Short story, short story, tale as epic genres. What is the difference between a novel and a story? Features of genres History of the emergence and development of the genre of the story

EVERYDAY NARRATIVE, as a new independent genre of ancient Russian literature, the everyday tale appears in the 2nd half. XVII century Elements of this genre were already present in hagiographic works of the 15th - 16th centuries, such as the hagiographic “The Tale of Peter and Fevronia”, “The Tale of Luka Kolochsky”. In the 1st half. XVII century the life begins to transform into an everyday story. This is, for example, “The Life of Uliani Osorina.”
Complex social relationships in society are depicted in “The Tale of the Appearance of the Unzhensky Cross.” Loving sisters Martha and Maria are separated from each other by the enmity of the spouses: the noble and poor Ivan and the rich, but not noble Logvin.
The most significant everyday story is “The Tale of Woe-Misfortune.” Unlike a historical story, its hero is a fictional, generalized image.
No less interesting and important is the everyday “Tale of Savva Grudtsyn,” which is based on a Western European Faustian motif.
The entertaining plot of the everyday story and the depiction of the hero’s inner experiences place it on the threshold of the Russian novel.
If the struggle between the “old” and the “new” in the stories about Mount Misfortune and Savva Grudtsyn ends outwardly with the victory of the “old” and the heroes suffer a fiasco in life, then in the picaresque short story “The Tale of Frol Skobeev” a new hero triumphs - a poor seedy nobleman, a petty clerk .
Household stories responded to the needs of what appeared in the 17th century. a new reader from the townspeople's merchant environment, small employees. The authors of everyday stories abandoned etiquette and symbolic-allegorical imagery inherent in medieval literature. They are clear evidence of the beginning of the transition period.

50. The problem of “Baroque” in Russian literature of the 17th century.

– Term “B” - 18th century. Supporters of classicism: a designation for rough, tasteless art. Associated with architecture and will depict. is-yours. Later the term was extended to liter

- Adyal, Morozov. Liter 2 half 17 and 1 half 18 – Baroque.

– Belkov – negation of noun. R. baroque. Virshi, drama – the origin of classicism

– Mathauzerova: 2 types of baroque: national. R. and borrowing Polish-Ukrainian

– Likhachev: only r. baroque, cat was borrowed. from Polish-Ukrainian liters, then acquired its own specifics. peculiarities.

– Eremin about the features of the baroque style in the poetry of S. Polotsky.

– Baroque features: 1) aesthetic. exaggerated expressions. pathos. 2) pomp, ceremoniality, external. emotionality, a jumble of styles, ornamentation.

– 2 aspects of Baroque: 1) how art. method and style 2) as a type of thin. creativity.

– Appears in the 2nd half. 17th century, served the emerging enlightened absolutism. An aristocratic phenomenon opposed to a democratic one. liter Will illuminate the character.

– Writers peered into worldly life, put forward demands for a reasonable approach to reality, despite recognizing the idea of fate and the idea of God, combined with didacticism. Fiction was built on this belief system. A system of allegories and symbols, as well as a complex structure of works

– The Baroque style prepared the phenomenon. classicism, received its most vivid embodiment in Virsch’s poetry and drama.

51. Ideological and artistic originality of “The Tale of the Mountain of Misfortune.”

“The Tale of Misfortune” was created among merchants in the 2nd half of the 17th century. The story is written in folk verse, based on an everyday story, accompanied by lyrical moral teachings. The hero of the story, Well done, he has no name, did not listen to his parents, who said: “Don’t go, child, to feasts and brother’s parties, don’t sit on a larger place, don’t drink, child, two drinks for one!” so as not to be beggars He “wanted to live as he pleased” and did the opposite, so he fell “into immeasurable nakedness and barefootedness.” And the story draws a parallel between Adam and Eve, who succumbed to temptation, and Well done. An image appears of a tempting serpent, a “called brother,” who gets him drunk and then robs him. Further, the parallel runs through the motive of exile - Well done “it’s shameful ... to appear to his father and mother” and he decides to leave “to a foreign country.” There he goes to a feast, where he tells people about everything and asks for help. They help him and give him advice based on Domostroevsky morality. Thanks to them, Well done “from his great intelligence he gained more belly than Starov; I looked for a bride for myself according to custom.” Misfortune-Grief learned about this and appeared to the Well-Behaved in a dream, foreshadowing: “you will be taken away from your bride... of gold and silver, you will be killed.” But the Good Man didn’t believe the dream, then Grief appeared to him in a dream in the form of the Archangel Gabriel, saying that bliss is to be poor and drunk. After this, the Good Man follows the instructions of Grief, but then he realizes his mistake: “I, the good fellow, have been pushed into trouble.” But Grief does not let him go, saying that Good Man will not leave him. Having struggled in vain with Grief, “the fine fellow went to the monastery to take monastic vows,” which is how he was saved. The hero of the story is a degraded person, but he worries about it. This is the first image of a tramp in Russian literature, with whom the author sympathizes, but at the same time condemns. The image of Grief is built on folklore principles. Grief forces a person to choose the wrong path, but it is also retribution for his mistakes when it says: “And whoever does not listen to his parents’ teachings is good, I will teach him, O unfortunate grief.” This work is similar in genre to a parable or a lesson, because... full of morality given by concrete example. Also, the story is very close to folk songs about the Mountain; certain passages are of an epic nature (for example, the arrival of the Young One to the feast and his boast). The work is close to folklore, as can be seen in the comparisons: Well done - “rock dove”, Woe - “Gray hawk”, etc. Based on this, we can say that the story is a fusion of folklore and literature; it goes beyond genre systems, combining many genres and traditions.

52. Ideological and artistic originality of “The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn.”

“The Tale of Savva Grudtsyn” is a work created by an unknown author in the 60s. XVII century The work reflected the historical events of the first half of the century and many everyday features of that time.
The combination in the "Tale" of a romantic theme with detailed descriptions of the life and customs of Rus' in the 17th century. gave grounds to a number of researchers to see in this work the experience of creating the first Russian novel.
The Tale tells how the merchant son Savva from the real-life wealthy merchant family of the Grudtsyn-Usovs, finding himself on trade business in the city of Orel (on the Kama River, near Solikamsk), was seduced by the wife of the merchant Bazhen II. By refusing a sinful activity on the day of the Holy Ascension, Savva aroused the wrath of his mistress, and she, having drugged the young man with a love potion, persuaded her husband to refuse him the house. Suffering from unsatisfied passion, Savva thinks that he is ready to serve the devil in order to return his former love affair, and the demon immediately appears in the guise of a young man. Savva gives him his “handwriting”, in which he renounces Christ (however, due to illiteracy, he wrote under the dictation of the demon “without composing,” that is, without reading what was written as a coherent text). Subsequently, the demon plays a role similar to the “magic assistant” of a folk tale, helping the hero not only to achieve the love of Bazhen II’s wife, but also to perform military feats during the siege of Smolensk by Russian troops.
Returning to Moscow, Savva became seriously ill and decided to confess. The demons who appeared try to prevent him from doing this and show Savva his “God-marking letter.” And after confession, demons continue to torment the hero until the Mother of God appears to him along with John the Theologian and Metropolitan Peter, who show the path of salvation: just like the hero of “The Tale of Misfortune.”

", having become dependent on a hostile force, Savva ends his journey in the monastery.
The Tale has two main genre prototypes - a religious legend and a fairy tale, on the basis of which the author created a fundamentally new work. The use of two genre prototypes allows the author, according to the observation of A. M. Panchenko, to move in the course of the narrative from one plot scheme to another, which creates the “effect of disappointed expectations”, which is not typical for ancient Russian literature.
In addition, the author fills traditional plot schemes with features of living life in the 1st floor. XVII century with a description of real trade routes, training a young merchant’s son, recruitment into soldier regiments, etc. The Tale reflected both real-life demonological ideas of the 17th century and real historical events (the Time of Troubles, the siege of Smolensk 1632-1634, etc. ). Among the historical figures, in addition to Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich, the author mentions the boyars Shein and Streshnev, the steward Vorontsov-Velyaminov, and the Streltsy centurion Shilov.
In his views, the author of the Tale is a conservative; he opposes the new trends that the “rebellious age” brought with him; everything that violates traditional norms of behavior is for him “of the devil.” But the author himself involuntarily submits to the spirit of the time and turns out to be an innovator - both in mixing genre schemes, and in using surprise as an artistic device, and in depicting a developed love affair, and in vivid everyday sketches.

53. Ideological and artistic originality of “The Tale of Karp Sutulov.”

THE TALE ABOUT CARP SUTULOV is an ancient Russian short story that appeared in Rus' at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. It attracted readers with an entertaining plot, close to a folk tale. The rich merchant Karp Sutulov, going on trade business to the Lithuanian land, asked his friend the rich merchant Afanasy Berdov to provide his wife Tatyana with money if she did not have enough before her husband’s arrival. Three years later, Tatyana turned to Afanasy Berdov, but he broke his promise and agreed to give her 100 rubles only in exchange for her love. Tatiana goes to consult the priest, her confessor, and then the archbishop, but they promise her money on the same terms as the merchant. Tatyana makes an appointment for them at her home, one after another, and by cunning forces all three to climb into the chests, taking off the outer clothing of two, and dressing the archbishop in a woman’s shirt, which was completely unacceptable according to church rules. The voivode, to whom Tatyana delivered the chests, laughed at the unlucky lovers and imposed a fine on them, dividing the money with Tatyana.

In P., characters are introduced that are well known to the Russian reader: Tatyana, an ordinary secular woman, merchants, clerics who are not distinguished by moral behavior. In some ways, these heroes are akin to the characters of translated Western short stories such as “The Decameron” by Boccaccio. Tatyana shows ingenuity, cunning, and knows how to turn life’s difficulties to her advantage. P. refers to the democratic laughter works of Ancient Rus'. Many of her situations are comedic - deception, changing clothes, hiding in chests, and finally, the scene of the appearance of unlucky lovers in the voivode's courtyard. P.’s hidden laughter is also in her “inversion”: it is not the priests who instruct the woman on the true path, but she teaches them with the help of sayings close to the texts of the Holy Scriptures. Perhaps humor lies in the meaning of names.

The skill of the author P. indicates a professional writer, although it is not possible to determine exactly what social strata he came from. He had a good command of book techniques and was familiar with the peculiarities of oral folk art.

As the researchers noted, P.'s plot is not original. It is widespread in world literature. The Russian version is closest to the fairy tales found in eastern literatures - ancient Indian, ancient Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Afghan, etc. It was suggested that in Rus' this story first spread in the form of an oral fairy tale. However, in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian folklore there is not a single work containing all the motifs of P. The fairy tale “The Clever Wife” by A. K. Baryshnikova, recorded in the Voronezh region, is closest to the ancient Russian plot, but it also has a completely different ending and is missing a number of important details.

In this article we will talk about how a novel differs from a story. First, let's define these genres and then compare them.

and story

A fairly large piece of fiction is called a novel. This genre is classified as epic. There may be several main characters, and their lives are directly related to historical events. In addition, the novel tells about the entire life of the characters or about some significant part of it.

A story is a literary work in prose, which usually tells about some important episode in the life of the hero. There are usually few active characters, and only one of them is the main one. Also, the length of the story is limited and should not exceed approximately 100 pages.

Comparison

And yet, what is the difference between a novel and a story? Let's start with the novel form. So, this genre involves the depiction of large-scale events, a multifaceted plot, a very large time frame that includes the entire chronology of the narrative. The novel has one main storyline and several side ones, which are closely intertwined into a compositional whole.

The ideological component is manifested in the behavior of the characters and the revelation of their motives. The novel takes place against a historical or everyday background, touching on a wide range of psychological, ethical and ideological problems.

The novel has several subtypes: psychological, social, adventure, detective, etc.

Now let's take a closer look at the story. In works of this genre, the development of events is limited to a specific place and time. The protagonist's personality and fate are revealed in 1-2 episodes, which are turning points for his life.

The story has one plot, but it may have several unexpected twists that give it versatility and depth. All actions are connected with the main character. In such works there are no clear links to history or socio-cultural events.

The problems of prose are much narrower than in the novel. It is usually associated with morality, ethics, personal development, and the manifestation of personal qualities in extreme and unusual conditions.

The story is divided into subgenres: detective, fantasy, historical, adventure, etc. It is rare to find a psychological story in literature, but satirical and fairy-tale stories are very popular.

What is the difference between a novel and a story: conclusions

Let's summarize:

The novel reflects social and historical events, and in the story they serve only as a background for the narrative.
The life of the characters in the novel is presented in a socio-psychological or historical context. And in a story, the image of the main character can only be revealed in certain circumstances.
The novel has one main plot and several minor ones, which form a complex structure. The story in this regard is much simpler and is not complicated by additional plot lines.
The action of the novel takes place in a large time period, and the story - in a very limited one.
The novel's problems include a large number of issues, but the story touches on only a few of them.
The heroes of the novel express ideological and social ideas, and in the story the inner world of the character and his personal qualities are important.

Novels and stories: examples

We list the works that are:

"Belkin's Tales" (Pushkin);
“Spring Waters” (Turgenev);
“Poor Liza” (Karamzin).

Among the novels are the following:

“The Noble Nest” (Turgenev);
"The Idiot" (Dostoevsky);
“Anna Karenina” (L. Tolstoy).

So, we found out how a novel differs from a story. In short, the difference comes down to the scale of the literary work.

Tale

STORY is a broad, vague genre term that does not lend itself to a single definition. In its historical development, both the term “story” itself and the material it embraces have traveled a long historical path; It is absolutely impossible to talk about literature as a single genre in ancient and modern literature. The vagueness of the term "P." is complicated by two more specific circumstances. Firstly, for our term "P." there are no exactly corresponding terms in Western European languages: German “Erzahlung”, French “conte”, partly “nouvelle”, English “tale”, “story”, etc., we have both “P.” and "story", partly "fairy tale". The term "P." in its specific opposition to the terms “story” and “novel” - a specifically Russian term (see Roman, Novella). Secondly, P. is one of the oldest literary terms, which changed its meaning at various historical moments. It is also necessary to distinguish between changes in the meaning of the term “P.” from changes in the corresponding phenomena themselves. The historical development of the term reflects, of course (with some delay) the movement of the genre forms themselves. It is no coincidence that in our country the terms “story” and “novel” appear later than “P.”, nor is it accidental that at a certain stage the latter is applied to works that are essentially stories (see Story). So. arr. reveal specifically and fully the content of the concept “P.” and its boundaries can be determined only on the basis of the characteristics of the relevant literary facts in their historical development.

I. THE STORY IN ANCIENT RUSSIAN LITERATURE.- The original meaning of the word "P." in our ancient writing it is very close to its etymology: P. - what is narrated represents a complete narrative. Therefore, its use is very free and wide. Thus, P. often called works of hagiography, short stories, hagiography or chronicles (for example, “The Tale of the Life and Partly of Miracles, the Confession of Blessed Michael...”, “Tales of Wise Wives” or the famous “Behold the Tale of Bygone Years”, etc. .). And vice versa: in the titles of ancient poems we find the terms “Legend”, “Life”, “Acts”, according to the lat. “gesta”, “Word”, when interpreted morally - often “Parable”, later “Butt” (i.e. example). At the same time, ancient poetry is, in essence, closely intertwined with most other narrative genres. In the still insufficiently differentiated, “syncretistic” ancient writing, poetry is the most general genre form in which almost all narrative (narrower) genres intersect: hagiographical, apocryphal, chronicle, military-epic, etc. This, however, does not exclude the possibility that some of the phenomena included here occupy a central place in this genre group, others are on its periphery, while others only nominally belong to it. Thus, the kinship with P. is obvious from the chronicle record, religious legend, etc. in their most detailed examples. The story is characterized by a coherent presentation of not one, but a whole series of facts, united by a single core.
However, this formal feature alone is not enough to determine typical examples of ancient literature. Thus, in compositional structure, those lives that give a detailed biography of the “saint” are close to the typical forms of literature (for example, “The Life of Juliania Lazarevskaya” of the early 17th century, standing, moreover, on the border between church life and secular P.). However, while coming into close contact with literature, sometimes forming hybrid forms with it (for example, “The Life of Alexander Nevsky,” which combines hagiographic and military-epic features), in general, life as a genre, due to its thematic and ideological content, is sharply different from P. even within the same style, both in its literary role and in development trends (although the hagiography is sometimes called P.). The narrowly ecclesiastical orientation of hagiography and the associated irrealistic aspiration, the pressure of the teaching-rhetorical current, the conservatism of forms, etc., led this genre away from the high road of the literary process, while the story paved this high road in the ancient period , if not quantitatively, then qualitatively.
The central line of development of narrative genres is given by secular stories, which, in the conditions of their time, carried within themselves the tendency for the development of fiction as such. The church (predominant) genres alone could not serve all the needs, all aspects of the social practice of the class: the tasks of organizing secular power, versatile class education, and finally, the demands of curiosity and the desire for entertaining reading required more versatile literature. Responding to all these needs, aimed at real life, at its “secular” sides, this literature itself was generally more realistic and far from the asceticism of church writings, although this realism was often very relative; themes historical, geographical, etc. were so permeated with fabulous legendary elements that the works that developed them were sometimes of a very fantastic nature (“Alexandria”, “Devgenie’s Act”, etc.). Their genre form was determined by this function: responding to the need to expand the socio-historical horizons in the artistic reflection of current events, in the literary embodiment of the “hero” of their time, these works, which still syncretically connected artistic, scientific and journalistic moments, unfolded in the forms of narration in the most simple, reflecting in its sequence the natural order of events and therefore, in its size, freely covering a topic of any scale, that is, in the genre forms of ancient stories. At the same time, the comparative simplicity of social relations and their everyday manifestations and the primitiveness of the cognitive capabilities of literature determined the plot one-linearity, the “one-dimensionality” of ancient works, characteristic of literature. All this determined that secular literature in our ancient writing, if not the dominant type of literature due to the predominance of church genres, it in any case carried within itself the broadest possibilities for the actual artistic and literary development of fiction, especially since the indicated compositional simplicity did not at all make the ancient literature “artless,” extra-artistic: on the contrary, we see in it a fairly developed system of artistic means - stylistic, plot, compositional, which sometimes achieve a high degree of mastery. From what has been said, it is also clear that in the system of genres of ancient Russian writing, poetry was the broadest, epic genre form (and not the “average” one, which it is now), although practically the size of ancient poetry. very different: the size should not be identified with the breadth of the genre, which represents, as it were, the scale of its reflection of reality, the breadth of coverage of the object, in relation to which the length of the work is a secondary, derivative (and at the same time relative) moment. However, even with regard to the internal structure, the ancient poems were not completely homogeneous, and if the above structural features should be considered characteristic of them, then nevertheless in other examples the ancient literature approaches the type of rudimentary forms of the novel (especially in translated ones like “Alexandria” etc.), in others - to the type of historical essay or memoir (P. about historical events), etc.
Finally, one more phenomenon should be noted, characteristic of ancient literature, as well as of a number of other genres of the early stages of literary development (fables, parables, early short stories, fairy tales, song epics, etc.). This is the international distribution of many P., usually anonymous and subjected to numerous revisions in various national and class environments. The worldwide popularity of this kind of works was determined by the interest in them as historical sources (“Alexandria”, “The Trojan History”, etc.) and the broad typology of the social and everyday situations and relationships reflected in them, embodied in their primitive, but easily amenable to various modifications of images (“Bova the prince,” “Barlaam and Joasaph,” etc.). Many of these “transitional stories” gained wide popularity in our country and, maintaining it for centuries, penetrated all layers of literate people, were subjected to new adaptations, democratized, and sometimes even passed into oral tradition, in particular peasant folklore (we note by the way , that the original source of the “transitional P.” sometimes goes back to folklore). The geographical sources of such P. are extremely diverse. They came to us both from Byzantium and later (from the 16th century) - in connection with a new stage in the historical development of Russia - from the West and from the East (rarely directly, usually through Byzantium or the West).
In accordance with the nature of the plot of these stories, which are very diverse, but can still be divided into a number of types, certain compositional schemes of various types of stories have been developed. The most typical types here are historical poetry (more precisely, pseudo-historical - due to the distortion of facts and the presence of fiction) , adventure-heroic with love and fantastic motives (directly bordering on an adventure-love novel, especially a knightly one) and moralizing (sometimes in contact with church genres - hagiography, etc., sometimes with an everyday novel). The first two (not sharply differentiated at all) are characterized by a composition in the form of a sequential presentation of a series of events and adventures, united by a single core (usually the biography of the hero), while the third is a string of a number of parables introduced into the framing, independently developed plot and motivated by various moments of the latter. Within each of these compositional and thematic types, we find, of course, works that are far from homogeneous in their origin and stylistic nature (and the specific artistic implementation of these schemes is modified in accordance with the style). In connection with the direction and class nature of the Russian literary process as a whole, we translated in the early period what suited the interests of the boyars (squad, clergy), and later (in the 16th-17th centuries) - the nobility, merchants, and partly - the petty bourgeoisie; the composition of the translations changed mainly in the direction of replacing ecclesiastical Byzantine influences with Western secular influences. But this is the basic scheme, which should not be exaggerated: secularism penetrated to us during the period of Byzantine influence, only slightly tinted with religious motives. These are eg. historical and adventure-heroic works like “Alexandria”, “Deeds of Devgenia” and a number of other translated works of the 12th-13th centuries. P. with a military-heroic theme had a significant influence on our original military P. both in terms of genre forms in general, and especially in stylistic terms (metaphors, comparisons, formulas, etc.). Closer to religious literature (biblical, hagiographic) are such moralizing poems as “The Tale of Akira the Wise,” “About Stephanite and Ionilat,” “About Barlaam and Joasaph.” All three of these P. are of eastern origin. The History of the Seven Wise Men, which came to us much later - in the 17th century, is of the same origin and genre character. - already in Western feudal processing. In the XVI-XVII centuries. a new stream of translated literature appeared - Western European, in particular secular P. , having a knightly character. These are P. “About Bova the Prince”, “About Vasily the Golden-Haired”, “The Story of Peter the Golden Keys”, etc., in which love themes, secular motives, etc., and works that stand on the brink of between P. and the novel. Thematically related to these works is “The Tale of Eruslan Lazarevich,” although it differs from them in its eastern, perhaps oral-poetic origin and the more democratic nature of the general style.
Compared to the described types of translated poems, our original poem, despite the literary connection with them, presents significant features of originality in terms of genre and style. This is understandable, because in terms of its artistic and practical orientation and specific function, it occupied a completely different place. While the object of translated literature lay far beyond the surrounding reality, the original secular literature had as its subject precisely this latter. Representing a syncretic unity of fiction and journalism, it responded to current issues of the moment, reflected current or recent events that had not yet lost their urgency. If the translated stories were of a “historical,” fantastic, or tributary character, the original secular stories were distinguished by their political topicality, usually telling about facts of historical significance—wars, struggles of political centers, “turmoil,” etc. Since the main creator of secular literature There was a military-feudal class (boyars, squad), it is clear that at the center of the original secular literature there was a specific medieval narrative genre - military literature. The most remarkable monument of our ancient writing of the end of the 12th century, included in the treasury of world literature, belongs to this genre. - “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” (see), to a certain extent also a poem. In its genre structure, a strong lyrical current should be noted. The lyrical element, however, is generally quite characteristic of military poems, which consistently reflected the military events of the 13th-17th centuries. (“P.”, “legends”, “words” “About the Kalik pasture”, “About the arrival of Batu’s army in Ryazan”, “About the life and courage of Alexander Nevsky”, a cycle about the Mamaev massacre, in particular “Zadonshchina”, which reveals a significant imitation of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, “Tale” and “The Tale of the Massacre of Dmitry Donskoy”, later “The History of the Kazan Kingdom”, “The Tale of the Seat of Azov”, etc.). Possessing a certain genre similarity, manifested in the similarity of compositional and stylistic techniques, all these works of such different centuries cannot be considered identical in style, formalizing the ideology of historically different groups of the ruling class, revealing new literary trends.
Along with military narratives, a significant place in our medieval literature was occupied by political and religious-political narratives, which usually used pseudo-historical or legendary plots, sometimes borrowed from translated literature, and sometimes from oral poetry, to promote one or another political idea. Such are the legends about the Kingdom of Babylon and the White Cowl, reflecting the struggle for the dominance of Moscow and Novgorod, the works of Ivan Peresvetov of the 16th century, embodying the anti-boyar political program of the service nobility, P. about Peter and Fevronia, etc.

II. A STORY IN THE LITERATURE OF THE TRANSITIONAL AND NEW PERIOD.- Only in the later period of our medieval literature do everyday, adventurous, generally speaking about “ordinary” people and secular stories based on artistic fiction appear in it. Here is already the emergence of the genre of poetry in the modern meaning of the term. This happens only in the 17th century, during a period when, as a result of the aggravation of feudal contradictions, the advancement of the nobility and merchants, the weakening of the role of the church, and the associated everyday restructuring, Russian fiction began to grow, separating itself from church, historical, journalistic literature and freeing itself from the overwhelming authority religious dogma. Based on examples of Western European bourgeois literature, the rising nobility, the progressive part of the merchant class, advanced groups of the petty bourgeoisie create their own, generally realistically oriented works, reflecting new social and everyday relations, develop methods of artistic everyday life (“The Tale of Frol Skobeev”, “ The Tale of Karp Sutulov”, “The Tale of Ersha Ershovich”, etc.). Conservative groups, in particular the conservative part of the merchant class, did not escape the influence of new literary trends, producing works that curiously combined elements of everyday realism with conservative religious and legendary motifs and ideas. These are “The Tale of Savva Grudtsin” and P.-poem “On the Mountain of Misfortune.”
This period is that stage in the development of Russian literature when the general, previously insufficiently differentiated mass of narrative genres begins to differentiate more clearly, highlighting, on the one hand, the short story, on the other, the novel, as already clearly defined genres. Such works as “The Tale of Karp Sutulov”, “About Shemyakin’s Court”, etc., which have not yet been terminologically isolated into a separate genre, are essentially typical short stories. "History" of the early 17th century. “About Alexander the Russian nobleman”, “About the sailor Vasily Koriotsky”, etc. with the same reason can be attributed to the embryonic forms of the novel, as well as to P.
The increasing complexity of social life as bourgeois relations grow, the expansion and deepening of the artistic and cognitive possibilities of literature - all this determines the advancement in the field of artistic prose of the short story (short story) as a form testifying to the artist’s ability to isolate a separate moment from the general flow of everyday life, and the novel as a form that presupposes the ability to reflect a complex of different aspects of reality in their multifaceted connections. In the presence of such differentiation of narrative forms, the concept of “story” acquires a new and narrower content, occupying that position midway between the novel and the short story, which is usually indicated by literary theorists. At the same time, of course, the very nature of P. in new literature changes and is revealed in different relationships. P.'s middle place between a story and a novel is primarily determined by the scale of the volume and complexity of the reality covered by the work: a story speaks about a single life event, a novel provides a whole complex of intertwining plot lines. P. singles out any one line of reality, but, unlike a story, traces it throughout its natural course in a number of moments that determine it. The size of this work does not play a decisive role in this: a small P. may be shorter than a long story (for example, L. Tolstoy’s P. “Notes of a Marker” and the story “Blizzard”), a large P. may be longer than a short novel. However, on average, in the general mass, P. is longer than a story and shorter than a novel; the size of a work is derived from its internal structure. In connection with the basic forms of attitude to reality in poetry, the story and the novel, systems of techniques corresponding to them and, of course, modified in each given style, are developed. In general, compared to short stories and novels, P. is characterized by a relatively slow development of action, an even pace of narration, a more or less even distribution of plot tension over a number of moments, relative simplicity of composition, etc. Compared to a story, P. is a more capacious form, hence the number of characters in it is usually greater than in the story. In accordance with this, the very outline of the images in P. is more or less different from what we see in the story and in the novel. The revelation of a character over a long period of time with a one-line plot determines the greater versatility of the depiction of his character compared to the story. Each of the traits just listed is not immutable and absolutely obligatory for P. ; When comparing poetry with a story and a novel based on the material of individual samples, it is necessary to take into account the stylistic relationship of the latter. The entire complex of these characteristics characterizes the central phenomena of this genre group, while on its periphery we find various kinds of transitional and combined forms that do not allow the establishment of impenetrable partitions between adjacent genres. At the same time, within the narrative genre group we find many varieties of new fiction, to which various styles gravitate to varying degrees and in which the artistic image is constructed more or less differently (household fiction, psychological, historical, etc. .).
The place occupied by P. in new Russian literature is different. In the 2nd half of the 18th century. And the first third of the 19th century. in the dominant style, that is, in the style of various groups of the nobility, predominantly poetic and dramatic genres are put forward. Only for conservative noble sentimentalism, with its call for simplicity and naturalness, is poetry a characteristic genre (Karamzin). Later, in the 30s, when prose began to grow with extreme intensity, P. So, Belinsky in the 30s came to the fore along with the novel. asserted: “Now all our literature has turned into a novel and a story” (“On the Russian Story and Gogol’s Stories”). The development of the story is undoubtedly connected with the appeal of literature to “prosaic”, everyday reality (it is not for nothing that Belinsky contrasts P. and the novel with the “heroic poem” and ode to classicism), although this reality itself can be perceived by the authors in a romantic aspect (for example, Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories, a number stories by V. Odoevsky, Marlinsky, such works by N. Polevoy as “The Bliss of Madness”, “Emma”, etc.). Among the stories of the 30s. there were many with historical themes (romantic stories by Marlinsky, stories by Veltman, etc.). However, truly typical of the era, new in comparison with the previous stage, are stories with a realistic aspiration, addressed to modern, often everyday life (“Belkin’s Tales” by Pushkin, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois everyday stories by Pogodin, N. Pavlov, N. Polevoy, Stepanov and others ; among the romantics - V. Odoevsky and Marlinsky - they have a “secular story” dedicated to the psychology and everyday life of the “salon”).
With the further development of Russian literature, in which the novel begins to play an increasingly important role, P. still retains a fairly prominent place. P. is intensively used as the most “artless”, simple and at the same time broad form by writers of everyday life. Typical examples of such household P. were given, for example. Grigorovich (“Anton Goremyka” and others); classic realists (Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, etc.) give predominantly psychological depictions, with greater or lesser disclosure of the social conditioning and typicality of the phenomena depicted. So. arr. throughout the 19th century. P. is represented by almost all the major prose writers (Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Korolenko, etc.), as well as a number of minor ones. The story retains approximately the same share in the works of our modern writers. An exceptional contribution to P. literature was made by M. Gorky with his autobiographical stories (“Childhood”, “In People”, “My Universities”), the structural feature of which is the great significance of the characters surrounding the main character. P. has taken a strong place in the works of a number of other modern writers, serving to design a wide variety of thematic complexes. It is enough to name such popular works of Soviet literature as “Chapaev” by Furmanov, “Tashkent is a city of grain” by Neverov, “Blast Furnace” by Lyashko and many others. etc. That special aspect, in which real life is reflected in P. due to its structural features, retains its place in Soviet literature. At the same time, the “unilinearity” of P., the well-known simplicity of its structure in the literature of socialist realism, does not at all come at the expense of the depth of social understanding of the reflected phenomena and the aesthetic value of the work. Such examples of proletarian literature, such as the above-mentioned works of M. Gorky, provide clear confirmation of this position.
In Western European literature, which has long been highly developed and diverse in genre, we find an even greater predominance of short stories and novels, but there a number of major authors (Mérimée, Flaubert, Maupassant, Dickens, Hoffmann, etc.) produced works distinguished by the characteristic features of P. Bibliography:
Piksanov N.K., Starorusskaya povest', M., 1923; Orlov A.S., On the peculiarities of the form of Russian military stories, M., 1902; Sipovsky V., Essays on the history of the Russian novel, vol. I, no. I-II, St. Petersburg, 1909-1910; Stepanov N., Tale of the 30s, in collection. “An Old Tale”, L., 1929; Orlov A.S., Translated stories of feudal Rus' and the Moscow state of the XIII-XVII centuries, ed. Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad, 1934; see also in general courses on the history of ancient literature. There are no special detailed works on poetry as a genre based on the material of new literature.

Literary encyclopedia. - At 11 t.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Tale

genre epic kind of literature. From a formal point of view, it is between novel(large form) and story(small form). These forms differ from each other in the volume of text, the number of characters and problems raised, the complexity of the conflict, etc. In the story, the main load falls not on dynamic, but on static components: it is not so much the movement that is important plot(which is typical, for example, for a novel), how many different kinds of descriptions there are: characters, places of action, the psychological state of a person. In the story, episodes often follow one after another according to the principle of a chronicle; there is no internal connection between them or it is weakened. This is how many Russian buildings are built. story - “Notes from the Dead House” by F. M. Dostoevsky, “The Enchanted Wanderer” N.S. Leskova, “Steppe” A.P. Chekhov, “Village” by I. A. Bunina.
Also, the story is one of the genres of ancient Russian literature. It is necessary to distinguish between the modern story, which emerged as a genre in the 19th century, and ancient Russian story, the name of which indicated primarily its epic nature. The story had to tell about something (“The Tale of Bygone Years”, “The Tale of Akira the Wise”), in contrast to the more lyrical words.
In the literature of the 19th–20th centuries. The story gravitates towards the novel form, but retains some genre and thematic features. So, for example, the free connection between episodes leads to the fact that the story is often structured as a biography or autobiography: “Childhood”, “Adolescence”, “Youth” by L.N. Tolstoy, “The Life of Arsenyev” by I. A. Bunin, etc.
The center of the artistic world of the story is not the plot, but the unfolding of the diversity of the world, the expansion of the picture in time and space. So, for example, in the story “Old World Landowners” by N.V. Gogol a detailed description is given of all the details of the life of an elderly married couple - Afanasy Ivanovich and Pulcheria Ivanovna: “But the most remarkable thing in the house was the singing doors. As soon as morning came, the singing of doors could be heard throughout the house. I can’t say why they sang: whether the rusty hinges were to blame, or the mechanic who made them hid some secret in them, but the remarkable thing is that each door had its own special voice: the door leading to the bedroom sang the thinnest treble; the door to the dining room wheezed with a bass voice; but the one that was in the hallway made some strange rattling and at the same time moaning sound, so that, listening to it, one could finally hear very clearly: “Fathers, I’m chilling!” For this, a narrator is introduced into the story, whose change of impressions creates opportunity to show different aspects of life. The voice of the author or narrator can play a role in a story regardless of how realistically it is expressed. Thus, literary scholars believe that the author’s voice plays a very important role in the story “The Life of Klim Samgin” by M. Gorky(despite its size, the author himself defines it as a story), although formally it is poorly expressed.
In Russian In literature, the term “story” is often used to designate a cycle of works united by a common theme: for example, “Belkin’s Tale” by A.S. Pushkin, “Petersburg Tales” by N.V. Gogol. In this case, the meaning of the word “story” actualizes its ancient Russian connotations: a story as something told by someone, one of the oldest oral genres.
In modern literature, the story is a common genre, but the boundaries between the story and the novel are increasingly blurred, reduced to a difference only in volume.

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

Tale

STORY- a type of epic poetry, in Russian literary usage usually contrasted with the novel, as a larger genre, and the short story, as a smaller genre. However, the use of these three names by individual writers is so varied and even random that it is extremely difficult to assign each of them, as precise terminological designations, to specific epic genres. Pushkin calls stories both “Dubrovsky” and “The Captain’s Daughter”, which can easily be classified as novels, and the short “Undertaker”, which is part of the cycle of “Belkin’s Stories”. We are accustomed to considering “Rudina” as a novel, and it appears among six novels in Turgenev’s collected works, but in the 1856 edition it was included by the author himself in the composition of “Tales and Stories.” Dostoevsky gives his “Eternal Husband” the subtitle “story”, while he calls shorter works “stories” (“The Mistress”, “Weak Heart”, “Crocodile”) and even novels (“Poor People”, “White Nights” "). Thus, it is not possible to differentiate the terms, as well as the genres they denote, only according to the literary tradition associated with them. And yet there is every reason for establishing internal boundaries within the generic concept implied behind all these names. Easier to separate from the concept of a story novel(because this is an international term), and about it, see a special article. As for other epic genres, to which the concept of a story can at least be broadly associated, it is more convenient to talk about them together in this article.

Our word "story" does not have an exact equivalent in other languages. The closest thing to it is the German “Geschichte”, which is also used very widely. Modern French “conte” (besides its correspondence in certain cases to our “fairy tale”), more closely conveys our word story, because by “conte” a modern Frenchman never means, for example, a novel. On the contrary, in the Middle Ages, “conte” was also used to designate large epic works (for example, “The Tale of the Grail” - “Conte del Graal”). No less confusion of word usage is associated with the term “ short story" In Italian, French, and German, the words “novella”, “nouvelle”, “Novelle”, as in our country, “novella”, mean a kind of short story. On the contrary, the corresponding English word "novel" usually means novel, and the British call a story or short story “tale” or simply “short story”, i.e. short story. In view of the vagueness of our term “story”, and the fact that in one of its facets the concept of “story” almost merges with the concept of “novel”, with which more or less definite content is still associated in poetics, it seems convenient to outline, first of all, genre characteristics for the concept opposite, so to speak, polar to the novel, designating it as a “story” or “short story”. By story we can understand those intermediate genres that do not exactly fit either a novel or a short story. There are fundamental reasons for this. The fact is that the internal boundaries in this area can never be established with complete clarity: one genre is too related to another and too easily passes into another. And in this case, it is advisable to start from the extreme points, heading towards the middle, and not vice versa, because only in this way will we achieve the greatest clarity. Of the two words “story” and “short story”, as a term, it is preferable to use the second one, already due to the fact that in our language a smaller variety of meanings is associated with it, and in recent years this word has entered the scientific use of theoretical poetics as a technical term . And in the West, the theory of the story is directed along two main channels: the theory of the novel and the theory of the short story.

An attempt to define a novel only by external dimensions does not achieve the goal. Such an external quantitative definition was given by Edgar Poe, limiting the reading time of the novella to “from half an hour to one or two hours.” A more acceptable transformation of this formula is from W. H. Hudson (An Introduction to the study of Literature. London 1915), namely, that a short story should be easily read “in one sitting” (at a single sitting). But Hudson believes that this feature is not enough. As much as a short story differs from a novel in length, it must be distinguished from it in its theme, plan, structure, in a word, in content and composition. The definition of a short story from the point of view of content, which has become classic, was written down by Eckerman. the words Goethe: a short story is a story about one extraordinary incident (“Was ist eine Novelle anders als eine sich ereignete unerhörte Begebenheit?”) Developing this definition of a short story as a narrative about an isolated and complete event, Spielhagen It also puts forward the sign that the short story deals with already established, ready-made characters; by a combination of circumstances they are led to a conflict in which they are forced to reveal their essence. It is easy to see that such characteristics do not exhaust the essence of the object. Not only an extraordinary, but also an ordinary incident can be successfully used as the basis of a short story, as we see, for example, in Chekhov, and sometimes in Maupassant, these masters of the modern short story; on the other hand, it is obvious that the short story also allows for the well-known development characters, i.e. the conflict that Spielhagen speaks of can not only be caused by already defined characters, but also, in turn, affect their transformation, their development. (Compare at least such an undoubted short story as Pushkin’s “The Station Agent”). In connection with this kind of considerations, the definition of a short story was transferred to another plane. So, Müller-Freienfels(“Poetics”, Russian translation published in Kharkov in 1923) seeks the essence of the stylistic difference between the novel and the short story in the method of presentation and transmission (Art des Vortrags). A novella has a completely different pace, a different rhythm, a different meter than a novel. The novel is intended for book reading, the short story is much more suitable for oral storytelling, or at least for reading aloud. The very fact that short story writers often introduce a narrator into the narrative, into whose mouth the main story is put, shows that the short story has not lost touch with the oral narrative to this day. On the contrary, novels are often presented in the form of diaries, letters, chronicles, in words in the form written, but not spoken. From here the norms of the novella are derived, as the requirements of its imaginary listeners: compression of composition, fast pace, tension of action. All this brings the short story, much more than a novel, closer to drama. And, indeed, short stories lend themselves much more easily to dramatic treatment than novels. (Cf., for example, Shakespearean dramas, the plots of which are borrowed from short stories). The theorist of modern German neoclassicism establishes a similar closeness of the short story to drama Paul Ernst in his article on the technique of the short story. The most essential element in a short story, as in a drama, is its structure, composition (Aufbau). The novel is half-art (Halbkunst), drama is complete art (Vollkunst), and so is the short story. A novel allows for various kinds of digressions; a short story must be concise, tense, and concentrated.

All these definitions, which could be multiplied by a number of others, oscillate between considering the short story as an artistic norm from two main points of view. Some start from limiting the concept of a short story according to material characteristics, according to the characteristics of its content, theme, plot, others - from limiting it according to formal, stylistic characteristics. But if stylistic features provide more solid ground for genre definition, this does not mean that the question of the specificity of the novel’s content should be ignored altogether. In fact, the plot, which is the basis of the short story, like any poetic material, already contains some formal features that can influence the novelistic transformation of this material and even determine the stylistic structure of this or that type of short story. A complete description and definition of the short story should speak of the material and formal unity in it. A perhaps too general definition of a novella, but one that is widely applicable, would be: short organic story. Brevity also indicates external dimensions, which still do not have to be eliminated altogether, but in combination with the requirement organic the concept of brevity leads to the requirement internal savings in attracting and processing narrative material. In other words: the components (i.e., the constituent elements of the composition) of the short story must be All functionally related to her single organic core. The content of a short story can be grouped primarily around a single event, incident, adventure, regardless of the degree of its “extraordinaryness”; but also the unity of psychological order, character, or characters, regardless of the fact that these characters, whether ready-made, unchanged, or developing throughout the short story, can underlie its composition.

The first type of short story can be generally described as an adventure short story, adventure story. This is the original, “classical” type, from which Goethe proceeded in his definition. We see it mainly in the Middle Ages and in the novella of the Renaissance. These are, for the most part, the short stories of the Decameron. An example of such a novella in its pure form in our country can be at least Pushkin’s “Blizzard”. The second type of short story can also be very generally characterized as psychological novella. Boccaccio's Griselda already fits this definition. The adventurous element here is subordinated to the psychological. If the “adventure” plays a big role here, then it still serves a different principle, which organizes the short story: in the “adventure” the personality, character of the hero or heroine is revealed, which is the main interest of the story. These are the already mentioned “Station Warden” and “Undertaker” in “Belkin’s Tales”. In a modern short story it is rarely possible to strictly differentiate both genres. An entertaining story rarely does without psychological characterization, and conversely, one characteristic without detecting it in action, in an act, in an event does not yet create a short story (like, for example, most of the stories in “Notes of a Hunter”). When examining a short story, we first of all have to consider in it the relationship between one and the other beginning. So, if in Maupassant we very often observe adventurism in the composition of his short stories, then in our Chekhov the psychological components usually outweigh. In Pushkin’s “The Shot” and “The Queen of Spades” both principles are in organic balance.

Turning now to the “story” genre, as intermediate between the short story and the novel, we can say that this group should include those narrative works in which, on the one hand, there is no complete unification of all components around a single organic center, and on the other hand , there is also no broad development of the plot, in which the narrative focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events experienced by one or several characters and covering, if not the entire, then a significant part of the life of the hero, and often several heroes (as in “ War and Peace”, “Anna Karenina”, “Demons”, “The Brothers Karamazov”, etc.). Establishing standards for composition for a story is therefore much more difficult, and in principle makes no sense. The story is the most free and least responsible epic genre, and that is why it has become so widespread in modern times. A novel requires a deep knowledge of life, life experience and broad creative intuition, a short story requires special technical mastery, this is - artistic the form of creativity par excellence. But this does not mean that the story is not subject to aesthetic examination. Its composition and style can represent quite a few characteristic, individual and typical features. It is also the subject of poetics. But we always have to study the story as an artistic genre, based on the standards that can be established for the novel and for the short story. The combination and transformation of these opposite (polar) norms is the specificity of the story as a special genre. Turgenev with his masterpieces: “Faust”, “First Love”, “Spring Waters” should be considered the master of the story in Russian literature.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

For definitions and characteristics of narrative genres, see general textbooks on poetics, especially: R. Lehman. Poetik. 2. Aufl. München 1919; Rich. M. Meyer, Deutsche Stilislik. 2. Aufl. München 1913; Müller-Freienfels, Poelik 2. Aufl: Leipzig, 1921. (there is a Russian translation, see above); W. H. Hudson, An Introduction to the study of Literature. 2 ed. London 1915. Also: H. Keiter und T. Kellen, Der Roman. Theorie und Technik des Romans und der erzählenden Dichtung, nebst einer, geschichtlichen Einleitung. 4 Aufl. Es en 1921, Especially on the theory of the novella, see the article by Paul Ernst, Zur Technik der Novelle in his book Der Weg zur Form. 2 Aufl. Berlin 1915. In Russian. language: M. Petrovsky, Composition of a short story by Maupasant. Magazine “Nachalo”, No. 1, P. 1921; A. Reformatsky, Experience in the analysis of novelistic composition. M. 1922. Wed. also: V. Fischer. A story and a novel by Turgenev, in the collection “Turgenev’s Work.” M. 1920. For guidance on the history of narrative genres and plots, you can point out J. C. Dunlop, History of prose fiction. A new edition by H. Wilson. V. 1-2. London 1896.

Dictionary of literary terms - STORY, a prose genre of unstable volume (mostly average between a novel and a short story), gravitating towards a chronicle plot reproducing the natural course of life. The plot, devoid of intrigue, is centered around the main character... ... Modern encyclopedia

A prose genre of unstable volume (mostly intermediate between a novel and a short story), gravitating toward a chronicle plot that reproduces the natural course of life. The plot, devoid of intrigue, is centered around the main character, personality and... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

TALE, and, many. and, to her, wives. 1. A literary narrative work with a plot less complex than in the novel “Blizzard” by 1. P. Pushkin. 2. Same as narration (obsolete). | decrease story, and, wives (to 1 value; simple). Dictionary… … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

story- story, plural stories, gen. stories and stories... Dictionary of difficulties of pronunciation and stress in modern Russian language

Cover of one of Leo Tolstoy's stories. The story is a prose genre that does not have a stable volume and occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand ... Wikipedia

- (English tale, French nouvelle, histoire, German Geschichte, Erzähiung) one of the epic genre forms of fiction; its understanding has changed historically. Initially, in the history of ancient Russian. literature, the term "P." used... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

STORY. The word "story" comes from the verb "to tell." The ancient meaning of the term - “news about some event” indicates that this genre includes oral stories, events seen or heard by the narrator. An important source of such “stories” are chronicles (The Tale of Bygone Years, etc.). In ancient Russian literature, a “story” was any narrative about any events (the Tale of Batu’s invasion of Ryazan, the Tale of the Battle of Kalka, the Tale of Peter and Fevronia, etc.).

Modern literary criticism defines the “story” as an epic prose genre that occupies an intermediate place between the novel, on the one hand, and the short story and short story, on the other. However, volume alone cannot indicate genre. Turgenev's novels The Noble Nest and The Eve are smaller than some stories, for example, Kuprin's Duel. Pushkin's Captain's Daughter is not large in volume, but everything that happens to the main characters is closely connected with the largest historical event of the 18th century. - Pugachev rebellion. Obviously, this is why Pushkin himself called The Captain's Daughter not a story, but a novel. (The author's definition of genre is very important).

It’s not so much a matter of volume as it is the content of a work: coverage of events, time frame, plot, composition, system of images, etc. Thus, it is argued that a story usually depicts one event in the life of a hero, a novel a whole life, and a story a series of events. But this rule is not absolute; the boundaries between a novel and a story, as well as between a story and a short story, are fluid. Sometimes the same work is called either a story or a novel. Thus, Turgenev first called Rudin a story, and then a novel.

Due to its versatility, the genre of the story is difficult to define unambiguously. V. Belinsky wrote about the specifics of the story: “There are events, there are cases that... would not be enough for a drama, would not be enough for a novel, but which are deep, which in one moment concentrate so much life that cannot be lived out for centuries: the story catches them and encloses them in its narrow framework. Its form can contain everything you want - a light sketch of morals, a caustic sarcastic mockery of man and society, a deep mystery of the soul, and a cruel play of passions. Brief and quick, light and deep at the same time, it flies from object to object, splits life into little things and tears out leaves from the great book of this life.”

History of formation.

I. THE STORY IN ANCIENT RUSSIAN LITERATURE. - The original meaning of the word "P." in our ancient writing it is very close to its etymology: P. - what is narrated represents a complete narrative. Therefore, its use is very free and wide. Thus, P. often called works of hagiography, short stories, hagiography or chronicles (for example, “The Tale of the Life and Partly of Miracles, the Confession of Blessed Michael...”, “Tales of Wise Wives” or the famous “Behold the Tale of Bygone Years”, etc. .)

The central line of development of narrative genres is given by secular stories, which, in the conditions of their time, carried within themselves the tendency for the development of fiction as such. The church (predominant) genres alone could not serve all the needs, all aspects of the social practice of the class: the tasks of organizing secular power, versatile class education, and finally, the demands of curiosity and the desire for entertaining reading required more versatile literature. Responding to all these needs, aimed at real life, at its “secular” sides, this literature itself was generally more realistic and far from the asceticism of church writings, although this realism was often very relative; themes historical, geographical, etc. were so imbued with fabulous legendary elements that the works that developed them were sometimes of a very fantastic nature ("Alexandria", "Devgenie's Act", etc.)

Along with military poems, political and religious-political poems occupied a significant place in our medieval literature, usually using pseudo-historical or legendary plots, sometimes borrowed from translated literature, and sometimes from oral poetry, to promote a particular political idea. . Such are the legends about the Kingdom of Babylon and the White Cowl, reflecting the struggle for the dominance of Moscow and Novgorod, the works of Ivan Peresvetov of the 16th century, embodying the anti-boyar political program of the service nobility, P. about Peter and Fevronia, etc.

II. A STORY IN THE LITERATURE OF THE TRANSITIONAL AND NEW PERIOD. - Only in the later period of our medieval literature do everyday, adventurous, generally speaking about “ordinary” people and secular poems built on artistic fiction appear in it. Here is the emergence of the genre of poetry in the modern meaning of the term. This happens only in the 17th century, during a period when, as a result of the aggravation of feudal contradictions, the advancement of the nobility and merchants, the weakening of the role of the church, and the associated everyday restructuring, Russian fiction began to grow, separating itself from church, historical, and journalistic literature and freeing itself from the overwhelming authority of religious dogma. Based on examples of Western European bourgeois literature, the rising nobility, the progressive part of the merchants, and advanced groups of the petty bourgeoisie create their own, generally realistically oriented works, reflecting new social and everyday relations, and develop methods of artistic everyday life ("The Tale of Frol Skobeev" , “The Tale of Karp Sutulov”, “The Tale of Ersha Ershovich”, etc.). Conservative groups, in particular the conservative part of the merchant class, did not escape the influence of new literary trends, producing works that curiously combined elements of everyday realism with conservative religious and legendary motifs and ideas. Such are the “Tale of Savva Grudtsin” and P.-poem “On the Mountain of Misfortune”

The increasing complexity of social life as bourgeois relations grow, the expansion and deepening of the artistic and cognitive capabilities of literature - all this determines the advancement in the field of artistic prose of the short story (short story) as a form testifying to the artist’s ability to isolate a separate moment from the general flow of everyday life. , and the novel as a form that presupposes the ability to reflect a complex of various aspects of reality in their multifaceted connections. In the presence of such differentiation of narrative forms, the concept of “story” acquires a new and narrower content, occupying that position midway between the novel and the short story, which is usually indicated by literary theorists. At the same time, of course, the very nature of P. in the new literature changes and is revealed in different relationships. P.'s middle place between a short story and a novel is primarily determined by the scale of the volume and complexity of the reality covered by the work: a short story talks about any one life event, a novel provides a whole complex of intertwining plot lines

The place occupied by P. in the new Russian literature is different. In the 2nd half of the 18th century. and the first third of the 19th century. in the dominant style, that is, in the style of various groups of the nobility, predominantly poetic and dramatic genres are put forward. Only for conservative noble sentimentalism, with its call for simplicity and naturalness, is poetry a characteristic genre (Karamzin). Later, in the 30s, when prose began to grow with extreme intensity, P. So, Belinsky in the 30s came to the fore along with the novel. asserted: “Now all our literature has turned into a novel and a story” (“On the Russian story and Gogol’s stories”). The development of the story is undoubtedly connected with the appeal of literature to “prosaic”, everyday reality (it is not for nothing that Belinsky contrasts P. and the novel with the “heroic poem” and ode of classicism), although this reality itself can be perceived by the authors in a romantic aspect (for example, Gogol’s St. Petersburg stories , a number of stories by V. Odoevsky, Marlinsky, such works by N. Polevoy as “The Bliss of Madness”, “Emma”, etc.). Among the stories of the 30s. there were many with historical themes (romantic stories by Marlinsky, stories by Veltman, etc.). However, truly typical of the era, new in comparison with the previous stage, are stories with a realistic aspiration, addressed to modern, often everyday life ("Belkin's Tales" by Pushkin, bourgeois and petty-bourgeois everyday stories by Pogodin, N. Pavlov, N. Polevoy, Stepanov and others ; among the romantics - V. Odoevsky and Marlinsky - they have a similar “secular story” dedicated to the psychology and everyday life of the “salon”).

With the further development of Russian literature, in which the novel begins to play an increasingly important role, P. still retains a fairly prominent place. P. is intensively used as the most “artless”, simple and at the same time broad form by everyday life writers. Typical examples of such household P. were given, for example. Grigorovich (“Anton Goremyka”, etc.); classic realists (Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Chekhov, etc.) give predominantly psychological depictions, with greater or lesser disclosure of the social conditioning and typicality of the phenomena depicted. So. arr. throughout the 19th century. P. is represented by almost all the major prose writers (Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenev, L. Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Korolenko, etc.), as well as a number of minor ones. The story retains approximately the same share in the works of our modern writers. An exceptional contribution to P.'s literature was made by M. Gorky with his autobiographical stories ("Childhood", "In People", "My Universities"), the structural feature of which is the great significance of the characters surrounding the main character. P. has taken a strong place in the works of a number of other modern writers, serving to design a wide variety of thematic complexes. It is enough to name such popular works of Soviet literature as "Chapaev" by Furmanov, "Tashkent - the City of Grain" by Neverov, "Blast Furnace" by Lyashko and many others. etc. That special aspect, in which real life is reflected in P. due to its structural features, retains its place in Soviet literature. At the same time, the “unilinearity” of P., the well-known simplicity of its structure in the literature of socialist realism, does not at all come at the expense of the depth of social understanding of the reflected phenomena and the aesthetic value of the work. Such examples of proletarian literature, such as the above-mentioned works of M. Gorky, provide clear confirmation of this position.

In Western European literature, which has long been highly developed and diverse in genre, we find an even greater predominance of short stories and novels, but there a number of major authors (Mérimée, Flaubert, Maupassant, Dickens, Hoffmann, etc.) produced works that differ in their characteristic features P.

One of the most widespread, ancient and beloved literary genres was and remains the story. The story belongs to the general prose genre, which does not have a stable and clearly defined boundary of volume, and therefore occupies an intermediate position between the story and short story on the one hand and the novel on the other. The story gravitates toward a plot described in chronological order, a plot that reproduces the natural course of events. This definition of a story as a literary genre is most typical of the traditions of Russian literary criticism. In Western literary criticism, the genres that define the story are the novel and the short novel.

The origins of the literary story.

In the Russian literary tradition, the genre definition of a story dates back to the ancient Russian attitude of the narrator himself - the author - to the events taking place around him. The term “story” originates from the Old Russian verb “to know” or “to tell.” The Old Russian meaning of the phrase - “news about an event” - directly points to the fact that the genre of the story has absorbed legends, epics, information about events that once happened, which the narrator himself heard about or saw with his own eyes.

When writing the first, ancient Russian stories, storytellers primarily relied on the most important sources for them - ancient church chronicles. The most important such source was the Tale of Bygone Years, created by the chronicler and monk Nestor. Studying it, many authors subsequently wrote such works as: “The Tale of Batu’s Invasion of Ryazan”, “The Tale of Saints Peter and Fevronia”, “The Tale of the Battle of Kalka”, whose irrefutable authenticity and value-cultural dominant could not raise doubts among contemporaries.

Storyline of the story

The storyline in almost any story is centered around the main characters, the personality and fate of each of them, which are revealed in a series of numerous events described. In the story, side plot lines are usually absent, which is a distinguishing feature of the story from the novel. The narrative, conducted in accordance with a clearly defined chronological period, is concentrated on a narrow period of space and time. The story can describe colocation, the lives of different people, various historical events, etc.

Very often, the story is built around the “topic of the day.” The author himself, who is a contemporary and witness of this “malice,” can fully reveal its essence and partially express his attitude towards it through the lips and actions of his literary heroes. The title of the story is very often associated with the name and image of the character in it: “Station Warden” A.S. Pushkin, “The Man in a Case” by A.P. Chekhov, “Poor Lisa” by N.M. Karamzin, etc.

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