reaches the village, he will give it to Nikitich’s godfather. But when they each went in their own direction, the guy shoots Nikitich in the back of the head, because “it will be better this way, father. More reliable."

The clash of characters in the conflict of this short story is very sharp and clear. Incompatibility, opposition between Nikitich’s moral principles - principles based on kindness and trust in people - and the moral standards of “Koli the Professor”, who “wants to live” for himself, “better and more reliable” - also for himself - the incompatibility of these moral principles intensifies as the action progresses and is embodied in a tragic, but inevitable, according to the logic of the characters, denouement. Let us note the special significance of the denouement: it does not just formally complete the plot action, but exhausts the conflict. The author's assessment of the characters depicted, the author's understanding of the conflict are concentrated precisely in the denouement.

Major genres of epic - novel And epic - differ in their content, primarily in terms of issues. The dominant content in the epic is national, and in the novel - the novel's problematic (adventurous or ideological-moral). For a novel, therefore, it is extremely important to determine which of the two types it belongs to. Depending on the dominant content of the genre, the poetics of the novel and the epic are constructed. The epic gravitates towards plot, the image of the hero in it is constructed as the quintessence of typical qualities inherent in a people, ethnic group, class, etc. In an adventure novel, plot also clearly prevails, but the image of the hero is constructed differently: it is emphatically free from class, corporate and other connections with the environment that gave birth to it. In an ideological and moral novel, the stylistic dominants will almost always be psychologism and heteroglossia.

Over the past century and a half, a new genre of large volume has emerged in the epic - the epic novel, which combines the properties of these two genres. This genre tradition includes such works as “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “Quiet Don” by Sholokhov, “Walking through the Torment” by A. Tolstoy, “The Living and the Dead” by Simonov, “Doctor Zhivago” by Pasternak and some others. The epic novel is characterized by a combination of national and ideological-moral issues, but not a simple summation of them, but such an integration in which the ideological and moral search of the individual is correlated primarily with folk truth. The problem of the epic novel becomes, in Pushkin’s words, “human fate and people’s fate” in their unity and interdependence; Critical events for the entire ethnic group give the hero’s philosophical search special sharpness and urgency; the hero faces the need to determine his position not just in the world, but in national history. In the field of poetics, the epic novel is characterized by a combination of psychologism with plot, a compositional combination of general, medium and close-up plans, the presence of many plot lines and their interweaving, and author's digressions.

The fable genre is one of the few canonized genres that have preserved real historical existence in the 19th–20th centuries. Certain features of the fable genre can suggest promising directions for analysis. This is, firstly, a high degree of conventionality and even outright fantasticality of the figurative system. The fable has a conventional plot, so although it can be analyzed element by element, such an analysis does not yield anything interesting. The figurative system of the fable is built on the principle of allegory, its characters denote some abstract idea - power, justice, ignorance, etc. Therefore, the conflict in the fable should be sought not so much in the clash of real characters, but in the confrontation of ideas: for example, in “ The Wolf and the Lamb" by Krylov, the conflict is not between the Wolf and the Lamb, but between the ideas of strength and justice; the plot is driven not so much by the Wolf’s desire to have dinner, but by his desire to give this business a “legal look and feel.”

In the composition of a fable, two parts are usually clearly distinguished - the plot (often unfolding in the form of a dialogue between characters) and the so-called morality - the author’s assessment and understanding of what is depicted, which can be placed both at the beginning and at the end of the work, but never in the middle. There are also fables without morals. Russian poetic fables are written in variegated (free) iambic, which makes it possible to bring the intonation pattern of the fable closer to colloquial speech. According to the norms of the poetics of classicism, the fable belongs to the “low” genres (note that among the classicists the word “low” when applied to the genre did not mean blasphemy, but only established the place of the genre in the aesthetic hierarchy and set the most important features of the classicist canon), therefore it is widely used in it heteroglossia and, in particular, vernacular, which brings the speech form of the fable even closer to spoken language. In fables we usually encounter sociocultural issues, sometimes with philosophical ones (“Philosopher”, “Two Doves” by Krylov) and very rarely with national ones (“Wolf in the Kennel” by Krylov). The specificity of the ideological world in a fable is such that its elements are expressed, as a rule, directly and do not cause difficulties in interpretation. However, it would be wrong to always look for an open expression of an idea in the moral of a fable - if this is true, for example, in relation to the fable “The Monkey and the Glasses”, then in “The Wolf and the Lamb” it is not the idea, but the theme that is formulated in the moral (“The strong are always to blame for the powerless ").

The lyric-epic genre of the ballad is also a canonized genre, but from the aesthetic system not of classicism, but of romanticism. It assumes the presence of a plot (usually simple, one-line) and, as a rule, its emotional understanding by the lyrical hero. The form of speech organization is poetic, the size is arbitrary. An essential formal feature of a ballad is the presence of dialogue. The ballad often contains mystery, a secret with which the emergence of conventionally fantastic imagery is associated (Zhukovsky); the motif of rock and fate is often used (“Song of the prophetic Oleg” by Pushkin, “Ballad of a smoky carriage” by A. Kochetkov). The pathos in the ballad is sublime (tragic, romantic, less often heroic).

In dramaturgy over the last one hundred to one hundred and fifty years, genre boundaries have been blurred, and many plays have become indefinable in terms of genre (Ibsen, Chekhov, Gorky, Shaw, etc.). However, along with genre-amorphous constructions, there are also more or less pure genres tragedy And comedies. Both genres are defined by their leading pathos. For tragedy, therefore, the nature of the conflict becomes of paramount importance; the analysis requires showing its insolubility, despite the active attempts of the heroes to do this. It should be taken into account that the conflict in tragedy is usually multifaceted, and if on the surface a tragic conflict appears as a confrontation between characters, then at a deeper level it is almost always psychological conflict, the tragic duality of the hero. Thus, in Pushkin’s tragedy “Boris Godunov” the main stage action is based on external conflicts: Boris is the Pretender, Boris is Shuisky, etc. Deeper aspects of the conflict are manifested in folk scenes and especially in the scene of Boris with the holy fool - this is a conflict between the king and the people. And finally, the deepest conflict is the contradictions in Boris’s soul, his struggle with his own conscience. It is this last collision that makes Boris’s situation and fate truly tragic. The means of revealing this deep-seated conflict in the tragedy is a kind of psychologism, which must definitely be paid attention to; during selective analysis, it is necessary to focus on scenes with high psychological content and emotional intensity - for example, in “Boris Godunov” such reference points of the composition will be Shuisky’s story about the death of Dimitri , scene with the holy fool, Boris’s internal monologues.

In comedy, the pathos of satire or humor, less often irony, becomes the dominant content; The issues can be very diverse, but most often they are sociocultural. In the field of style, such properties as heteroglossia, plot, and increased conventionality become important and subject to analysis. Basically, the analysis of form should be aimed at understanding why this or that character, episode, scene, remark is comical; on forms and techniques for achieving a comic effect. Thus, in Gogol’s comedy “The Inspector General” one should dwell in detail on those scenes where inner, deep comedy is manifested, consisting in the contradiction between what should and what is. Already the first act, which is essentially a detailed exposition, provides enormous material for analysis, since in a frank conversation between officials, the actual state of affairs in the city is revealed, which does not coincide with what should be: the judge takes bribes with greyhound puppies in the naive conviction that this is not a sin , government funds allocated for the church are stolen, and a report is presented to the authorities that the church “began to be built, but burned down,” “there is a tavern in the city, uncleanliness,” etc. The comedy further intensifies as the action develops, and Particular attention should be paid to those scenes and episodes where all kinds of absurdities, inconsistencies, and illogicalities appear. Aesthetic analysis in the consideration of comedy should prevail over the problematic and semantic, in complete contrast to traditional teaching practice.

In some cases, it is difficult to analyze the author's genre subtitles, which do not quite coincide with modern ideas about a particular genre. In this case, for a correct understanding of the author’s intention, it is necessary to find out how this genre was perceived by the author and his contemporaries. For example, in teaching practice, the genre of Griboedov’s play “Woe from Wit” is often puzzling. What kind of comedy is this if the main conflict is dramatic, there is no special attitude towards laughter, when reading or watching the impression is not at all comic, but the pathos of the main character is generally close to tragedy? To understand the genre, here we need to turn to the aesthetics of enlightenment, in line with which Griboyedov worked and which did not know the genre of drama, but only tragedy or comedy. Comedy (or, in other words, “high comedy,” as opposed to farce) did not imply a mandatory attitude towards laughter. This genre generally included dramatic works that gave a picture of the morals of society and revealed its vices; an accusatory and instructive emotional orientation was required, but not necessarily a comic one; You weren’t supposed to laugh out loud at a comedy, but you were supposed to think about it. Therefore, in Griboedov’s comedy one should not place special emphasis on the pathos of satire, the corresponding techniques of poetics; rather, one should look for the invective as the leading emotional tone. This serious pathos is not contradicted by either the drama of the conflict or the character of the main character.

Another example is the author’s genre designation for “Dead Souls” - a poem. By poem we are accustomed to understand a poetic lyric-epic work, so the answer to Gogol’s genre is often sought in the author’s digressions, which give the work subjectivity and lyricism. But that’s not the point at all, Gogol simply perceived the genre of the poem differently than we do. For him, a poem was a “small kind of epic,” that is, the genre characteristic here was taken not by the features of the form, but by the nature of the problematic. A poem, unlike a novel, is a work with national issues, in which we are talking not about the particular, but about the general, about the fate not of individuals, but of the people, homeland, and state. The features of the poetics of Gogol’s work also correlate with this understanding of the genre: the abundance of extra-plot elements, the inability to single out the main character, the epic slowness of the narrative, etc.

Another example is Ostrovsky’s drama “The Thunderstorm,” which, by the nature of the conflict, its resolution and the leading emotional pathos, is, of course, a tragedy. But the fact is that in Ostrovsky’s era the dramatic genre of tragedy was determined not by the nature of the conflict and pathos, but by problematic and thematic characteristics. Only a work depicting outstanding historical figures, often dedicated to the historical past, national-historical in its problems and sublime in its object of depiction could be called a tragedy. Given the tragic nature of the conflict, works from the lives of merchants, townspeople, and ordinary people could only be called drama.

These are the main features of the analysis of a work in connection with its type and genre.

1. What are the characteristic features of drama as a literary genre? What is the difference between action plays, mood plays and discussion plays?

2. What are the specifics of lyrics as a literary genre? What requirements does this specificity impose on the analysis of the work?

3. What should and should not be analyzed in the world of a lyrical work? What is a lyrical hero? What is the importance of tempo in lyrics?

4. What is a lyric-epic work and what are the basic principles of its analysis?

5. In what cases and in relation to what genres is it necessary to analyze the genre features of a work? What literary genres do you know that are significant for the content or form of a work?

1. Compare the given works with each other and determine in each of them the specific function of the remarks:

N.V. Gogol. Marriage,

A.N. Ostrovsky. Snow Maiden,

A.P. Chekhov. Uncle Ivan,

M. Gorky. Old man.

2. Correct errors in the definition of the type of play (not all definitions are necessarily wrong):

A.S. Pushkin. Boris Godunov - mood play,

N.V. Gogol. The players are a play of action,

ON THE. Ostrovsky. The Dowry - a play-discussion,

ON THE. Ostrovsky. Mad Money is a mood play,

L.N. Tolstoy. The Power of Darkness-play-discussion,

A.P. Chekhov. Ivanov - mood play,

A.P. Chekhov. The Seagull is an action play,

M. Gorky. The Old Man is an action play,

M.A. Bulgakov. Days of the Turbins - a play-discussion,

A.V. Vampilov. Duck Hunt is a mood piece.

3. Briefly describe the image of the lyrical hero in the following works:

M.Yu. Lermontov. Prophet,

ON THE. Nekrasov. I don't like your irony...

A.A. Block. Oh spring without end and without edge...,

A.T. Tvardovsky. In the case of the main utopia...

4. Determine the poetic meter and the tempo it creates in the following works;

A.S. Pushkin. It's time, my friend, it's time! The heart asks for peace...

I.S. Turgenev. Foggy morning, gray morning...,

ON THE. Nekrasov. Reflections at the front door

A.A. Block. stranger,

I.A. Bunin. Loneliness,

S.A. Yesenin. I am the last poet of the village...,

V.V. Mayakovsky. Conversation with the financial inspector about poetry,

M.A. Svetlov. Grenada.

In the works below, note the generic and genre features that are essential for analysis, and analyze them. At the same time, note those cases when the generic and genre affiliation of the work has practically no effect on the analysis.

Texts for analysis

A: A.S. Pushkin. Feast in Time of Plague,

M.Yu. Lermontov. Masquerade,

N.V. Gogol. Inspector,

A.N. Ostrovsky. Wolves and sheep

L.N. Tolstoy. Living Dead,

A.P. Chekhov. Ivanov,

M. Gorky. Vassa Zheleznova,

L. Andreev. Human life.

B: K.N. Batyushkov. My genius

V.A Zhukovsky. lark,

A.S. Pushkin. Elegy (Crazy years of faded fun...),

M.Yu. Lermontov. Sail,

F.I. Tyutchev. These poor villages...

I.F. Annensky. Wish,

A.A. Block. About valor, about exploits, about glory...,

V. V. Mayakovsky. Sergei Yesenin,

N.S. Gumilev. Choice.

IN: V.A. Zhukovsky. Ivikov's cranes,

A.S. Pushkin. Groom,

ON THE. Nekrasov. Railway,

A.A. Block. Twelve,

S.A Yesenin. Black man.

A literary work, on the one hand, is self-sufficient and closed in itself, and on the other hand, it comes into contact with extra-textual reality in different ways - context. Context in the broad sense of the word is understood as the entire set of phenomena associated with the text of a work of art, but at the same time external to it. There is a literary context - the inclusion of a work in the writer’s work, in the system of literary trends and trends; historical - the socio-political situation in the era of creation of the work; biographical-everyday - facts of the writer’s biography, the realities of the everyday life of the era, this also includes the circumstances of the writer’s work on the work (history of the text) and his extra-fictional statements.

The issue of involving contextual data in the analysis of a work of art is resolved ambiguously. In some cases, it is generally impossible to understand a literary work without context (for example, Pushkin’s epigram “To the Two Alexander Pavlovichs” requires mandatory knowledge historical context- the activities of Alexander I, - and biographical - knowledge about the Lyceum Alexander Pavlovich Zernov); in other cases, the use of contextual data is not necessary, and sometimes, as will be seen below, even undesirable. Usually the text itself contains direct or indirect indications of what context should be addressed for its correct understanding: for example, in Bulgakov’s novel “The Master and Margarita” the realities of the “Moscow” chapters indicate the everyday context, the epigraph and “Gospel” chapters determine literary context, etc.

Studying the historical context is a more familiar operation for us. It has even turned into a kind of obligatory template, so that schoolchildren and students tend to begin any conversation about a work, either appropriately or inappropriately, with the era of its creation. Meanwhile, studying the historical context is not always necessary.

It should be taken into account that when perceiving a work of art, some, even the most approximate and general historical context is almost always present - so, it is difficult to imagine a reader who would not know what Pushkin did in Russia in the era of the Decembrists, under the autocratic serfdom system, after the victory in the Patriotic War of 1812, etc., that is, he would not have at least a vague idea of Pushkin's time. The perception of almost any work, therefore, willy-nilly occurs against a certain contextual background. The question, therefore, is whether this background knowledge of the context needs to be expanded and deepened in order to adequately understand the work. The solution to this question is suggested by the text itself, and above all by its content. In the case when we have before us a work with a clearly expressed eternal, timeless theme, the involvement of historical context turns out to be useless and unnecessary, and at times even harmful, since it distorts the real connections of artistic creativity with the historical era. So, in particular, it would be directly incorrect to explain (and this is sometimes done) the optimism of Pushkin’s intimate lyrics by the fact that the poet lived in an era of social upsurge, and the pessimism of Lermontov’s intimate lyrics by an era of crisis and reaction. In this case, the use of contextual data does not provide anything for the analysis and understanding of the work. On the contrary, when specific historical aspects are essential to the subject matter of a work, it may be necessary to refer to the historical context.

Such an appeal, as a rule, is useful for a better understanding of the writer’s worldview, and thereby the problematics and axiomatics of his works. Thus, to understand the worldview of the mature Chekhov, it is necessary to take into account the intensified influences in the second half of the 19th century. materialistic tendencies in philosophy and natural sciences, the teachings of Tolstoy and the controversy surrounding it, the widespread dissemination in Russian society of Schopenhauer’s subjective idealistic philosophy, the crisis of the ideology and practice of populism and a number of other socio-historical factors. Their study will help in some cases to better understand Chekhov’s positive program in the field of morality and the principles of his aesthetics. But, on the other hand, the use of this type of data is not strictly necessary: ​​after all, Chekhov’s worldview is fully reflected in his artistic creations, and their thoughtful and careful reading provides almost everything necessary for understanding Chekhov’s axiomatics and problematics.

In any case, there are a number of dangers associated with the use of contextual historical data that you need to be aware of and remember.

First, the study of the literary work itself cannot be replaced by the study of its historical context. A work of art cannot be considered as an illustration of historical processes, losing the idea of ​​its aesthetic specificity. Therefore, in practice, the use of historical context should be extremely moderate and limited to what is absolutely necessary for understanding the work. Ideally, contact historical information should arise only when, without such treatment, this or that fragment of text cannot be understood. For example, when reading Pushkin’s “Eugene Onegin,” one should obviously imagine in general terms the system of serfdom, the difference between corvee and quitrent, the position of the peasantry, etc.; when analyzing Gogol's "Dead Souls" you need to know about the order of presentation of revision tales, when reading Mayakovsky's "Mystery-bouffe" - be able to decipher political hints, etc. In any case, it should be remembered that the use of historical context data does not replace analytical work on the text , but is an auxiliary technique.

Secondly, the historical context must be involved in sufficient detail, given the complex and sometimes variegated structure historical process in any given period. So, when studying the era of the 30s of the XIX century. it is absolutely insufficient to indicate that this was the era of the Nikolaev reaction, crisis and stagnation in public life. We must, in particular, take into account the fact that it was also an era of ascending development of Russian culture, represented by the names of Pushkin, Gogol, Lermontov, Belinsky, Stankevich, Chaadaev and many others. The era of the 60s, which we usually consider the heyday of revolutionary-democratic culture, also contained other principles that manifested themselves in the activities and creativity of Katkov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, A. Grigoriev and others. Examples of this kind could be multiplied .

And of course, we must decisively abandon the stereotype according to which all the great writers who lived under the autocratic-serf system fought against autocracy and serfdom for the ideals of a bright future.

Thirdly, in a general historical situation one must see primarily those aspects of it that have a direct impact on literature as a form of social consciousness. This is, first of all, not a socio-economic basis and not a political superstructure, which is what the idea of ​​an era in teaching practice often boils down to, but the state of culture and social thought. Thus, for understanding Dostoevsky’s work, it is important, first of all, not that his era fell on the second stage of the Russian liberation movement, not the crisis of the serfdom system and the gradual transition to capitalist relations, not the form of monarchical rule, but the polemics of Westerners and Slavophiles, aesthetic discussions, the struggle of Pushkin and Gogolian directions, the position of religion in Russia and the West, the state of philosophical and theological thought, etc.

So, the involvement of historical context in the study of a work of art is an auxiliary and not always necessary methodological technique of analysis, but in no case is its methodological principle.

The same, and even with greater justification, can be said about the biographical context. Only in the rarest cases is it needed to understand the work (in lyrical genres with a clearly expressed functional orientation - epigrams, less often in epistles). In other cases, the use of biographical context is not only useless, but often even harmful, since it reduces the artistic image to a specific fact and deprives it of general meaning. So, to analyze Pushkin’s poem “I loved you...” we don’t need to know at all which specific woman this message was addressed to and what kind of relationship the real author had with her, since Pushkin’s work is a generalized image bright and sublime feeling. The biographical context may not enrich, but impoverish the idea of ​​​​the writer’s work: for example, the nationality of the same Pushkin cannot be explained by one biographical fact - the songs and fairy tales of Arina Rodionovna - it was born through direct observation of people's life, the assimilation of its morals, traditions, moral and aesthetic norms, through the contemplation of Russian nature, through the experience of the Patriotic War of 1812, through familiarization with European culture, etc., and was thus a very complex and deep phenomenon.

It is therefore optional and often undesirable to establish real-life prototypes literary characters and even more so, reducing literary characters to their prototypes - this impoverishes the artistic image, deprives it of generalizing content, simplifies the idea of ​​the creative process and does not at all indicate the realism of the writer, as has long been believed in our literary criticism. Although it should be noted that back in the 20s, the outstanding Russian literary theorist A.P. Skaftymov warned about the danger of dissolving the aesthetic qualities of a work of art in a biographical context and clearly wrote: “For the aesthetic understanding of a work, comparisons of its internal images with the so-called “prototypes” are even less necessary, no matter how reliable the connection between the two is. The properties of the prototype cannot in the least serve as support in the internal interpretation of certain traits projected by the author in the corresponding character.”

The biographical context also includes what is called the “creative laboratory” of the artist, the study of the work on the text: drafts, initial editions, etc. Involving this type of data is also not necessary for analysis (by the way, they may simply not exist), but when methodologically inept use only brings harm. In most cases, the logic of literature teachers turns everything on its head here: the fact of the final edition is replaced by the fact of a draft and, as such, is intended to prove something. Thus, many teachers find the original title of Griboyedov’s comedy “Woe to Wit” more expressive. It is in the spirit of this title that the ideological meaning of the work is interpreted: the smart Chatsky was hunted down by Famusov’s Moscow. But the logic when using the facts of the creative history of a work should be completely opposite: the original title was discarded, which means it did not suit Griboyedov, it seemed unsuccessful. Why? - yes, obviously, precisely because of its straightforwardness, harshness, which does not reflect the real dialectic of the relationship between Chatsky and Famusov society. It is this dialectic that is well conveyed in the final title: woe not to the mind, but to the bearer of the mind, who puts himself in a false and ridiculous position, a sword, as Pushkin put it, pearls before the Repetilovs, and so on. In general, the same Skaftymov said well about the relationship between the final text and the creative biographical context: “As for the study of draft materials, plans, successive editorial changes, etc., this area of ​​study without theoretical analysis cannot lead to an aesthetic understanding of the final text. The facts of the draft are in no way equivalent to the facts of the final version. The author's intentions in one or another of his characters, for example, could change in different time work, and the idea could not be presented in the same terms, and it would be incongruous to transfer the meaning of the draft fragments, even if full of clarity, to the final text “...” Only the work itself can speak for itself. The course of the analysis and all its conclusions must grow immanently from the work itself. In it, the author himself contains all the ends and beginnings. Any departure into the area of ​​either draft manuscripts or the area biographical information would be in danger of changing and distorting the qualitative and quantitative relationship of the ingredients of the work, and this would, as a result, affect the clarification of the final intention “...” judgments based on drafts would be judgments about what the work wanted to be or could be, but not about what it is became and now appears in its final form, consecrated by the author.”

The poet seems to echo the literary scholar; This is what Tvardovsky writes on the subject that interests us: “It is possible and should not know any “early” etc. works, no “variants” - and write on the basis of the well-known and generally significant works of the writer the most important and most significant” (Letter of P. S. Vykhodtsev dated April 21, 1959).

In resolving complex and controversial issues of interpretation, literary critics and especially teachers of literature often tend to resort to the author’s own judgment about his work, and this argument is given absolutely decisive importance (“The author himself said...”). For example, in the interpretation of Turgenev’s Bazarov, such an argument becomes a phrase from Turgenev’s letter: “... if he is called a nihilist, then it should be read: revolutionary” (Letter to K.K. Sluchevsky dated April 14, 1862). Let us, however, pay attention to the fact that this definition does not appear in the text, and certainly not because of fear of censorship, but in essence: not a single character trait speaks of Bazarov as a revolutionary, that is, according to Mayakovsky , as a person who “understanding or guessing the coming centuries, fights for them and leads humanity to them.” And mere hatred of aristocrats, disbelief in God and denial of noble culture is clearly not enough for a revolutionary.

Another example is Gorky’s interpretation of the image of Luke from the play “At the Lower Depths.” Gorky is already in Soviet era wrote: “...There are still a very large number of comforters who console only so that they do not get bored with their complaints, do not disturb the usual peace of a cold soul that has become accustomed to everything. The most precious thing for them is precisely this peace, this stable balance of their feelings and thoughts. Then, their own knapsack, their own kettle and kettle for cooking food are very dear to them “...” Comforters of this kind are the most intelligent, knowledgeable and eloquent. That's why they are the most harmful. This is exactly the kind of comforter that Luka should have been in the play “At the Bottom,” but I, apparently, was unable to make him like that.”

It was on this statement that the dominant understanding of the play, which was for many years, was based as an exposure of a “comforting lie” and discrediting a “harmful old man.” But again, the objective meaning of the play resists such an interpretation: Gorky nowhere discredits the image of Luke artistic means - neither in the plot, nor in the statements of characters he likes. On the contrary, only embittered cynics laugh sarcastically at him - Bubnov, Baron, and partly Kleshch; does not accept either Luke or his philosophy Kostylev. Those who have preserved the “living soul” - Nastya, Anna, Actor, Tatar - feel in him the truth they really need - the truth of participation and pity for people. Even Satin, who seems to be supposed to be the ideological antagonist of Luke, even declares: “Dubier... keep silent about the old man! The old man is not a charlatan. What is the truth? Man - that's the truth! He understood this... He is smart!.. He... acted on me like acid on an old and dirty coin...” And in the plot, Luka shows himself only from the best side: he speaks like a human being to the dying Anna, tries to save the Actor and Ashes, listens to Nastya, etc. The conclusion inevitably follows from the entire structure of the play: Luka is the bearer of a humane attitude towards people, and his lies are sometimes more necessary for people than the humiliating truth.

We can give other examples of similar discrepancies between the objective meaning of the text and its author’s interpretation. So, do the authors not know what they are doing? How can such discrepancies be explained? For many reasons.

Firstly, an objective discrepancy between the plan and execution, when the author, often without noticing it himself, does not say exactly what he intended to say. This occurs as a result of a general law of artistic creativity that is not yet entirely clear to us: a work is always richer in meaning than the original concept. Dobrolyubov obviously came closest to understanding this law: “No, we are not imposing anything on the author, we say in advance that we do not know for what purpose, due to what preliminary considerations, he depicted the story that makes up the content of the story “On the Eve.” For us it is not so important that wanted tell the author how much is what affected them, even if unintentionally, simply as a result of a truthful reproduction of the facts of life” (“When will the real day come?”).

Secondly, between the creation of a work and a statement about it there may be a significant period of time, during which the author’s experience, worldview, likes and dislikes, creative and ethical principles, etc. change. This happened, in particular, with Gorky in the above case , and even earlier with Gogol, who at the end of his life gave a moralistic interpretation of The Inspector General, which clearly did not coincide with its original objective meaning. Sometimes a writer can be greatly influenced by literary criticism of his work (as happened, for example, with Turgenev after the release of Fathers and Sons), which can also cause a desire to retroactively “correct” his work.

But main reason The discrepancy between the artistic meaning and the author's interpretation is the discrepancy between the artistic worldview and the theoretical worldview of the writer, which often conflict and almost never coincide. The worldview is logically and conceptually ordered, but the worldview is based on the artist’s direct feeling and includes emotional, irrational, subconscious moments that a person simply cannot be aware of. This spontaneous and largely not controlled by the mind concept of the world and man forms the basis of a work of art, while the basis of the author’s extra-artistic statements is a rationally ordered worldview. This is where writers mainly make “conscientious misconceptions” about their creations.

Theoretical literary criticism has long ago realized the danger of turning to the author’s extra-fictional statements to understand the meaning of a work. Recalling the above-cited principle of “real criticism” of Dobrolyubov, let us turn again to Skaftymov’s article: “External evidence of the author, going beyond the boundaries of the work, can only have a suggestive value and, for its recognition, requires verification by theoretical means of immanent analysis.” Writers themselves also often realize the impossibility, unnecessary or harmful nature of self-interpretations. Thus, Blok refused to comment on the author’s intention of his poem “The Twelve.” Tolstoy wrote: “If I wanted to say in words everything that I had in mind to express in a novel, then I would have to write the same novel that I wrote first” (Letter to N.N. Strakhov dated April 23 and 26, 1876 G.). Large modern writer W. Eco speaks even more sharply: “The author should not interpret his work. Either he should not have written a novel, which by definition is a machine-generator of interpretations “...” The author should have died after finishing the book. So as not to get in the way of the text.”

In general, it must be said that often writers, in addition to their artistic heritage, leave behind works of philosophy, journalism, literary criticism, epistolary, etc. To what extent does studying them help in analyzing a work of art? The answer to this question is ambiguous. Ideally, a literary critic is obliged to provide a full-fledged analysis of a literary text, without resorting to extra-textual data, which in any case are auxiliary. However, in a number of cases, turning to the author’s extra-artistic statements may be useful, primarily in terms of studying poetics. In the literary-critical or epistolary heritage, aesthetic principles formulated by the writer himself may be found, the application of which to the analysis of a literary text can have a positive effect. Thus, the key to the complex unity of Tolstoy’s novels is given to us by the following statement of Tolstoy: “In everything, almost in everything that I wrote, I was guided by the need for a collection of thoughts, linked together, to express myself, but each thought, expressed separately in words, loses its the meaning decreases terribly when one is taken from the clutch in which it is located. The linkage itself is not composed of thought (I think), but of something else, and it is impossible to express the basis of this linkage directly in words, but only indirectly - in words, describing images, actions, positions” (Letter to N.N. Strakhov dated 23 and April 26, 1876). The understanding of Chekhov’s principles of expressing the author’s subjectivity is facilitated by a letter to Suvorin, in which one of the basic principles of Chekhov’s poetics is formulated: “When I write, I fully count on the reader, believing that he will add the subjective elements missing in the story himself” (Letter from A.S. Suvorin dated April 1, 1890). His theoretical and literary article “How to Make Poems” gives a lot for understanding Mayakovsky’s poetics. The use of such and similar materials of a general nature can bring nothing but benefit for analysis.

The situation is more complicated with attempts to clarify the content of a work of art by involving the writer’s extra-fictional statements. Here we are always faced with the danger discussed above - as a rule, from extra-artistic statements one can reconstruct the author’s worldview, but not his artistic worldview. Their discrepancy occurs in all cases and can lead to an impoverished, or even distorted, understanding of the literary text. Contextual analysis in this direction can be useful if the worldview and worldview of the writer coincide in their main features, and the creative personality is distinguished by a kind of monolithicity and integrity (Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Chekhov). When a writer’s consciousness is internally contradictory and his theoretical guidelines diverge from artistic practice (Gogol, Ostrovsky, Tolstoy, Gorky), the danger of replacing the worldview with a worldview and distorting the content of the work increases sharply. In any case, it should be remembered that any use of extra-textual data can be useful only when it complements the immanent analysis and does not replace it.

As for the literary context, bringing it into the analysis almost never does any harm. It is especially useful to compare the work under study with other works of the same author, since in the mass the patterns inherent in the work of the writer as a whole, his attraction to certain issues, the originality of style, etc., are more clearly revealed. This path has the advantage that in the analysis of an individual work allows you to go from the general to the specific. Thus, the study of Pushkin’s work in its entirety reveals a problem that is not immediately noticeable in individual works - the problem of “human independence,” his internal freedom, based on a sense of belonging to the eternal principles of existence, national tradition and world culture. Thus, a comparison of the poetics of Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment” with “Demons” and “The Brothers Karamazov” makes it possible to identify a problematic situation typical for Dostoevsky - “blood according to conscience.” Sometimes the involvement of literary context even turns out to be an indispensable condition for the correct comprehension of a single work of art, which can be illustrated by the example of the perception of Chekhov’s work by critics during his lifetime. The writer's early stories, which appeared one at a time in newspapers, did not attract close attention and did not seem like anything significant. Attitudes towards Chekhov change with the advent of collections his stories: collected together, they turned out to be a significant fact in Russian literature, their original problematic content and artistic originality became clearer. The same can be said about lyrical works: they somehow “don’t look good” alone; their natural perception is in a collection, a magazine selection, a collection of essays, when individual artistic creations are mutually illuminated and complement each other.

Involving the wider literary context, that is, the work of a given author's predecessors and contemporaries, is also generally desirable and useful, although not necessarily necessary. Involving this kind of information serves the purpose of comparison, which allows us to speak more convincingly about the originality of the content and style of a given author. In this case, the most useful for analysis is a comparison of contrasting artistic systems(Pushkin with Lermontov, Dostoevsky with Chekhov, Mayakovsky with Pasternak) or, on the contrary, similar, but differing in important nuances (Fonvizin - Griboyedov, Lafontaine - Krylov, Annensky - Blok). In addition, it should be taken into account that the literary context is natural and closest to a work of art.

The greatest difficulty is the historical change in context in the process of perceiving a literary work in subsequent eras, since the idea of ​​realities, customs, and stable speech formulas that were quite commonplace for readers of a past era, but completely unfamiliar to the reader of subsequent generations, is lost, resulting in involuntary impoverishment, or even a distortion of the meaning of the work. The loss of context can thus significantly affect the interpretation, so when analyzing the works of cultures distant from us, a so-called real commentary, sometimes very detailed, is necessary. Here, for example, are the areas of life of the Pushkin era that Yu.M. considered necessary to introduce the reader to. Lotman, author of a commentary on “Eugene Onegin”: “Economy and property status “...” Education and service of nobles “...” Interests and occupations of a noble woman “...” Noble dwelling and its surroundings in the city and estate “...” Day of a socialite. Entertainment "..." Ball "..." Duel "..." Vehicles. Road". And this is not counting the most detailed commentary on individual lines, names, speech formulas, etc.

The general conclusion that can be drawn from all that has been said is the following. Contextual analysis is, at best, a private auxiliary technique that in no way replaces the analysis of the immanent; the need for one or another context for the correct perception of the work is indicated by the organization of the text itself.

1. What is context?

2. What types of contexts do you know?

3. Why is the use of contextual data not always necessary, and sometimes even harmful for literary analysis?

4. What indicates to us the need to involve certain contextual data?

In relation to the works given below, establish the advisability of involving each type of context in their analysis, using the following rating scale: a) involvement is necessary, b) acceptable, c) inappropriate, d) harmful.

Texts for analysis:

A.S. Pushkin. Mozart and Salieri,

M.Yu. Lermontov. Hero of our time,

N.V. Gogol. Taras Bulba, Dead Souls,

F.M. Dostoevsky. Teenager, Demons,

A.P. Chekhov. Student,

M.A. Sholokhov. Quiet Don,

A.A. Akhmatova. She clenched her hands under a dark veil..., Requiem,

A.T. Tvardovsky. Terkin in the next world.

In the texts below, establish the advisability of involving contextual data of one type or another and conduct a contextual analysis in accordance with this. Show how using context contributes to a fuller and deeper understanding of the text.

Texts for analysis

A.S. Pushkin. Arion,

M.Yu. Lermontov. Farewell, unwashed Russia...

L.N. Tolstoy. Childhood,

F.M. Dostoevsky. Poor people

N.S. Leskov. Warrior,

A.P. Chekhov. Chameleon,

Memories of A.T. Tvardovsky. M., 1978. P. 234.

Turgenev I.S. Collection cit.: In 12 volumes. M., 1958. T. 12. P. 339.

Gorky M. Collection cit.: In 30 volumes. M., 1953. T. 26. P. 425.

Dobrolyubov N.A. Collection cit.: In 3 volumes. M., 1952. T. 3. P. 29.

Skaftymov A.P. Decree. op. pp. 173–174.

Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes. M., 1953. T. 62. P. 268.

Eco U. Name of the rose. M., 1989. pp. 428–430.

Tolstoy L.N. Full collection cit.: In 90 volumes. T. 62. P. 268.

Chekhov A.P. Full collection op. and letters: In 30 tons. Letters. T. 4. P. 54.

Lotman Yu.M. Roman A.S. Pushkin "Eugene Onegin". Commentary: A manual for teachers. L, 1980. P. 416.

Composition- construction of a literary work; combines parts of a work into one whole. Basic means of composition: Plot- what happens in the work; system of main events and conflicts. Conflict- a clash of characters and circumstances, views and principles of life, which forms the basis of action. Conflict can occur between an individual and society, between characters. In the hero's mind it can be obvious and hidden. Plot elements reflect the stages of conflict development; Prologue- a kind of introduction to the work, which tells about the events of the past, it emotionally prepares the reader for perception (rare); Exposition- introduction to action, depiction of the conditions and circumstances preceding the immediate start of actions (can be expanded or not, integral and “broken”; can be located not only at the beginning, but also in the middle, end of the work); introduces the characters of the work, the setting, time and circumstances of the action; The beginning- the beginning of the plot; the event from which the conflict begins, subsequent events develop. Development of action- a system of events that follow from the beginning; as the action progresses, as a rule, the conflict intensifies, and the contradictions appear more and more clearly and sharply; Climax- the moment of the highest tension of the action, the peak of the conflict, the climax represents the main problem of the work and the characters of the characters very clearly, after which the action weakens. Denouement- a solution to the depicted conflict or an indication of possible ways to resolve it. The final moment in the development of the action of a work of art. As a rule, it either resolves the conflict or demonstrates its fundamental unsolvability. Epilogue- the final part of the work, in which the direction of further development of events and the destinies of the heroes is indicated (sometimes an assessment is given of what is depicted); This is a short story about what happened to the characters in the work after the end of the main plot action.

The plot can be presented:

Non-plot elements are considered:

Compositional principles and elements:

Additional composition tools:

In most cases, starting from the 8th grade, in literature lessons when studying large and significant work students are asked to write an analysis of a story, novel, play, or even a poem. In order to correctly write an analysis and take something useful from it, you need to know how to correctly draw up an analysis plan. In this article we will talk about and analyze the poem “The Sea” written by Zhukovsky according to this plan.

History of the creation of the work

The history of the creation of a work is an important part in the analysis, so we will start the analysis plan with this. At this point we will have to indicate when the work was written, that is, started and completed (year and, if known, then dates). Next, you need to find out exactly how the author worked on this work, in what place, at what period of his life. This is a very important part of the analysis.

The direction of the work, its type and genre

This point is more like an analysis of the work. The plan for analyzing a work of art must necessarily consist of determining the direction, type and genre of the work.

In total, there are 3 directions in literature: classicism. It is necessary to read the work and determine which of them it relates to (there may even be two directions).

The analysis plan also consists of determining the type of work. In total, there are 3 types of works: epic, lyric and drama. An epic is a story about a hero or a story about events that do not concern the author. Lyrics are a transmission through high feelings. Drama is all works constructed in a dialogical form.

There is no need to define it, because it is indicated at the beginning of the work itself. There are a lot of them, but the most popular are the novel, epic, etc.

Subjects and problems of a literary work

The plan for compiling an analysis of a work cannot do without such important features in the work as its themes and issues. The theme of a work is what exactly the work is about. Here you should describe the main themes of the work. The problematic is based on the definition of the main problem.

Pathos and idea

An idea is a definition of the main idea of ​​a work, that is, what it was actually written for. In addition to what the author wanted to say with his work, it is necessary to note how he relates to his characters. Pathos is the main emotional mood of the author himself, which should be traced throughout the entire work. You need to write with what emotions the author describes certain events, characters, and their actions.

Main characters

The plan for analyzing the work also includes a description of its main characters. I need to say at least a little about minor characters, but at the same time describe the main ones in detail. Character, behavior, the author's attitude, the significance of each character - this is something that must be said.

The poem needs to describe the lyrical hero.

The plot and composition of a work of art

With the plot, everything is very simple: you just need to briefly, in just a few sentences, describe the main main and key events that happened in the work.

Composition is how the work itself is constructed. It includes the beginning (the beginning of actions), the development of actions (when the main events begin to escalate), the climax (the most interesting part in any story or novel, the highest tension of actions occurs), the denouement (the end of actions).

Artistic originality

It is necessary to describe the properties of the work, its unique features, features, that is, what distinguishes it from the other. There may be some characteristics of the author himself when writing.

Meaning of the work

The plan for analyzing any work should end with a description of its meaning, as well as the reader’s attitude towards it. Here you need to say how it influenced society, what it conveyed to people, whether you liked it as a reader, what you yourself took from it. The meaning of a work is like a small conclusion at the end of an outline.

Features of poem analysis

For lyric poems, in addition to all of the above, it is necessary to write their verse size, determine the number of stanzas, as well as the features of the rhyme.

Analysis of the poem "Sea" by Zhukovsky

In order to consolidate the material and remember how to analyze a work, we will write an analysis of Zhukovsky’s poem according to the plan given above.

1. This poem was written by Zhukovsky in 1822. The poem "The Sea" was first published in a collection entitled "Northern Flowers for 1829."
2. The poem is written in the spirit of early romanticism. It is worth noting that many works were designed in this spirit. The author himself believed that this direction is the most attractive and exciting. The work belongs to the lyrics. The poem given to us belongs to the genre of elegy.
3. In this poem by Vasily Zhukovsky, not only the sea is described, but a real landscape of the soul is created, bright and intriguing. But the importance of the poem lies not only in the fact that the writer created a real psychological landscape and expressed the feelings and sensations of a person when describing the sea. The real feature of the poem is that the sea becomes for a person, for the reader, a living soul and a real hero of the work.
4. The work consists of 3 parts. The first part is introductory, the largest in volume and informative. It can be called “The Silent Sea”, because Zhukovsky himself calls the sea that way in this part of the poem. Then follows the second part, which is characterized by stormy emotions and is called “Storm”. The third part barely begins before the poem ends - this is "Peace".
5. The artistic originality of the poem is manifested in large quantities epithets (bright sky, dark clouds, hostile haze, etc.)
6. This poem did not go unnoticed in Russian poetry. Following this author, other poets began to paint a picture of the sea in their poems.

Analysis of the poem “The Sea” according to the plan of this analysis will help you easily and quickly analyze the work of art.

Aanalysis of literary and artistic work

When analyzing a work of art, one should distinguish between ideological content and artistic form.

A. Ideological content includes:

1) subject matter works - socio-historical characters chosen by the writer in their interaction;

2) issues- the most significant properties and aspects of the already reflected characters for the author, highlighted and strengthened by him in the artistic depiction;

3) pathos works - the ideological and emotional attitude of the writer to those depicted social characters(heroics, tragedy, drama, satire, humor, romance and sentimentality).

Pathos- the highest form of ideological and emotional assessment of a writer’s life, revealed in his work. The affirmation of the greatness of the feat of an individual hero or an entire team is an expression of heroic pathos, and the actions of the hero or team are distinguished by free initiative and are aimed at the implementation of high humanistic principles. The prerequisite for heroism in fiction is the heroism of reality, the fight against the elements of nature, for national freedom and independence, for the free labor of people, the fight for peace.

When the author affirms the deeds and experiences of people who are characterized by a deep and irremovable contradiction between the desire for a sublime ideal and the fundamental impossibility of achieving it, then we have tragic pathos. The forms of the tragic are very diverse and historically changeable. Dramatic pathos is distinguished by the absence of the fundamental nature of a person’s opposition to extrapersonal hostile circumstances. A tragic character is always marked by exceptional moral height and significance. The differences in the characters of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” and Larisa in Ostrovsky’s “Dowry” clearly demonstrate the difference in these types of pathos.

Romantic pathos acquired great importance in the art of the 19th-20th centuries, with the help of which the significance of the individual’s desire for an emotionally anticipated universal ideal is affirmed. Sentimental pathos is close to the romantic, although its range is limited to the family and everyday sphere of manifestation of the feelings of the heroes and the writer. All these types of pathos carry within them affirmative beginning and realize the sublime as the main and most general aesthetic category.

The general aesthetic category for the negation of negative tendencies is the category of the comic. Comic- this is a form of life that claims to be significant, but has historically outlived its positive content and therefore causes laughter. Comic contradictions as an objective source of laughter can be realized satirically or humorously. The angry denial of socially dangerous comic phenomena determines the civil nature of the pathos of satire. Mocking the comic contradictions in the moral and everyday sphere of human relations evokes a humorous attitude towards what is depicted. Ridicule can be either a denial or an affirmation of the depicted contradiction. Laughter in literature, as in life, is extremely diverse in its manifestations: smile, mockery, sarcasm, irony, sardonic grin, Homeric laughter.

B. Art form includes:

1) Details of subject visualization: portrait, actions of characters, their experiences and speech (monologues and dialogues), everyday environment, landscape, plot (sequence and interaction of external and internal actions of characters in time and space);

2) Composition details: order, method and motivation, narratives and descriptions of the life depicted, author's reasoning, digressions, inserted episodes, framing (composition of the image - the relationship and arrangement of objective details within a separate image);

3) Stylistic details: figurative and expressive details of the author's speech, intonation-syntactic and rhythmic-strophic features of poetic speech in general.

Scheme of analysis of a literary work.

1. History of creation.

2. Topic.

3. Issues.

4. The ideological orientation of the work and its emotional pathos.

5. Genre originality.

6. Basic artistic images in their system and internal connections.

7. Central characters.

8. The plot and structural features of the conflict.

9. Landscape, portrait, dialogues and monologues of characters, interior, setting.

11. Composition of the plot and individual images, as well as the general architectonics of the work.

12. The place of the work in the writer’s work.

13. The place of the work in the history of Russian and world literature.

A general plan for answering the question about the meaning of the writer’s creativity.

A. The place of the writer in the development of Russian literature.

B. The place of the writer in the development of European (world) literature.

1. The main problems of the era and the writer’s attitude towards them.

2. Traditions and innovation of the writer in the field:

b) topics, problems;

V) creative method and style;

e) speech style.

B. Evaluation of the writer’s work by classics of literature and criticism.

An approximate plan for characterizing an artistic image-character.

Introduction. The place of the character in the system of images of the work.

Main part. Characteristics of the character as a certain social type.

1. Social and financial situation.

2. Appearance.

3. The originality of worldview and worldview, the range of mental interests, inclinations and habits:

a) the nature of activities and main life aspirations;

b) influence on others (main area, types and types of influence).

4. Area of ​​feelings:

a) type of attitude towards others;

b) features of internal experiences.

6. What personality traits of the hero are revealed in the work:

c) through the characteristics of other actors;

d) using background or biography;

e) through a chain of actions;

f) in speech characteristics;

g) through “neighborhood” with other characters;

h) through the environment.

Conclusion. What social problem led the author to create this image?

Plan for analyzing a lyric poem.

I. Date of writing.

II. Real biographical and factual commentary.

III. Genre originality.

IV. Ideological content:

1. Leading topic.

2. Main thought.

3. The emotional coloring of feelings expressed in a poem in their dynamics or statics.

4. External impression and internal reaction to it.

5. The predominance of public or personal intonations.

V. Structure of the poem:

1. Comparison and development of basic verbal images:

a) by similarity;

b) by contrast;

c) by contiguity;

d) by association;

d) by inference.

2. The main visual means of allegory used by the author: metaphor, metonymy, comparison, allegory, symbol, hyperbole, litotes, irony (as a trope), sarcasm, periphrasis.

3. Speech features in terms of intonation and syntactic figures: epithet, repetition, antithesis, inversion, ellipse, parallelism, rhetorical question, address and exclamation.

4. Main rhythmic features:

a) tonic, syllabic, syllabic-tonic, dolnik, free verse;

b) iambic, trochee, pyrrhic, spondee, dactyl, amphibrach, anapest.

5. Rhyme (masculine, feminine, dactylic, accurate, inaccurate, rich; simple, compound) and methods of rhyming (paired, cross, ring), game of rhymes.

6. Stanza (couple, tercet, quintet, quatrain, sextine, seventh, octave, sonnet, Onegin stanza).

7. Euphony (euphony) and sound recording (alliteration, assonance), other types of sound instrumentation.

How to keep a short record of the books you read.

2. The exact title of the work. Dates of creation and appearance in print.

3. The time depicted in the work and the place where the main events take place. The social environment, the representatives of which are depicted by the author in the work (nobles, peasants, urban bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, commoners, intelligentsia, workers).

4. Epoch. Characteristics of the time in which the work was written (from the side of the economic and socio-political interests and aspirations of contemporaries).

5. Brief content plan.

Methodology for analyzing a literary work

When analyzing a work of art, one should distinguish between ideological content and artistic form.

A. Ideological content includes:

1. subject matter works - socio-historical characters chosen by the writer in their interaction;

2. issues- the most significant aspects and properties of the already reflected characters for the author, highlighted and strengthened by him in the artistic depiction;

3. pathos works - the writer’s ideological and emotional attitude to the depicted social characters (heroics, tragedy, drama, satire, humor, romance and sentimentality).

Pathos- the highest form of ideological and emotional assessment of a writer’s life, revealed in his work. Affirmation of the greatness of the feat of an individual hero or an entire team is an expression heroic pathos, and the actions of the hero or team are characterized by free initiative, moreover, these actions are usually aimed at the implementation of high humanistic principles. The prerequisite for heroism in fiction is the heroism of reality, the fight against the forces of nature, for independence and national freedom, for the free labor of people, the fight for peace.

When the author describes the deeds and feelings of people who are characterized by a deep and irremovable contradiction between the desire for a sublime ideal and the fundamental impossibility of achieving it, then we see tragic pathos. The forms of tragic pathos are very diverse and historically changeable. Dramatic pathos is distinguished by the absence of the fundamental nature of a person’s opposition to impersonal hostile circumstances. A tragic character is always marked by exceptional moral height and significance. The differences in the characters of Katerina in “The Thunderstorm” and Larisa in Ostrovsky’s “Dowry” clearly demonstrate the difference in these types of pathos.

Gained great importance in the art of the 19th-20th centuries. romantic pathos, with the help of which the importance of the individual’s striving for an emotionally anticipated universal ideal is affirmed. Close to romantic sentimental pathos, although its range is limited to the family and everyday sphere of manifestation of the feelings of the heroes and the author. All these types of pathos carry within them affirmative beginning and realize the sublime as the main and most general aesthetic category.

The general aesthetic category for the negation of negative manifestations is the category of the comic. Comic- this is a form of life that claims to be significant, but has historically outlived its positive content and therefore causes laughter. Comic contradictions as an objective source of laughter can be realized satirically or humorous. The angry denial of socially dangerous comic phenomena determines the civil nature of the pathos of satire. Mocking the comic contradictions in the moral and everyday sphere of human relations evokes a humorous attitude towards what is depicted. Ridicule can be either a denial or an affirmation of the depicted contradiction. Laughter in literature, as in life, is extremely diverse in its manifestations: smile, mockery, sarcasm, irony, sardonic grin, Homeric laughter.

B. Art form includes:

1. Details of subject visualization: portrait, actions of characters, their experiences and speech (monologues and dialogues), everyday environment, landscape, plot (sequence and interaction of external and internal actions of characters in time and space);

2. Composition details: order, method and motivation, narratives and descriptions of the depicted life, author's reasoning, digressions, inserted episodes, framing ( image composition- the relationship and arrangement of object details within a separate image);

3. Stylistic details: figurative and expressive details of the author's speech, intonation-syntactic and rhythmic-strophic features of poetic speech in general.

Scheme of analysis of literary and artistic work

1. History of creation.

2. Topic.

3. Issues.

4. The ideological orientation of the work and its emotional pathos.

5. Genre originality.

6. Basic artistic images in their system and internal connections.

7. Central characters.

8. The plot and structural features of the conflict.

9. Landscape, portrait, dialogues and monologues of characters, interior, setting.

11. Composition of the plot and individual images, as well as the general architectonics of the work.

12. The place of the work in the writer’s work.

13. The place of the work in the history of Russian and world literature.

General plan for answering the question about the meaning of the writer’s creativity

A. The place of the writer in the development of Russian literature.

B. The place of the writer in the development of European (world) literature.

1. The main problems of the era and the writer’s attitude towards them.

2. Traditions and innovation of the writer in the field:

b) topics, problems;

c) creative method and style;

e) speech style.

B. Evaluation of the writer’s work by classics of literature and criticism.

Approximate plan for characterizing an artistic image-character

Introduction. The place of the character in the system of images of the work.

Main part. Characteristics of the character as a certain social type.

1. Social and financial situation.

2. Appearance.

3. Originality of worldview and worldview, range of mental interests, inclinations and habits:

a) the nature of activities and main life aspirations;

b) influence on others (main area, types and types of influence).

4. Area of ​​feelings:

a) type of attitude towards others;

b) features of internal experiences.

6. What personality traits of the hero are revealed in the work:

c) through the characteristics of other actors;

d) using background or biography;

e) through a chain of actions;

f) in speech characteristics;

g) through “neighborhood” with other characters;

h) through the environment.

Conclusion. What social problem led the author to create this image?

Plan for analyzing a lyric poem

I. Date of writing.

II. Real biographical and factual commentary.

III. Genre originality.

IV. Ideological content:

1. Leading topic.

2. Main idea.

3. The emotional coloring of the feelings expressed in the poem in their dynamics or statics.

4. External impression and internal reaction to it.

5. The predominance of public or personal intonations.

V. Structure of the poem:

1. Comparison and development of basic verbal images:

a) by similarity;

b) by contrast;

c) by contiguity;

d) by association;

d) by inference.

2. The main visual means of allegory used by the author: metaphor, metonymy, comparison, allegory, symbol, hyperbole, litotes, irony (as a trope), sarcasm, periphrasis.

3. Speech features in terms of intonation and syntactic figures: epithet, repetition, antithesis, inversion, ellipse, parallelism, rhetorical question, address and exclamation.

4. Main rhythmic features:

a) tonic, syllabic, syllabic-tonic, dolnik, free verse;

b) iambic, trochee, pyrrhic, spondee, dactyl, amphibrach, anapest.

5. Rhyme (masculine, feminine, dactylic, accurate, inaccurate, rich; simple, compound) and methods of rhyming (paired, cross, ring), game of rhymes.

6. Stanza (couple, tercary, quintuple, quatrain, sextine, seventh, octave, sonnet, Onegin stanza).

7. Euphony (euphony) and sound recording (alliteration, assonance), other types of sound instrumentation.

How to keep a short record of the books you read

2. The exact title of the work. Dates of creation and appearance in print.

3. The time depicted in the work and the place of the main events taking place. The social environment, the representatives of which are depicted by the author in the work (nobles, peasants, urban bourgeoisie, bourgeoisie, commoners, intelligentsia, workers).

4. Epoch. Characteristics of the time in which the work was written (from the side of the economic and socio-political interests and aspirations of contemporaries).

5. Brief content plan.