Over the millennia cultural development Humanity has created countless literary works, among which we can distinguish some basic types that are similar in the way and form of reflecting human ideas about the world around us. These are three types (or types) of literature: epic, drama, lyric.

What is different about each type of literature?

Epic as a type of literature

Epic(epos - Greek, narrative, story) is a depiction of events, phenomena, processes external to the author. Epic works reflect the objective course of life, human existence as a whole. Using various artistic media, the authors of epic works express their understanding of historical, socio-political, moral, psychological and many other problems that live with human society in general and each of its representatives in particular. Epic works have significant visual potential, thereby helping the reader to understand the world, to comprehend the deep problems of human existence.

Drama as a genre of literature

Drama(drama - Greek, action, performance) is a type of literature, main feature which is the scenic quality of the works. Plays, i.e. dramatic works, are created specifically for the theater, for production on stage, which, of course, does not exclude their existence in the form of independent literary texts intended for reading. Like the epic, drama reproduces the relationships between people, their actions, and the conflicts that arise between them. But unlike epic, which is narrative in nature, drama has a dialogical form.

Related to this features of dramatic works :

2) the text of the play consists of conversations between the characters: their monologues (the speech of one character), dialogues (a conversation between two characters), polylogues (simultaneous exchange of remarks by several participants in the action). That is why speech characterization turns out to be one of the most important means of creating a memorable character of a hero;

3) the action of the play, as a rule, develops quite dynamically, intensively, as a rule, it is allocated 2-3 hours of stage time.

Lyrics as a type of literature

Lyrics(lyra - Greek, musical instrument, to the accompaniment of which poetic works and songs were performed) is distinguished by a special type of construction artistic image- this is an image-experience in which the individual emotional and spiritual experience of the author is embodied. Lyrics can be called the most mysterious type of literature, because it is addressed to the inner world of a person, his subjective feelings, ideas, and ideas. In other words, a lyrical work serves primarily the individual self-expression of the author. The question arises: why do readers, i.e. other people turn to such works? The whole point is that the lyricist, speaking on his own behalf and about himself, miraculously embodies universal human emotions, ideas, hopes, and the more significant the author’s personality, the more important his individual experience is for the reader.

Each type of literature also has its own system of genres.

Genre(genre - French genus, type) is a historically established type of literary work that has similar typological features. Genre names help the reader navigate the vast sea of ​​literature: some people love detective stories, others prefer fantasy, and still others are a fan of memoirs.

How to determine What genre does a particular work belong to? Most often, the authors themselves help us in this, calling their creation a novel, story, poem, etc. However, some author’s definitions seem unexpected to us: let us remember that A.P. Chekhov emphasized that “ The Cherry Orchard"is a comedy, not a drama at all, but A.I. Solzhenitsyn considered One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich to be a story, not a novella. Some literary scholars call Russian literature a collection of genre paradoxes: the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin”, the prose poem “Dead Souls”, the satirical chronicle “The History of a City”. There was a lot of controversy regarding “War and Peace” by L.N. Tolstoy. The writer himself said only about what his book is not: “What is War and Peace? This is not a novel, still less a poem, still less a historical chronicle. “War and Peace” is what the author wanted and could express in the form in which it was expressed.” And only in the 20th century did literary scholars agree to call the brilliant creation of L.N. Tolstoy's epic novel.

Each literary genre has a number of stable characteristics, knowledge of which allows us to classify a specific work into one group or another. Genres develop, change, die out and are born, for example, literally before our eyes arose new genre blog (web loq English online journal) - personal online diary.

However, for several centuries there have been stable (also called canonical) genres.

Literature of literary works - see table 1).

Table 1.

Genres of literary works

Epic genres of literature

Epic genres are primarily distinguished by their volume; on this basis they are divided into small ones ( essay, story, short story, fairy tale, parable ), average ( story ), large ( novel, epic novel ).

Feature article- a small sketch from life, the genre is both descriptive and narrative. Many essays are created on documentary, life basis, they are often combined into cycles: the classic example is “ Sentimental Journey in France and Italy" (1768) English writer Laurence Stern, in Russian literature - this is “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790) by A. Radishchev, “Frigate Pallada” (1858) by I. Goncharov” “Italy” (1922) by B. Zaitsev and others.

Story- a small narrative genre, which usually depicts one episode, incident, human character, or an important incident in the life of the hero that influenced his future fate (“After the Ball” by L. Tolstoy). Stories are created both on a documentary, often autobiographical basis (“Matryonin’s Dvor” by A. Solzhenitsyn) and through pure fiction (“The Gentleman from San Francisco” by I. Bunin).

The intonation and content of the stories can be very different - from comic, curious (the early stories of A.P. Chekhov) to deeply tragic (" Kolyma stories"V. Shalamov). Stories, like essays, are often combined into cycles (“Notes of a Hunter” by I. Turgenev).

Novella(novella Italian news) is in many ways akin to a short story and is considered its variety, but is distinguished by the special dynamism of the narrative, sharp and often unexpected turns in the development of events. Often the narrative in a short story begins with the ending and is built according to the law of inversion, i.e. reverse order, when the denouement precedes the main events (“Terrible Revenge” by N. Gogol). This feature of the construction of the novella will later be borrowed by the detective genre.

The word “novella” has another meaning that future lawyers need to know. In Ancient Rome, the phrase “novellae leges” (new laws) referred to laws introduced after the official codification of law (after the Code of Theodosius II in 438). The novellas of Justinian and his successors, published after the second edition of the Justinian Code, later formed part of the code of Roman laws (Corpus iuris civillis). In the modern era, a novel is a law submitted to parliament (in other words, a draft law).

Fairy tale- the most ancient of the small epic genres, one of the main ones in oral creativity any people. This is a small work of a magical, adventurous or everyday nature, where fiction is clearly emphasized. Another important feature of a folk tale is its edifying nature: “A fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it, a lesson for good fellows.” Folk tales are usually divided into fairy tales (“The Tale of the Frog Princess”), everyday ones (“Porridge from an Ax”) and tales about animals (“Zayushkina’s Hut”).

With the development of written literature, literary tales arise that use traditional motifs and symbolic possibilities folk tale. The Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) is rightfully considered a classic of the genre of literary fairy tales, his wonderful “The Little Mermaid”, “The Princess and the Pea”, “ The Snow Queen", "The Steadfast Tin Soldier", "Shadow", "Thumbelina" are loved by many generations of readers, both very young and quite mature. And this is far from accidental, because Andersen’s fairy tales are not only extraordinary and sometimes strange adventures of heroes, they contain deep philosophical and moral meaning, enclosed in beautiful symbolic images.

From European literary fairy tales XX century became a classic " A little prince"(1942) French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. And the famous “Chronicles of Narnia” (1950 - 1956) by the English writer Cl. Lewis and “The Lord of the Rings” (1954-1955), also by the Englishman J.R. Tolkien, are written in the fantasy genre, which can be called a modern transformation of an ancient folk tale.

In Russian literature, the fairy tales of A.S., of course, remain unsurpassed. Pushkin: “Oh dead princess and seven heroes”, “About the fisherman and the fish”, “About Tsar Saltan...”, “About the golden cockerel”, “About the priest and his worker Balda”. An excellent storyteller was P. Ershov, the author of “The Little Humpbacked Horse.” E. Schwartz in the 20th century creates the form of fairy tale plays, one of them “The Bear” (another name is “An Ordinary Miracle”) is well known to many thanks to the wonderful film directed by M. Zakharov.

Parable- also a very ancient folklore genre, but, unlike fairy tales, parables contained written monuments: the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, the monument of Syrian literature “The Teachings of Akahara”. A parable is a work of instructive, symbolic nature, distinguished by its sublimity and seriousness of content. Ancient parables, as a rule, are small in volume, they do not contain detailed story about events or psychological characteristics of the hero’s character.

The purpose of the parable is edification or, as they once said, teaching wisdom. IN European culture The most famous are the parables from the Gospels: about the prodigal son, about the rich man and Lazarus, about the unjust judge, about the crazy rich man and others. Christ often spoke to his disciples allegorically, and if they did not understand the meaning of the parable, he explained it.

Many writers turned to the genre of parables, not always, of course, investing in it a high religious meaning, but rather trying to express in an allegorical form some kind of moralistic edification, such as, for example, L. Tolstoy in his late work. Carry it. V. Rasputin - Farewell to Matera" can also be called a detailed parable, in which the writer speaks with anxiety and sorrow about the destruction of the "ecology of conscience" of man. Many critics also consider the story “The Old Man and the Sea” by E. Hemingway to be part of the tradition of literary parables. The famous contemporary Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho also uses the parable form in his novels and stories (the novel “The Alchemist”).

Tale- a medium literary genre, widely represented in world literature. The story depicts several important episodes from the hero’s life, usually one story line and a small number of characters. The stories are characterized by great psychological intensity; the author focuses on the experiences and changes in mood of the characters. Very often the main theme of the story is the love of the protagonist, for example, “White Nights” by F. Dostoevsky, “Asya” by I. Turgenev, “Mitya’s Love” by I. Bunin. Stories can also be combined into cycles, especially those written on autobiographical material: “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” by L. Tolstoy, “Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities” by A. Gorky. The intonations and themes of the stories are extremely diverse: tragic, addressing acute social and moral issues (“Everything Flows” by V. Grossman, “House on the Embankment” by Yu. Trifonov), romantic, heroic (“Taras Bulba” by N. Gogol), philosophical , parables (“The Pit” by A. Platonov), mischievous, comic (“Three in a Boat, Not Counting the Dog” by the English writer Jerome K. Jerome).

Novel(Gotap French originally, in later Middle Ages, any work written in a Romance language, as opposed to those written in Latin) is a major epic work in which the narrative focuses on the fate of an individual. The novel is the most complex epic genre, which is distinguished by an incredible number of themes and plots: love, historical, detective, psychological, fantasy, historical, autobiographical, social, philosophical, satirical, etc. All these forms and types of the novel are united by its central idea - the idea of ​​personality, human individuality.

The novel is called the epic of private life because it depicts the diverse connections between the world and man, society and the individual. The reality surrounding a person is presented in the novel in different contexts: historical, political, social, cultural, national, etc. The author of the novel is interested in how the environment influences a person’s character, how he is formed, how his life develops, whether he managed to find his purpose and realize himself.

Many people attribute the origin of the genre to antiquity, such as Long's Daphnis and Chloe, Apuleius's The Golden Ass, and the knightly romance Tristan and Isolde.

In the works of classics of world literature, the novel is represented by numerous masterpieces:

Table 2. Examples of classic novels by foreign and Russian writers (XIX, XX centuries)

Famous novels of Russian writers of the 19th century .:

In the 20th century, Russian writers develop and enhance the traditions of their great predecessors and create no less wonderful novels:

Of course, none of these listings can claim completeness and exhaustive objectivity, this especially applies to modern prose. In this case, the most famous works that glorified both the country’s literature and the name of the writer are named.

Epic novel. In ancient times there were forms heroic epic: folklore sagas, runes, epics, songs. These are the Indian “Ramayana” and “Mahabharata”, the Anglo-Saxon “Beowulf”, the French “Song of Roland”, the German “Song of the Nibelungs”, etc. In these works, the hero’s exploits were exalted in an idealized, often hyperbolic form. The later epic poems “Iliad” and “Odyssey” by Homer, “Shah-name” by Ferdowsi, while retaining the mythological character of the early epic, nevertheless had a pronounced connection with real story, and the theme of the intertwining of human destiny and the life of the people becomes one of the main ones in them. The experience of the ancients will be in demand in the 19th-20th centuries, when writers will try to comprehend the dramatic relationship between the era and the individual personality, and talk about the tests to which morality, and sometimes the human psyche, is subjected at the time of the greatest historical upheavals. Let us remember the lines of F. Tyutchev: “Blessed is he who visited this world in its fatal moments.” The poet's romantic formula in reality meant the destruction of all familiar forms of life, tragic losses and unfulfilled dreams.

The complex form of the epic novel allows writers to artistically explore these problems in all their completeness and inconsistency.

When we talk about the genre of the epic novel, of course, we immediately remember “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy. Other examples can be mentioned: “Quiet Don” by M. Sholokhov, “Life and Fate” by V. Grossman, “The Forsyte Saga” by the English writer Galsworthy; book by American writer Margaret Mitchell gone With the Wind"can also with good reason be classified as part of this genre.

The very name of the genre indicates a synthesis, a combination of two main principles in it: novel and epic, i.e. related to the theme of the life of an individual and the theme of the history of the people. In other words, the epic novel tells about the destinies of the heroes (as a rule, the heroes themselves and their destinies are fictitious, invented by the author) against the backdrop of and in close connection with epoch-making historical events. Thus, in “War and Peace” - these are the fates of individual families (Rostov, Bolkonsky), beloved heroes (Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Princess Marya) in the turning point historical period for Russia and all of Europe at the beginning of the 19th century, the Patriotic War of 1812 . In Sholokhov's book, the events of the First World War, two revolutions and a bloody civil war tragically invade the life of the Cossack farm, the Melekhov family, and the fate of the main characters: Grigory, Aksinya, Natalya. V. Grossman talks about the Great Patriotic War and its main event - the Battle of Stalingrad, about the tragedy of the Holocaust. “Life and Fate” also intertwines historical and family themes: the author traces the history of the Shaposhnikovs, trying to understand why the destinies of the members of this family turned out so differently. Galsworthy describes the life of the Forsyte family during the legendary Victorian era in England. Margaret Mitchell is a central event in US history, the Civil War between North and South, which dramatically changed the lives of many families and the fate of the most famous heroine of American literature - Scarlett O'Hara.

Dramatic genres of literature

Tragedy(tragodia Greek goat song) is a dramatic genre that originated in Ancient Greece. The emergence of ancient theater and tragedy is associated with the worship of the cult of the god of fertility and wine Dionysus. A number of holidays were dedicated to him, during which ritual magical games were played with mummers and satyrs, whom the ancient Greeks imagined as two-legged goat-like creatures. It is assumed that it was precisely this appearance of the satyrs singing hymns to the glory of Dionysus that gave such a strange name in translation to this serious genre. Theatrical performance in Ancient Greece was given magical religious significance, and theaters built in the form of large arenas under open air, have always been located in the very center of cities and were one of the main public places. Spectators sometimes spent the whole day here: eating, drinking, loudly expressing their approval or censure of the spectacle being presented. Heyday ancient Greek tragedy associated with the names of three great tragedians: this is Aeschylus (525-456 BC) - the author of the tragedies “Chained Prometheus”, “Oresteia”, etc.; Sophocles (496-406 BC) - author of “Oedipus the King”, “Antigone”, etc.; and Euripides (480-406 BC) - the creator of “Medea”, “Troyanok”, etc. Their creations will remain examples of the genre for centuries; people will try to imitate them, but they will remain unsurpassed. Some of them (“Antigone”, “Medea”) are still staged today.

What are the main features of the tragedy? The main one is the presence of an insoluble global conflict: in ancient tragedy this is the confrontation between fate, fate, on the one hand, and man, his will, free choice, on the other. In the tragedies of later eras, this conflict acquired a moral and philosophical character, as a confrontation between good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, love and hatred. It has an absolute character; the heroes who embody the opposing forces are not ready for reconciliation or compromise, and therefore the ending of the tragedy often involves a lot of death. This is how the tragedies of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) were constructed; let us remember the most famous of them: “Hamlet”, “Romeo and Juliet”, “Othello”, “King Lear”, “Macbeth”, “Julius Caesar”, etc.

In the tragedies of the 17th century French playwrights Corneille (Horace, Polyeuctus) and Racine (Andromache, Britannicus), this conflict received a different interpretation - as a conflict of duty and feelings, rational and emotional in the souls of the main characters, i.e. . acquired a psychological interpretation.

The most famous in Russian literature is the romantic tragedy “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin, created on historical material. In one of his best works, the poet acutely raised the problem of the “real trouble” of the Moscow state - a chain reaction of impostures and “terrible atrocities” that people are ready for for the sake of power. Another problem is the attitude of the people to everything that happens in the country. The image of the “silent” people in the finale of “Boris Godunov” is symbolic; discussions continue to this day about what Pushkin wanted to say by this. Based on the tragedy, the opera of the same name by M. P. Mussorgsky was written, which became a masterpiece of Russian opera classics.

Comedy(Greek komos - cheerful crowd, oda - song) - a genre that originated in Ancient Greece a little later than tragedy (5th century BC). The most famous comedian of that time was Aristophanes (“Clouds”, “Frogs”, etc.).

In comedy with the help of satire and humor, i.e. comic, moral vices are ridiculed: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, envy, cowardice, complacency. Comedies, as a rule, are topical, i.e. They also address social issues, exposing the shortcomings of the authorities. There are sitcoms and character comedies. In the first, a cunning intrigue, a chain of events (Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors) are important; in the second, the characters of the heroes, their absurdity, one-sidedness, as in the comedies “The Minor” by D. Fonvizin, “The Tradesman in the Nobility”, “Tartuffe”, written by the classic genre, the 17th century French comedian Jean Baptiste Moliere. In Russian drama, satirical comedy with its sharp social criticism turned out to be especially in demand, such as “The Inspector General” by N. Gogol, “The Crimson Island” by M. Bulgakov. A. Ostrovsky created many wonderful comedies (“Wolves and Sheep”, “Forest”, “Mad Money”, etc.).

The comedy genre invariably enjoys success with the public, perhaps because it affirms the triumph of justice: in the finale, vice must certainly be punished, and virtue must triumph.

Drama- a relatively “young” genre that appeared in Germany in the 18th century as lesedrama (German) - a play for reading. The drama is addressed to the everyday life of a person and society, everyday life, and family relationships. Drama is primarily interested in the inner world of a person; it is the most psychological of all dramatic genres. At the same time, this is also the most literary of stage genres, for example, the plays of A. Chekhov are largely perceived more as texts for reading, rather than as theatrical performances.

Lyrical genres of literature

The division into genres in lyrics is not absolute, because the differences between genres in this case are conditional and not as obvious as in epic and drama. More often we distinguish lyrical works by their thematic features: landscape, love, philosophical, friendly, intimate lyrics, etc. However, we can name some genres that have pronounced individual characteristics: elegy, sonnet, epigram, epistle, epitaph.

Elegy(elegos Greek plaintive song) - a poem of medium length, usually of moral, philosophical, love, confessional content.

The genre arose in antiquity, and its main feature was considered to be the elegiac distich, i.e. dividing a poem into couplets, for example:

The longed-for moment has arrived: my long-term work is over. Why is this incomprehensible sadness secretly disturbing me?

A. Pushkin

In the poetry of the 19th-20th centuries, the division into couplets is no longer such a strict requirement; now the semantic features that are associated with the origin of the genre are more significant. In terms of content, the elegy goes back to the form of the Ancient funeral “laments”, in which, while mourning the deceased, they simultaneously remembered his extraordinary virtues. This origin predetermined the main feature of the elegy - the combination of grief with faith, regret with hope, acceptance of existence through sadness. The lyrical hero of the elegy is aware of the imperfection of the world and people, his own sinfulness and weakness, but does not reject life, but accepts it in all its tragic beauty. A striking example is “Elegy” by A.S. Pushkin:

Crazy years of faded fun

It's hard for me, like a vague hangover.

But like wine - sadness days gone by

In my soul, the older I get, the stronger it is.

My path is sad. Promises me work and grief

The coming troubled sea.

But I don’t want, O friends, to die;

I want to live so that I can think and suffer;

And I know I will have pleasure

Between sorrows, worries and worries:

Sometimes I’ll get drunk again with harmony,

I will shed tears over the fiction,

And maybe - at my sad sunset

Love will flash with a farewell smile.

Sonnet(sonetto Italian song) - the so-called “solid” poetic form, which has strict rules of construction. The sonnet has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains and two tercets. In quatrains only two rhymes are repeated, in terzettos two or three. The methods of rhyming also had their own requirements, which, however, varied.

The birthplace of the sonnet is Italy; this genre is also represented in English and French poetry. The 14th century Italian poet Petrarch is considered the luminary of the genre. He dedicated all his sonnets to his beloved Donna Laura.

In Russian literature, the sonnets of A.S. Pushkin remain unsurpassed; poets of the Silver Age also created beautiful sonnets.

Epigram(epigramma Greek, inscription) - a short mocking poem, usually addressed to a specific person. Many poets write epigrams, sometimes increasing the number of their ill-wishers and even enemies. The epigram on Count Vorontsov turned out to be bad for A.S. Pushkin by the hatred of this nobleman and, ultimately, expulsion from Odessa to Mikhailovskoye:

Popu, my lord, half-merchant,

Half-sage, half-ignorant,

Semi-scoundrel, but there is hope

Which will be complete at last.

Mocking poems can be dedicated not only to a specific person, but also to a general addressee, as, for example, in the epigram of A. Akhmatova:

Could Biche, like Dante, create?

Did Laura go to praise the heat of love?

I taught women to speak...

But, God, how to silence them!

There are even known cases of a kind of duel of epigrams. When the famous Russian lawyer A.F. Kony was appointed to the Senate, his ill-wishers spread an evil epigram about him:

Caligula brought his horse to the Senate,

It stands, dressed in both velvet and gold.

But I will say, we have the same arbitrariness:

I read in the newspapers that Kony is in the Senate.

To which A.F. Kony, who was distinguished by his extraordinary literary talent, replied:

(epitafia Greek, funeral) - a farewell poem to a deceased person, intended for tombstone. Initially this word was used in a literal sense, but later it acquired a more figurative meaning. For example, I. Bunin has a lyrical miniature in prose “Epitaph”, dedicated to farewell to the Russian estate that was dear to the writer, but forever a thing of the past. Gradually, the epitaph is transformed into a dedication poem, a farewell poem (“Wreath to the Dead” by A. Akhmatova). Perhaps the most famous poem of this kind in Russian poetry is “The Death of a Poet” by M. Lermontov. Another example is “Epitaph” by M. Lermontov, dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Venevitinov, a poet and philosopher who died at the age of twenty-two.

Genres of literature- these are historically developing groups of works of literature that are united by a set of formal and substantive properties based on formal features.

Fable- a poetic or prosaic literary work of a moralizing, satirical nature. At the end of the fable there is a short moralizing conclusion - the so-called morality.

Ballad is a lyric-epic work, that is, a story told in poetic form of a historical, mythical or heroic nature. The plot of a ballad is usually borrowed from folklore.

Epics- these are heroic and patriotic songs and tales, telling about the exploits of heroes and reflecting life Ancient Rus' IX-XIII centuries; type of oral folk art, which is characterized by a song-epic way of reflecting reality.

Visions- this is a genre of medieval literature, which is characterized, on the one hand, by the presence of the image of a “clairvoyant” in the center of the narrative and the afterlife, otherworldly, eschatological content of the visual images themselves, revealed to the clairvoyant, on the other.

Detective- This is primarily a literary genre, the works of which describe the process of investigating a mysterious incident in order to clarify its circumstances and solve the mystery.

Comedy- a type of dramatic work. Displays everything ugly and absurd, funny and absurd, ridicules the vices of society.

Comedy of manners(comedy of characters) is a comedy in which the source of the funny is the inner essence of the characters and morals of high society, a funny and ugly one-sidedness, an exaggerated trait or passion (vice, flaw). Very often, a comedy of manners is a satirical comedy that makes fun of all these human qualities.

Lyric poem(in prose) - view fiction, emotionally and poetically expressing the author’s feelings.

Melodrama- a type of drama characters which are sharply divided into positive and negative.

Myth is a narrative that conveys people’s ideas about the world, man’s place in it, the origin of all things, about gods and heroes.

Feature article- the most reliable type of narrative, epic literature, reflecting facts from real life.

Song, or Song- the most ancient type of lyric poetry; a poem consisting of several verses and a chorus. Songs are divided into folk, heroic, historical, lyrical, etc.

Science fiction- a genre in literature and other forms of art, one of the varieties of fiction. Science fiction is based on fantastic assumptions (fiction) in the field of science, including different kinds sciences, such as: exact, natural, and humanities.

Novella- this is the main genre of short narrative prose, a shorter form of artistic prose than a story or novel. The author of the stories is usually called a short story writer, and the collection of stories is called a short story.

Tale- medium shape; a work that highlights a number of events in the life of the main character.

Oh yeah- a genre of lyricism, which is a solemn poem dedicated to some event or hero, or separate work this genre.

Poem- type of lyric epic work; poetic story telling.

Message(uh pistol literature) is a literary genre that uses the form of “letters” or “epistles” (epistole).

Story- a small form, a work about one event in the life of a character.

Fairy tale- This genre literary creativity, h Most often, fairy tales contain magic and various incredible adventures. .

Novel- large shape; a work in which events usually involve many characters whose destinies are intertwined. Novels can be philosophical, adventure, historical, family, social.

Tragedy- a type of dramatic work telling about the unfortunate fate of the main character, often doomed to death.

Folklore- a type of folk art that reflects general patterns social development peoples There are three types of works in folklore: epic, lyrical and dramatic. At the same time, epic genres have poetic and prose forms (in literature, the epic genre is represented only by prose works: short story, novella, novel, etc.). A feature of folklore is its traditionalism and focus on oral method transmission of information. The carriers were usually rural residents (peasants).

Epic- a work or a series of works depicting a significant historical era or a major historical event.

Elegy- lyrical genre, which is contained in free poetic form any complaint, expression of sadness, or the emotional result of philosophical reflection on the complex problems of life.

Epigram is a short satirical poem that makes fun of a person or social phenomenon.

Epic is a heroic narrative about the past containing a holistic picture folk life and representing in harmonious unity a certain epic world of heroic heroes.

Essay is a literary genre, a prose work of small volume and free composition.

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  Since the time of Aristotle, who gave the first systematization of literary genres in his “Poetics,” the idea has become stronger that literary genres represent a natural, once and for all fixed system, and the author’s task is only to achieve the most complete compliance of his work with the essential properties of the chosen genre. This understanding of the genre - as a ready-made structure presented to the author - led to the emergence of a whole series of normative poetics containing instructions for authors regarding exactly how an ode or tragedy should be written; The pinnacle of this type of work is Boileau’s treatise “Poetic Art” (). This does not mean, of course, that the system of genres as a whole and the characteristics of individual genres really remained unchanged for two thousand years - however, the changes (and very significant ones) were either not noticed by theorists, or were interpreted by them as damage, a deviation from the necessary models. And only towards the end of the 18th century the decomposition of the traditional genre system, associated, in accordance with general principles literary evolution, both with intraliterary processes and with the influence of completely new social and cultural circumstances, went so far that normative poetics could no longer describe and curb literary reality.

  Under these conditions, some traditional genres began to rapidly die out or become marginalized, while others, on the contrary, moved from the literary periphery to the very center of the literary process. And if, for example, the rise of the ballad at the turn of the 18th-19th centuries, associated in Russia with the name of Zhukovsky, turned out to be quite short-lived (although in Russian poetry it then gave an unexpected new surge in the first half of the 20th century - for example, in Bagritsky and Nikolai Tikhonov, - and then at the beginning of the 21st century with Maria Stepanova, Fyodor Swarovsky and Andrei Rodionov), then the hegemony of the novel - a genre that normative poets for centuries did not want to notice as something low and insignificant - dragged on into European literatures for at least a century. Works of a hybrid or undefined genre nature began to develop especially actively: plays about which it is difficult to say whether they are a comedy or a tragedy, poems for which it is impossible to give any genre definition, except that it is a lyrical poem. The decline of clear genre identifications was also manifested in deliberate authorial gestures aimed at destroying genre expectations: from Laurence Sterne’s novel “The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman,” which ends in mid-sentence, to N. V. Gogol’s “Dead Souls,” where the subtitle is paradoxical for a prose text the poem can hardly fully prepare the reader for the fact that he will now and then be knocked out of the rather familiar rut of a picaresque novel by lyrical (and sometimes epic) digressions.

  In the 20th century, literary genres were particularly strongly influenced by the separation of mass literature from literature focused on artistic exploration. Mass literature has once again felt an urgent need for clear genre prescriptions that significantly increase the predictability of the text for the reader, making it easy to navigate through it. Of course, the previous genres were not suitable for mass literature, and it quite quickly formed a new system, which was based on the genre of the novel, which was very flexible and had accumulated a lot of varied experience. At the end of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th, the detective and police novels, science fiction and ladies' (“pink”) novels took shape. It is not surprising that contemporary literature, aimed at artistic search, sought to deviate as far as possible from the mass literature and therefore moved away from genre definition quite consciously. But since extremes converge, the desire to be further from genre predetermination sometimes led to new genre formation: for example, the French anti-novel did not want to be a novel so much that the main works of this literary movement, represented by such original authors as Michel Buthor and Nathalie Sarraute, there are clearly signs of a new genre. Thus, modern literary genres (and we already encounter this assumption in the thoughts of M. M. Bakhtin) are not elements of any predetermined system: on the contrary, they arise as points of concentration of tension in one place or another of the literary space in accordance with artistic tasks , here and now put forward by this circle of authors, and can be defined as “a stable thematically, compositionally and stylistically type of statement.” Special study of such new genres remains a matter for tomorrow.

  Typology of literary genres

  A literary work can be classified as one or another genre according to various criteria. Below are some of these criteria and examples of genres.

  Hierarchy of genres in classicism

  Classicism, for example, also establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into high(ode, tragedy, epic) and low(comedy, satire, fable). Each genre has strictly defined characteristics, the mixing of which is not allowed.

  see also

  Notes

  Literature

  • Darwin M. N., Magomedova D. M., Tyupa V. I., Tamarchenko N. D. Theory of literary genres / Tamarchenko N.D. - M.: Academy, 2011. - 256 p. - (Higher professional education. Bachelor's degree). - ISBN 978-5-7695-6936-4.
  • Genre as a reading tool / Kozlov V.I. - Rostov-on-Don: Innovative humanitarian projects, 2012. - 234 p. - ISBN 978-5-4376-0073-3.
  • Lozinskaya E. V. Genre // Western literary criticism of the 20th century. Encyclopedia / Tsurganova E. A. - INION RAS: Intrada, 2004. - P. 145-148. - 560 s. - ISBN 5-87604-064-9.
  • Leiderman N. L. Genre theory. 
  • Research and analysis / Lipovetsky M. N., Ermolenko S. I. - Ekaterinburg: Ural State Pedagogical University, 2010. - 904 p. - ISBN 978-5-9042-0504-1. Smirnov I. P.
  • Literary time. (Hypo) theory of literary genres. - M.: Publishing House of the Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy, 2008. - 264 p. - ISBN 978-5-88812-256-3. Tamarchenko N. D.
  • Genre // Literary encyclopedia of terms and concepts / Nikolyukin A. N. - INION RAS: Intelvac, 2001. - pp. 263-265. - 1596 p. - ISBN 5-93264-026-Х. Todorov Ts.
  • Introduction to fantastic literature. - M.: House of Intellectual Books, 1999. - 144 p. - ISBN 5-7333-0435-9. Freidenberg O. M.
  • Poetics of plot and genre. - M.: Labyrinth, 1997. - 450 p. - ISBN 5-8760-4108-4. Schaeffer J.-M.
  • What is a literary genre? - M.: Editorial URSS, 2010. - ISBN 9785354013241. Chernets L.V. Literary genres
  • (problems of typology and poetics). - M.: MSU Publishing House, 1982. Chernyak V. D., Chernyak M. A. Genres of mass literature, Formula of mass literature

  // Mass literature in concepts and terms. - Science, Flint, 2015. - P. 50, 173-174. - 193 p. -

  Genres of literature Literary genres

  - historically emerging groups of literary works, united by a set of formal and substantive properties (in contrast to literary forms, the identification of which is based only on formal characteristics). The term is often incorrectly identified with the term “type of literature.” Kinds, types and genres of literature do not exist as something unchangeable, given from time to time and eternally existing. They are born, theoretically realized, historically develop, change, dominate, freeze or retreat to the periphery depending on the evolution of artistic thinking as such. The most stable, fundamental thing is, of course, the utmost general concept

  The first attempts to theoretically substantiate gender make themselves felt in the ancient doctrine of mimesis (imitation). Plato in the Republic, and then Aristotle in the Poetics, came to the conclusion that poetry is of three types, depending on what, how and by what means it imitates. In other words, the generic division of fiction is based on the subject, means and methods of imitation.

  Separate remarks on the methods of organizing artistic time and space (chronotope), scattered throughout Poetics, constitute the prerequisites for further division into types and genres of literature.

  Aristotle's idea of ​​generic characteristics is traditionally called formal. His successors are representatives of German aesthetics of the 18th-19th centuries. Goethe, Schiller, Aug. Schlegel, Schelling. Around the same time, the principles of the opposite - a substantive approach to the generic division of fiction - were laid down. Its initiator was Hegel, who proceeded from the epistemological principle: the object of artistic knowledge in the epic is the object, in the lyrics - the subject, in drama - their synthesis. Accordingly, the content of an epic work consists of being in its entirety, dominating the will of people, therefore the event plan predominates in it; the content of a lyrical work is the state of mind, the mood of the lyrical hero, therefore the eventfulness in it recedes into the background; the content of a dramatic work is aspiration towards a goal, the volitional activity of a person, manifested in action.

  Derived from the category of genus, or rather, concepts that clarify and concretize it, are the concepts of “type” and “genre”. By tradition, we call stable structural formations within a literary genus, grouping even smaller genre modifications, by type. For example, an epic consists of small, medium and large species, such as a story, essay, short story, story, novel, poem, epic. However, they are often called genres, which in a strict terminological sense specify types either in a historical, or thematic, or structural aspect: an ancient novel, a Renaissance short story, a psychological or industrial essay or novel, a lyrical story, an epic story (“Fate person" by M. Sholokhov). Some structural forms combine specific and genre characteristics, i.e. types do not have genre varieties (such, for example, are the types and at the same time genres of the medieval theater soti and morality). However, along with synonymous word usage, the hierarchical differentiation of both terms is relevant. Accordingly, types are divided into genres according to a number of different characteristics: thematic, stylistic, structural, volume, in relation to the aesthetic ideal, reality or fiction, basic aesthetic categories, etc.

  // Mass literature in concepts and terms. - Science, Flint, 2015. - P. 50, 173-174. - 193 p. -

  Comedy- type of dramatic work. Displays everything ugly and absurd, funny and absurd, ridicules the vices of society.

  Lyric poem (in prose)- a type of fiction that emotionally and poetically expresses the author’s feelings.

  Melodrama- a type of drama whose characters are sharply divided into positive and negative.

  Fantasy- a subgenre of fantastic literature. Works of this subgenre are written in an epic fairy-tale style, using motifs from ancient myths and legends. The plot is usually built around magic, heroic adventures and journeys; the plot usually involves magical creatures; The action takes place in a fairy-tale world reminiscent of the Middle Ages.

  Feature article- the most reliable type of narrative, epic literature, reflecting facts from real life.

  Song or chant- the most ancient type of lyric poetry; a poem consisting of several verses and a chorus. Songs are divided into folk, heroic, historical, lyrical, etc.

  Tale- medium shape; a work that highlights a number of events in the life of the main character.

  Poem- type of lyric epic work; poetic story telling.

  Story- small form, a work about one event in the life of a character.

  Novel- large shape; a work in which events usually involve many characters whose destinies are intertwined. Novels can be philosophical, adventure, historical, family, social.

  Tragedy- a type of dramatic work telling about the unfortunate fate of the main character, often doomed to death.

  Utopia- a genre of fiction close to science fiction, describing a model of an ideal, from the author’s point of view, society. Unlike dystopia, it is characterized by the author’s faith in the impeccability of the model.

  Epic- a work or a series of works depicting a significant historical era or a major historical event.

  Drama– (in the narrow sense) one of the leading genres of drama; a literary work written in the form of a dialogue between characters. Intended for performance on stage. Focused on spectacular expressiveness. The relationships between people and the conflicts that arise between them are revealed through the actions of the heroes and are embodied in a monologue-dialogue form. Unlike tragedy, drama does not end in catharsis.