As you know, all literary works, depending on the nature of the depicted, belong to one of the three childbirth: epic, lyric or drama .

1 ) Anecdote2) Apocrypha3) Ballad a4) Fable5) Epic

6) Drama7) Life 8) Riddle9) Historical songs

10) Comedy11) Legend12) Lyrics13) Novella

14) Ode 15) Sketch16) Pamphlet17) Story

18) Proverbs and sayings 19) Poems 20) Story21) Novel

22) Fairy tale23) Word 24) Tragedy25) Chastushka26) Elegy

27) Epigram 28) Epic29) Epic

Video lesson "Literary genres and genres"

Literary genus is a generalized name for a group of works, depending on the nature of the reflection of reality.

EPOS (from the Greek. "narration") is a generalized name for works depicting events external to the author.

LYRICS (from the Greek "performed to the lyre") is a generalized name for works in which there is no plot, but the feelings, thoughts, experiences of the author or his lyrical hero are depicted.

DRAMA (from the Greek. "action") - a generalized name of works intended for staging on stage; in the drama, dialogues of the characters predominate, the author's beginning is minimized.

The varieties of epic, lyric and dramatic works are called types of literary works.

Type and genre - concepts in literary criticism very close.

Genres are variations of the type of literary work. For example, a genre variety of a story can be a fantastic or historical story, and a genre kind of comedy - vaudeville, etc. Strictly speaking, the literary genre is a historically developed type artworkcontaining certain structural features and aesthetic quality characteristic of this group of works.

TYPES (GENRE) OF EPIC WORKS:

epic, novel, story, story, fairy tale, fable, legend.

EPOPEIA is a major work of fiction that tells about significant historical events. In ancient times, it was a narrative poem of heroic content. In the literature of the 19-20 centuries, the genre of the epic novel appears - this is a work in which the formation of the characters of the main characters occurs during their participation in historical events.

ROMAN is a large narrative work of fiction with a complex plot, in the center of which is the fate of an individual.

THE STORY is a work of fiction that occupies a middle position between the novel and the story in terms of the volume and complexity of the plot. In ancient times, any narrative work was called a story.

STORY is a small-scale work of fiction, based on an episode, an incident from the hero's life.

A FAIRY TALE is a work about fictional events and characters, usually with the participation of magical, fantastic forces.

BASNYA (from "bayat" - to tell) is a narrative work in poetic form, small in size, moralizing or satirical in nature.

TYPES (GENRE) OF LYRICAL WORKS:

ode, hymn, song, elegy, sonnet, epigram, message.

ODA (from the Greek "song") - a choral, solemn song.

ANTHEM (from the Greek "praise") - a solemn song on poems of a program nature.

EPIGRAM (from the Greek "inscription") is a short satirical poem of a mocking character that arose in the 3rd century BC. e.

ELEGY is a genre of lyrics dedicated to sad thoughts or a lyric poem imbued with sadness. Belinsky called "a song of sad content" an elegy. The word "elegy" is translated as "reed flute" or "mournful song". The elegy originated in Ancient Greece in the 7th century BC e.

MESSAGE - a poetic letter, an appeal to a specific person, a request, a wish, a recognition.

SONNET (from the Provencal sonette - "song") is a 14-line poem with a certain rhyming system and strict stylistic laws. The sonnet originated in Italy in the 13th century (creator - the poet Jacopo da Lentini), appeared in England in the first half of the 16th century (G. Sarri), and in Russia - in the 18th century. The main types of sonnet are Italian (from 2 quatrains and 2 terzets) and English (from 3 quatrains and the final couplet).

LYROEPIC TYPES (GENRE):

SMALL LITERARY GENRE

Genre (from the French genre - genus, species) is a historically emerging and developing type of artistic work.

Small literary genres are distinguished:

By form

Novella
Oh yeah
Opus
Feature article
Story
Sketch
Essay
Etude
Sketch

Parable
Farce
Vaudeville
Interlude
Parody

By birth:
epic
Fable
Epic
Ballad
Myth
lyrical

Lyric poem
Elegy
Message
Epigram
Sonnet
Stanzas

Romance
Madrigal

Small poetic forms of other peoples:
Haiku
Gazelle
Ayrens
Rubai (quatrain)
Tanka
Limerick (limrick)

Fairy tale
Song

Small genres of folklore
Riddle
Proverb
Proverb
Patter
Ditty

DIFFERENCE BY SHAPE

NOVELLA

Novella (Italian novella - news), like the story, belongs to the genre of short fiction.
As a literary genre, the novel was approved by Boccaccio in the XIV century. This suggests that the story is much older than the story. That is, a more or less clear concept that defines what a "story" is, arose in Russian literature in the 18th century. But there are no clear boundaries between the story and the short story, except that the latter, at its very beginning, resembled rather an anecdote, that is, a short funny life sketch. Some of the features inherent in it in the Middle Ages, the story has preserved to this day.
It differs from the story only in that it always has an unexpected ending (O Henry “Gifts of the Magi”), although in general the boundaries between these two genres are rather arbitrary.
In contrast to the story, the plot in the story is sharp, centripetal, often paradoxical, there is no descriptiveness and compositional rigor. In any short story, chance dominates in the center of the narrative, here the life material is enclosed in the framework of one event (the early stories of A. Chekhov and N. Gogol can be attributed to the genre of the short story).
It goes back to folklore genres of oral retelling in the form of legends or instructive allegories and parables. Compared to the more detailed narrative forms, there are not many involved in the novel. actors, one storyline (rarely several) and one problem.
The representative of the school of formalism, B. M. Eikhenbaum, distinguished between the concepts of a short story and a story, saying that a short story is plotted, and a story is more psychological and close to a plotless outline. Goethe, who believed that the short story was "an unheard-of event happened", pointed to the sharp plot of the novel.
On the example of creativity O. Henry Eichenbaum singled out the following features of the novel in the purest, "unclouded" form: brevity, sharp plot, neutral style of presentation, lack of psychologism, unexpected denouement. The story, in the understanding of Eichenbaum, does not differ from the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the characters or events are given detailed psychological characteristics, and the pictorial and verbal texture comes to the fore.
For Edgar Poe, a novel is a fictional story that can be read in one sitting; for HG Wells, less than an hour.

OH YEAH
Oda is a poetic work that is written in a sublime style. Usually, this genre of literature is dedicated to a particular event or a specific hero. Answering the question of what an ode is, we can say that it is a song of praise or a laudatory poem that elevates a certain person above the rest of the world.

In ancient times, the term "ode" (Latin oda) did not define any poetic genre, generally denoting "song", "poem". Ancient authors used this term in relation to various kinds of lyric poems and subdivided odes into "laudatory", "deplorable", "dance", etc. Of the ancient lyrical formations, the odes of Pindar are of greatest importance for the ode as a genre of European literature (see. ) and Horace (see).
Oda in Ancient Greece was usually performed by a dancing choir accompanied by complex music. It is characterized by rich verbal ornamentation, which was supposed to aggravate the impression of solemnity, accentuated pompousness, and a weak connection between parts.
The Middle Ages did not know at all the genre of the ode as such. It arose in European literature during the Renaissance, in the 16th century. In France, the founder of the ode was the poet Ronsard, who introduced the term itself.
At this time, the plot of the ode must have had an important "state" meaning (victory over external and internal enemies, restoration of "order", etc.). The main feeling that inspires her is delight. The main tone is the praise of the leaders and heroes of the monarchy: the king and persons of the royal house. Hence - the general solemn elevation of style, rhetorical both by its nature and by its very speech function (the ode was intended primarily for solemn utterance), built on the incessant alternations of exclamatory and interrogative intonations, the grandeur of the image, the abstract "highness" of the language, equipped with mythological terms, impersonations, etc.
The first attempts to introduce the genre of ode into Russian poetry belonged to Kantemir, but the very term was first introduced by Tredyakovsky in his "Ode for the solemn surrender of the city of Gdansk." Subsequently, Tredyakovsky composed a number of "praiseworthy and divine odes."
However, Lomonosov was the true founder of the Russian ode, who established it as the main lyrical genre of feudal-noble literature of the 18th century. Appointment od Lomonosov - to serve the exaltation of the feudal-noble monarchy of the XVIII century. in the face of its leaders and heroes. Because of this, the main species cultivated by Lomonosov was the solemn pindaric ode; all elements of the style of which should serve to reveal the main feeling - enthusiastic surprise mixed with awe at the greatness and power of state power and its bearers.
In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the ode became the second major genre of Russian literature. Derzhavin's work, which marked the highest flowering of the ode genre on Russian soil, is distinguished by an exceptional variety. Of particular importance are his accusatory odes ("Grandee", "To the Lords and Judges", etc.).
Dmitriev wrote solemn odes. It was with the solemn odes that the activities of Zhukovsky, Tyutchev, and young Pushkin began.
But over time, the ode in literature lost its former meaning, and it was replaced by ballads and elegies. Today, few people use this genre in order to exalt a hero or an event, it, as a genre, has become unpopular, but the best odes have forever remained in the history of literature.

OPUS (Latin opus - literally, work, composition) is a term used for ordinal numbering of the composer's works. (Example: Beethoven's Sonata, Op. 57).
Throughout the world, this word means a literary or musical work. However, in Russia, this term for some reason acquired a derisive meaning. So they say when they want to mock or dismissively comment on the work of some author.
Examples: "What a fat opus he wrote." "Let me bring you my first opus."

An essay is one of all varieties of a small form of epic literature - a story, which differs from its other form, a short story, in the absence of a single, acute and quickly resolving conflict and in a more developed descriptive image. Both differences depend on the features of the problematic of the essay. Essay literature does not touch upon the problems of the formation of the character of a personality in its conflicts with the established social environment, as is inherent in the novel (and the novel), but the problems of the civil and moral state of the “environment” (usually embodied in individuals) - “moral descriptive” problems; she has a great cognitive variety. Essay literature usually combines the features of fiction and journalism.
Types of essays:

Portrait sketch. The author explores the personality of the hero, his inner world. Through this description, the reader guesses about the socio-psychological background of the actions committed. It is necessary to indicate the details that make the character of this person dramatic, elevate him above all other heroes. In modern Russian editions, the portrait sketch looks different. Most often it is a biography summary, a set of classic human qualities. Therefore, the portrait essay is more a literary genre than a journalistic one.

Problematic essay. The main task of the author is publicistic coverage of the problem. He enters into a dialogue with the reader. First, it indicates a problem situation, and then considerations on this matter, reinforcing them with their own knowledge, official data, artistic and visual means. This genre is more popular in magazine periodicals, since it surpasses newspaper analytical articles in size and depth.

Travel sketch. It was formed much earlier than other types of essay. At the heart of the author's story is about the journey, about everything he saw and heard. Many Russian writers have turned to this genre: A. Pushkin, A. Radishchev ("Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"), A. A. Bestuzhev, A. P. Chekhov and others. May include elements from other essays. For example, portrait is used to describe people and their customs that the author met during his travels. Or, elements of a problematic essay can be used to analyze the situation in different cities and villages.

Historical sketch. Chronological, scientifically grounded presentation of the history of the research subject. For example, "Historical sketch of the Vyatka region", 1870. The essay presents and analyzes real facts and phenomena of social life, as a rule, accompanied by a direct interpretation by the author.

The story is a small epic genre form of fiction with a focus on a small volume and on the unity of an artistic event.
As a rule, the story is devoted to a specific fate, speaks of a separate event in a person's life, grouped around a specific episode. This is how it differs from the story, as a more detailed form of narration and where usually several episodes are described, a segment of the hero's life. But the point is not in the number of pages (there are short stories and relatively long stories), and not even in the number of plot events, but in the author's attitude to the utmost brevity. So, Chekhov's story "Ionych" is close in content not even to a story, but to a novel (almost the entire life of the hero is traced). But all the episodes are set out very briefly, the author's goal is the same - to show the spiritual degradation of Dr. Startsev. According to Jack London, "a story is ... a unity of mood, situation, action."
The small volume of the story also determines its stylistic unity. The narration is usually conducted from one person. It can be an author, a storyteller, or a hero. But in the story, much more often than in "large" genres, the pen is, as it were, transferred to the hero, who tells his own story. Often we have before us - a tale: the story of a certain fictional person with his own pronounced speech manner (the stories of Leskov, in the 20th century - Remizov, Zoshchenko, Bazhov, etc.).

Sketch is synonymous with sketch. Actually, translated from English "sketch" is a sketch. A sketch can be called a sketch, a sketch, a template. The word "sketch" has another definition.
A sketch is a short presentation of light, playful content, designed for an external effect and is usually given on open stages, in circuses, music halls (theater.). Acrobatic sketch of eccentrics.

Essay (from the French essai "attempt, trial, experience") is a literary genre, a prose essay of a small volume and free composition. Therefore, in foreign schools, essays are a common exercise that allows students not only to show the level of their knowledge, but also to express themselves. On the other hand, essays are a full-fledged genre, in the arsenal of which there are a lot of brilliant works belonging to writers, scientists, doctors, teachers and ordinary people.
The essay expresses the individual impressions and thoughts of the author on a specific occasion or subject and does not claim to be an exhaustive or definitive interpretation of the topic. In terms of volume and function, it borders, on the one hand, with a scientific article and a literary essay (with which essays are often confused), and on the other, with a philosophical treatise.
The essay style is characterized by imagery, mobility of associations, aphorism, an attitude towards intimate frankness and colloquial intonation. The main goals of the essay are: informing, persuading and entertaining the reader, the author's self-expression, or a combination of one or more goals. The topic of the essay should contain a question, a problem, motivate to think. When writing an essay, the author must completely liberate his thoughts and feelings, not thinking about authorities and not looking back at them.
Three simple rules that Viktor Krotov brought out for novice writers will help you write an essay.

First, you need to write about what really interests you, that is, choose an interesting TOPIC.
Secondly, you need to write about what you really feel and think, that is, decide
with THOUGHTS.
Thirdly, you need to write as you want, without relying on existing examples and samples, that is
you need to choose your own INTONATION.

The essay has many varieties. It can be presented in the form of thinking, sketching, story, study, essay, or research.
For Russian literature, the essay genre was not typical. Samples of the essay style are found in the works of A. N. Radishchev ("A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow"), A. I. Herzen ("From the Other Shore"), F. M. Dostoevsky ("The Writer's Diary"). At the beginning of the 20th century, V.I. Ivanov, D.S.Merezhkovsky, Andrei Bely, Lev Shestov, V.V. Rozanov, and later Ilya Erenburg, Yuri Olesha, Viktor Shklovsky, Konstantin Paustovsky, Iosif Brodsky turned to the essay genre. Literary and critical assessments of contemporary critics, as a rule, are embodied in a variety of the essay genre.

An etude is a work of fine art made from nature for the purpose of studying it and usually serving as a preliminary development of a work or part of it, as well as the process of creating such a work.

Etude - in fine arts - a preparatory sketch for a future work.
An etude is a piece of music.
Etude is one of the types of chess composition.
Etude - in theater pedagogy - is an exercise for improving acting technique.

Sketch

What is not finished is only outlined in general terms (about a work of literature, report, drawing or painting).

DIFFERENCE IN CONTENT

A parable is a short story in verse or prose in an allegorical, edifying form. The reality in the parable is given outside of chronological and territorial signs, without specifying the specific historical names of the characters. A parable necessarily includes an explanation of the allegory so that the reader can understand the meaning of the allegory. A parable differs from a fable in that it draws its artistic material from human life (Gospel parables, Solomon's parables).

Farce
The word "farce" (according to the dictionary of Efremova) has the following meanings:
1.
- Theatrical piece of light, playful, often frivolous content with extensive use of external comic effects.
- The actor's play, in which the comic effect is achieved only by external methods, as well as external methods, with the help of which comic is achieved.

2. An obscene, shameful, cynical sight.
3. A rude joke, a buffoonery trick.

V. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language:
Farce - (French) a joke, a funny prank, a funny trick of a joker. Farce, break, fool around, mimic, make fun, throw jokes or tricks.

Vaudeville

Vaudeville - (French vaudeville), a genre of light comedy play or performance with an entertaining intrigue or anecdotal plot, accompanied by music, couplets, dances.
Vaudeville originated and took shape in France. In the 16th century. "Vaudeville" called mocking street city songs, couplets, as a rule, ridiculing the feudal lords, who in the era of absolutism became the main enemies of monarchical power. By the middle of the 18th century. vaudeville has emerged as a separate theatrical genre.
French vaudeville gave impetus to the development of the genre in many countries and had a significant impact on the development of European comedy in the 19th century. The basic principles of the genre structure are rapid rhythm, ease of dialogue, live communication with the audience, brightness and expressiveness of characters, vocal and dance numbers.
In Russia, vaudeville appeared in the early 19th century as a genre developing on the basis of comic opera. A. Griboyedov, A. Pisarev, N. Nekrasov, F. Koni, D. Lensky, V. Sollogub and others contributed to the formation of the Russian drama school of vaudeville. However, by the end of the 19th century. vaudeville has practically disappeared from the Russian stage, displaced both by the rapid development of realistic theater and, on the other hand, by the no less rapid development of operetta. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, perhaps the only noticeable phenomenon of this genre were ten one-act plays by A. Chekhov (The Bear, Proposal, Jubilee, Wedding, etc.).
In our time, the genre of vaudeville has not received development. Now the most popular are other, more complex comedy genres - comedy and tragicomedy.

Interlude

Interlude - (from Lat. Intermedius - located in the middle), an inserted scene (comic, musical, dance, etc.), not directly related to the main action of the performance. Interludes can be played out both during the intermission, dividing the parts of the main performance, or directly included in the action in the form of a kind of excursion, both thematic (within one genre) and genre (jester's inserts in Shakespeare's tragedies).
The interlude gained great popularity during the Renaissance, especially in comedies based on improvisation. This genre was widely used in their work by Moliere, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Goldoni, Gozzi and other great playwrights.
In Russia, the interlude appeared in the 16th century in the russian theater, and were usually played by jesters, "stupid persons".
In modern theatrical and pop art, interludes often acquire the character of a kind of "skit", are based on direct communication with the audience and have a topical focus.

A parody is a work of art aimed at creating a comic effect in the reader (viewer, listener) by intentionally repeating the unique features of an already known work in a specially modified form. In other words, a parody is a “mock work” based on an already existing famous work. Parodies can be created in various genres and areas of art, including literature (in prose and poetry), music, cinema, pop art and others. One specific work, the compositions of a certain author, compositions of a certain genre or style, the manner of performance and the characteristic external features of the performer (if we are talking about an actor or a pop artist) can be parodied.
In a figurative sense, inept imitation is also called a parody (meaning that when trying to create a semblance of something worthy, something turned out that can only make fun).
A parody was born in ancient literature. The first known example of the genre is Batrachomyomachia (War of Mice and Frogs), which parodies the high poetic style of Homer's Iliad. When writing The War of Mice and Frogs, the travesty technique was used - a low object (a mouse and a frog) is narrated in a high style.
The parody genre survived for centuries and has survived to this day.
The comic parody is usually achieved using a combination of fairly standard techniques, the most common of which are:

Violation of the unity of style and subject of presentation. Typical examples are travesty and burlesque, when the comic is achieved by changing the traditionally accepted "high" or "low" style of presentation for the described topics to the opposite style. This can include, for example, the parody performance of poetry, when gloomy and solemn texts, suggesting a serious, solemn reading, are read in the manner of nursery rhymes at a matinee.

Hyperbolization. Character traits of the parodied work or genre, the stamps widely used in it are strongly, to the point of absurdity, accentuated and repeated many times.

- "Turning over" of the work. The characteristic features of the work are replaced in the parody by the directly opposite ones (Example: the book by Zhvalevsky and Mytko "Porry Gatter and the Stone Philosopher", parodying the books about Harry Potter).

Context bias. The context changes in such a way that precisely repeated features of the original work become ridiculous and ridiculous.

DIFFERENCE BY GENDER:

1. SMALL EPIC GENRE

A fable is a short, often poetic, moralizing story. The heroes of fables can be not only people, but also animals, plants, objects endowed with certain human qualities. Fable narration is usually allegorical, however, its moralizing character is always preserved. For any fable, morality is characteristic, which can be given at the beginning or at the end of the work. Usually for the sake of this morality a fable is written.
The first fables were known in ancient times. It is believed that the first ancient Greek fabulists were Hesiod (late 9th – 8th centuries BC) and Stesichor (6th century BC).
The most famous fabulist of antiquity is Aesop, who lived in the 6th century BC. His works have become classics and have been translated into many languages \u200b\u200bof the world. Aesop is a semi-legendary personality, about whose life there were many stories, in which truth and fiction were mixed. Traditionally, Phrygia, a region in Asia Minor, is called his homeland. It is believed that he was a slave who passed from one master to another several times and suffered many misfortunes.
Aesop's fables were written in prose, witty, clear and simple. The works of the Phrygian slave or those attributed to him were compiled into collections called Aesop's Fables. They were rewritten, studied in schools, and learned by heart. Aesop's Fables became one of the most popular works in the ancient world. Their plots influenced the Syrian, Armenian, Arab, Jewish, Indian literature.
It is with the name of the Greek fabulist that the concept of "Aesopian language" is associated, which began to be widely used in Russia from the end of the 18th century. The Aesopian language was used by authors who wanted to hide their ideas from censorship, but at the same time convey them to readers in a fairly accessible and understandable form.
The most famous of the Western European fabulists is Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695). This French poet spent most of his life in Paris. Despite his popularity in court circles, La Fontaine never got access to the court, since Louis 14 was annoyed by his carefree character and complete neglect of both official and family responsibilities. In addition, the first patron of La Fontaine was the quartermaster of finance, Nicolas Fouquet, and the disgrace that overtook this all-powerful minister hurt the poet in the eyes of the king.
In Russia, the development of the fable genre took place in the post-Peter the Great era. The first writer of the 18th century to write six imitations of Aesop was Antiochus Cantemir (1708–1744). At the same time, V. K. Trediakovsky (1703-1769) published several Aesop's fables, written with a hexameter. After Cantemir and Trediakovsky fable became one of the favorite genres of poets of the 18th century. Many fables were written by A.P. Sumarokov (1718–1777), who called them fables-parables. In total, he created 334 fables, some of which are a free translation by La Fontaine, but most are original works.
But all fabulists of the 18-19th centuries. eclipsed by I.A. Krylov (1768-1844). Krylov's fables are written in a bright and well-aimed folk language, captivating with their imagery and surprise. Despite the fact that Krylov translated Aesop and La Fontaine, most of his works are completely original. Some of his fables were written for one reason or another, associated with a specific political or social event, but have long gone beyond the scope of works "on the topic of the day."
Since the middle - second half of the 19th century. the genre of fable is less and less common, both in Russia and in Western Europe. Moral and ironic narratives, allegorical images, morality that concludes the story - all these features of the fable genre begin to seem outdated and satirical works began to take on completely different forms.
In our time, Soviet satirical poets tried to revive the genre of fable, for example, Demyan Bedny or S.V. Mikhalkov.

For the first time the term "epics" was introduced by Ivan Sakharov in the collection "Songs of the Russian people" in 1839. The popular name for these works is antiquity, old-fashioned, old-fashioned. This is the word used by the storytellers. In ancient times, the old days were performed to the accompaniment of gusli, but over time this tradition became a thing of the past.
According to the classification, epics are traditionally divided into two large cycles: Kiev and Novgorod. At the same time, a significantly larger number of characters and plots are associated with the first. The events of the epics of the Kiev cycle are timed to the capital city of Kiev and the court of Prince Vladimir. The heroes of these old-fashioned people: Ilya Muromets, Dobrynya Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich and others. Plots about Sadok and Vasily Buslaev belong to the Novgorod cycle. There is also a division into "senior" and "junior" heroes. The "elders" - Svyatogor and Volga (sometimes also Mikula Selyaninovich), represent the remains of the epic of the era of the tribal system, personify the ancient gods and forces of nature - powerful and often destructive. When the time of these giants passes, they are replaced by "younger" heroes. This is symbolically reflected in the epic "Ilya of Muromets and Svyatogor": the ancient warrior dies and Ilya, having buried him, goes to the service of Prince Vladimir.
In the 19-20 centuries. bylinas have completely disappeared from our literature and now they are only a magnificent cultural heritage of the past. Already in Soviet times, attempts were made to adapt the epic genre to the conditions and requirements of our time. This is how, for example, the lament about Lenin “Kamennaya Moscow cried all over”, recorded from the storyteller Martha Semyonovna Kryukova, appeared. But such an amazing combination of the old form and new actual content did not take root in folk art.

A ballad (from French ballade, - to dance) is a lyric-epic work, that is, a story presented in a poetic form, of a historical, mythical or heroic character. The ballad's plot is usually borrowed from folklore. Ballads are often set to music.
The ballad appeared among the southern Romance peoples from about the 12th century. This is a small lyrical poem, consisting of four stanzas, eight, ten or twelve stanzas, interspersed with a chorus (refrain), and usually contained a love complaint. It was originally sung to accompany dances.
In Italy, ballads were composed by Petrarch and Dante.
In France, Provence is considered the birthplace of the ballad. This form of a small epic poem was loved by Provencal troubadours. Under Charles VI, Alain Chartier and Duke Charles of Orleans became famous for their composition of ballads. Around 1390, a group of noble poets from the entourage of Louis of Orleans compiled on the basis of the first collection of Seneschal Jean d'E "The Book of a Hundred Ballads".
In the 17th century, the famous fabulist Lafontaine wrote ballads. Under his pen B. was distinguished by her simplicity and wit.
In England, the ballad has been known for a long time. In the 19th century, they found reason to believe that the ballad was brought by the Norman conquerors, but here it received only the flavor of gloomy mystery. The very nature of England, especially in Scotland, inspired the bards of these countries with a mood that was expressed in the depiction of bloody battles and terrible storms. The bards sang in their ballads the battles and feasts of Odin and his comrades; later poets of this kind celebrated the exploits of Douglas, Percy and other heroes of Scotland. There are also known ballads about Robin Hood, about the beautiful Rosamund, about King Edward IV. Robert Burns provided literary treatment of many of the ballads. He masterfully reproduced old Scottish traditions. Burns's exemplary work of this kind is recognized as "The Song of the Beggars."
Walter Scott, Southey, Campbell and some other first-class English writers also used the poetic form of the ballad. Walter Scott owns the ballad "Castle Smalholm", translated by V. A. Zhukovsky, captivating Russian lovers of romanticism.
The first Russian ballad, and moreover - original both in content and in form - "Thunderbolt" by G. P. Kamenev But the main representative of this kind of poetry in Russian literature was V. A. Zhukovsky, whom his contemporaries gave the nickname "balladnik" (Batyushkov) ... His first ballad "Lyudmila" (1808) was remade from Burgess ("Lenore"). She made a strong impression on her contemporaries. Zhukovsky also translated into Russian the best ballads of Schiller, Goethe, Moore, W. Scott. His original ballad "Svetlana" (1813) was recognized as his best work, so that critics and literature of the time called him "Svetlana's singer."
After Zhukovsky, the ballad was represented by such samples as "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg" "Demons" and "The Drowned Man" (A.S. Pushkin), "Airship" (M.Yu. Lermontov), \u200b\u200b"The Sun and the Month", "Forest "(Polonsky) and others. We find whole sections of ballads in the poems of Count A. K. Tolstoy (mainly on Old Russian themes) and in A. A. Fet.

Myth (from the Greek mythos - legend).

A myth is a legend. This is a symbolic expression of certain events that took place among certain peoples at a certain time, at the dawn of their history.
In myths, events are viewed in time sequence, but often the specific time of the event does not matter, only the starting point for the beginning of the story is important. For a very long time, myths served as the most important source of information about the past, making up most of some historical works of antiquity (for example, Herodotus and Titus Livy).
Since mythology reflects reality in the forms of a figurative narrative, it is close in meaning to fiction and historically had a great influence on its early development.
The development of the art of creating myths is most easily traced on the material of ancient literature. As you know, Greek mythology was not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its "soil". This can be attributed, first of all, to the Homeric epic ("Iliad", "Odyssey"). Later appeared the "Vedas", "Mahabhara-ta", "Ramayana", "Puranas" in India, "Avesta" in Iran, "Edda" in the German-Scandinavian world and other myths.
Roman poetry provides new types of attitude to myths. Virgil connects myths with a philosophical understanding of history, creating a new structure of the mythological image associated with religion. Ovid, on the other hand, separates mythology from religious content.
Medieval poetry continued the Virgilian attitude to myths, the Renaissance - Ovidian.
Beginning with the late Renaissance, non-antique images of the Christian religion and chivalric romance were translated into the figurative system of ancient mythology, understood as a universal language (“Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, idylls by F. Shpe, praising Christ under the name of Daphnis). Allegorism and the cult of conventions reach their apogee by the 18th century.
In the 17th century, the English philosopher Francis Bacon in his essay "On the wisdom of the ancients" argued - "the myths in poetic form preserve ancient philosophy, moral maxims or scientific truths, the meaning of which is hidden under the cover of symbols and allegories."
Modern writers are characterized not by a deliberate and arrogant admiration for myths (as in the late romantics and symbolists), but by a free attitude towards them, which is complemented by irony, parody and analysis, and myth schemes are sometimes found in simple and everyday objects.

2. SMALL LYRIC GENRE

A lyric poem is a small genre form of lyrics, written either on behalf of the author ("I loved you" by Pushkin) or on behalf of a fictional lyric hero ("I was killed near Rzhev ..." by Tvardovsky).
Lyric poetry (from the Greek ;;;;;;; - "performed to the sound of a lyre, sensitive, lyric") - reproduces the subjective personal feeling or mood of the author. According to Ozhegov's dictionary, lyricism means sensitivity in emotions, in moods, softness and subtlety of the emotional beginning.
Throughout the ages, people have sought to express their feelings and emotions through various forms of art. Majestic statues, luxurious buildings, mesmerizing pictures ... You can endlessly list the masterpieces created by man. Unfortunately, not every creation of art has survived to our times. But poems created even several centuries ago have been preserved. Rhymed lines created by the talents of their time were passed from mouth to mouth. Over time, any poem combined with music could become a romance or song that we still know today.

In the first period of ancient Greek, lyric poetry was sung mainly to the accompaniment of flute, later - guitar.
European lyrics were especially developed in Italy in the 14th century. As early as the 13th century, under the influence of the Provençals, Italian troubadours began to appear; especially many of them were at the court of the poet-emperor Frederick II.
The poets of the so-called Sicilian school prepared the future flowering of Italian lyrics and developed its two main forms: the canzona and the sonnet. At the same time, in Central Italy, spiritual lyricism developed - laude, songs of praise to God, imbued with extreme mysticism.

Elegy (from the Greek eleos - a plaintive song) is a small lyric form, a poem imbued with a mood of sadness and sorrow. As a rule, the content of elegies is made up of philosophical reflections, sad reflections, sorrow.
In early antique poetry - a poem written by an elegiac distich, regardless of content; later (Callimachus, Ovid) - a poem with the character of brooding sadness. In modern European poetry, the elegy retains stable features: intimacy, motives of disappointment, unhappy love, loneliness, and the frailty of earthly existence.
In Russian poetry, Zhukovsky was the first to introduce the elegy genre into literature. He also introduced new methods of versification and became the founder of Russian sentimental poetry and one of its great representatives. In the spirit and form of an elegy, he wrote many poems full of mournful meditation.
These are "Evening", "Slavyanka", "At the end of the cor. Virtemberg ". His "Theon and Aeschines" (more precisely, it is an elegy-ballad) is also considered to be an elegy. Zhukovsky called his poem "The Sea" an elegy.
In the first half of the 19th century, it became fashionable to give your poems the names of elegies. Especially often their works were called elegies by Batiushkov, Baratynsky, Yazykov, etc. Later, however, this went out of fashion. Nevertheless, the verses of many Russian poets are imbued with an elegiac tone.
Before Zhukovsky, attempts to write elegies in Russia were made by such authors as Pavel Fonvizin, Bogdanovich, Ablesimov, Naryshkin, Nartov, Davydov, etc.

The message (from the Greek epistole - letter) is a small lyrical form, a poetic genre, widespread in the first half of the 19th century. This is a letter in verse.
Its content is very diverse - from philosophical reflections to satirical paintings and epic stories. Addressing a person known or imagined, the author of the message speaks to him in the usual epistolary style, which sometimes rises to solemnity and pathos, sometimes - which is more characteristic of the message - decreases to a simple and friendly tone, in accordance with the face to which it is addressed.
The old poetics considered grace, wit, and lightness of verse to be especially characteristic of the style of the message. The most common sizes are hexameter and Alexandrian verse, but others are also allowed. Pushkin often used the original iambic tricycle in his messages.
In Russian literature of the 18th century, the form of the epistles (also under the names "letter, epistle, verse") was very common; hardly during this time there is at least one outstanding poet who did not write the epistle.
Especially noteworthy are the messages of Zhukovsky, who left a lot of them; between them there are real messages in the old style, and inspirational, and artless humorous notes in verse.
They also wrote letters to Karamzin ("To Pleshcheev", "To women", "To the poor poet"), Gnedich ("Peruvian to the Spaniard"), etc.
Pushkin's Epistles are excellent examples of this literary form; they are deeply sincere, free and simple, like an ordinary letter, graceful and witty, far from the conventional style of classical messages; the message to Delvig (Skull) is interspersed in a simple letter and interspersed with prose; other messages were also originally intended not for printing, but only for the addressee. In Pushkin's lyrics, the messages occupy a prominent place, especially the message to Batyushkov, Galich, Pushchin, Delvig, Gorchakov, V. Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Chaadaev, Yazykov, Rodzianko. The messages "To Siberia" and "Ovid" have a special character.
In the further development, the messages essentially lose all distinction from ordinary lyric poems. Lermontov's "Valerik" - a letter in verse - has nothing to do with the template of a classic message. The messages of Tyutchev ("A. N. Muravyov", "To Ganka", "Prince A. A. Suvorov"), Nekrasov ("Turgenev" and "Saltykov"), Maikov, Polonsky, Nadson (" Letter to M. V. V. ").

An epigram (from the Greek epigramma - an inscription) is a small lyric form, a poem that makes fun of a particular person. The emotional range of the epigram is very large - from friendly ridicule to angry denunciation. Characteristic features are wit and brevity.
An example is one of Derzhavin's epigrams:

The donkey will remain a donkey
Even though you shower it with stars
Where the mind should act
He just flaps his ears.

Sonnet (from Italian soneto - song) - small lyrical form. A lyric poem, consisting of fourteen verses, built and arranged in a special order. A strict form that requires the fulfillment of many conditions. The sonnet is written mainly with iambic - pentameter or six-foot; less commonly used iambic tetrameter. The 14 verses of the sonnet are grouped into two quatrains and two three verses (tercets). In two quatrains - in the first half of a sonnet - as a general rule, there should be two rhymes: one for women, the other for men. In the two three-verses of the second half of the sonnet there are other rhymes, of which there can be two or three.
The sonnet is a solid poetic form. William Shakespeare made a particularly great contribution to the development of this genre. Below is one of his sonnets.

When your brow is furrowed
Deep traces of forty winters
Who will remember the regal outfit
Abhorring your pathetic rags?

And to the question: "Where are they hiding now
Remnants of the beauty of happy years? "-
What do you say? At the bottom of faded eyes?
But your answer will be an evil mockery.

The words would sound more worthy:
"Look at my children.
My old freshness is alive in them,
They are the justification of my old age. "

Let the blood freeze over the years
Burns again in your heir!

Stanzas are a lyric-epic work consisting of compositionally completed stanzas, isolated from each other. This is expressed in the prohibition of semantic transfers from one stanza to another and in the obligation of independent rhymes that are not repeated in other stanzas.

In a narrower sense, stanzas were a traditional octave-form stanza of 5 or 6 foot iambs, otherwise an octave. Stanzas are a classic form of epic poetry (Ariosto, Tasso, Camões); Byron (Don Juan, Childe Harold) gave them incomparable brilliance. Russian octaves: "Aul Bastundzhi" by Lermontov, "House in Kolomna" by Pushkin.

Monostich (one line, one line)

Literary form: poem, consisting of one line. It is generally accepted that one-line poems arose already in ancient poetry, although there is no completely reliable confirmation of this: most of the one-line texts of ancient Greek and Roman authors that have come down to us are, apparently, fragments of poems that have not been completely preserved.
In Russia, such different authors as Konstantin Balmont, Daniil Kharms, Ilya Selvinsky, Lev Ozerov and others turned to the monostich. At the turn of the 1980s and 90s. poet Vladimir Vishnevsky even created his own author's genre on the basis of the monostich, which brought wide popularity to both the author and the form he used.
Examples:
- young Bryusov "Oh, close your pale legs" the famous monostikh (one-line poem) by Valery Bryusov. The only line of the poem ends with a dot, there is no comma after the "O".

One-line text by Vladimir Vishnevsky "And for a long time I will be so kind and that ...".

Some experts prefer the term "one-liner" to the term "monostich". Outside of the scientific literature, monosychs are also called monostyches; in poetical terminology, however, this word is more often used to mean an isolated (separated from the rest of the text by skips) verse in a multi-line poem.

The term "romance" originated in medieval Spain and originally denoted a common song in Spanish (Romance). Romance is Spanish. The content of the poem, set to music, was usually love, lyrical. This term then spread to other countries.
A romance is like a song. But its difference from the song is in its special melodiousness and clear relief melodiousness. There is usually no chorus (refrain) in a romance, although there are exceptions. In the music of the romance, in contrast to the song, more attention is paid to the mood (and not to the rhythm, for example), the essence of the romance is in the content of the verses and in the melody, and not in the accompaniment. Usually romances are chamber music (singing accompanied by one instrument, more often a piano). But here, of course, there are exceptions - the accompaniment of the orchestra.

Features of the romance genre:
- In a romance, words, music, and vocals are important at the same time.

A romance is more intimate than a song, so it can only be lyrical, while a song can be patriotic, heroic, etc.

Due to the fact that a romance usually expresses a love feeling, the addressee is always present or implied in it, i.e. a romance in a sense should have a dialogue, even if it is internal.

The instrumental works of "songs without words", in which the melodic line prevails, are close to romance. The most famous are "Songs without Words" by F. Mendelssohn. The poems of a romance are usually melodic, melodic, touching and tender or tragic in themselves.
Russian romance emerged as a genre in the first half of the 19th century, this was associated with the flourishing of romanticism in world, including Russian, literature. The composers A. Alyabyev, A. Varlamov and A. Gurilyov played an important role in the formation of the Russian romance. Among the best and most famous works of Alyabyev can be called the romance "Nightingale" (1826) to the words of A. Delvig, "Winter Road", "Two Crows" to the verses of A. Pushkin, "Evening Bell" to the words of I. Kozlov.
Many Russian romances had a gypsy flavor both in content and in music. We know from classical Russian literature that the singing of gypsies was a favorite pastime of the Russian nobility.
Early XX century is called the "golden age" of Russian romance. Then the audience was conquered by the talent of A. Vertinsky, V. Panina, A. Vyaltseva, N. Plevitskaya, and later - Pyotr Leshchenko, Isabella Yurieva, Tamara Tsereteli and Vadim Kozin.
In Soviet times, especially since the late 1930s, the romance was persecuted as a relic of the tsarist era, harmful for the builders of a socialist future. Many famous performers fell silent, some were repressed. The revival of Russian romance began only in the 1970s. At this time, Valentin Baglaenko, Nikolai Slichenko, Valentina Ponomareva, Nani Bregvadze, Boris Shtokolov and others became outstanding performers of romances.

MADRIGAL - (French madrigal, from the Greek mandra herd, because before madrigal was a shepherd's song).
Madrigal in classical poetry is a small lyric poem-compliment, a poem of laudatory content.
Originally a musical and poetic genre of the Renaissance. In the XIV-XVI centuries, poetic madrigals were created, as a rule, for musical embodiment. Later, the literary madrigal was not associated with music and was a genre of salon and album poetry.
Samples of madrigals in Russian poetry are represented by the works of A.P. Sumarokov, I.I.Dmitriev, V.L. Pushkin, later - K.N.Batyushkov, A.S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov. The names of the real addressees, as a rule, were replaced by conditionally poetic Alina, Laisa, Selina, Leela, and the like. An example of V.I.Tumansky's madrigal:

You all have what the gentle sex is proud of
Pleasures, beauty and freshness of young years
Who knows your mind - wonders
Who knows the heart - he gives you his.

Often, the form of the madrigal was parodically rethought and an epigram was designated by such a genre definition. An example of such a "madrigal" is "Madrigal to a regimental lady" by N. S. Gumilyov:

Like a guria in Mohammedan
Eden, in roses and silk
So you are in the Ulansky Life Guards
Her Majesty's regiment.

SMALL POEM FORMS OF OTHER PEOPLES

Traditionally, haiku is three lines, 5 + 7 + 5 \u003d 17 syllables. Most haiku have two sentences, 12 + 5 or 5 + 12. These parts are separated by a special dividing word that plays the role of a punctuation mark. Often there are no separating words at all, and the haiku themselves are usually written in Japanese as a single vertical column. In this case, the breakdown is simply implied according to the classical pattern 5 + 7 + 5 (in much the same way as when writing Russian verses into a line, one can assume that rhymed words are at the ends of the lines). In general, being "initial stanzas" by origin, haiku often have an "unfinished form", i.e. do not represent grammatically complete sentences.

Examples:
White Night -
how long does the phone ring
in a neighbor's house

Alexey Andreev

There are clear stars above me
the whole world is sleeping
the two of us look up.

Gazelle (gazelle)

A special poetic form in which the end of each even verse is a repetition of the end of the first verse.
This is a poetic form, which is a small lyric poem (usually love or landscape) in the poetry of the peoples of the East.
The gazelle appeared in the seventh century and was performed to the accompaniment of a string instrument.

Gazelle consists of a number of beits (beit is a couplet consisting of two lines of poetry connected by a single complete thought), of which there are usually no more than 12, with only one rhyme for the entire poem.
Along with rhyme, redif is also used in gazelles (redif is a word or a series of words that repeat after the rhyme and close the line).

This form was especially perfect for the 12th century poet Nizami (1141-1203).

In my heart there is always a bazaar for a sweetheart
From sighs I weaved a cover for the sweetheart.

I melt over sugar lalas, like sugar,
I am ready to drag out a load of fetters for a sweetheart.

The unfaithful one broke her vows
And I already have no words for a sweet ...

The Persian poets Saadi (1184-1291) and Hafiz were also recognized masters of this kind of poetry. (1300-1389).

Ayrens are a monostrophic poetic form of Armenian medieval poetry. Consists of four 15-compound verses. In medieval Armenia airens were performed in song form.

Ayrens are the pinnacle of Armenian love lyrics from the 14th to the 16th centuries, with their roots in folklore. Love, the bitter fate of the wanderer - pandukhta, philosophical reflections are the main motives of the Ayrens, most of them one-sided verses, which are the functional Armenian equivalent of a sonnet. The Ayrens are characterized by the cult of the feeling of love, the worship of the beloved as a shrine. Biblical images and motives are sometimes used, but they are included in the depiction of real love. In many ayrens, there is a departure from the traditionally magnificent description of female beauty and the author's subtle artistic taste is revealed.

With their psychological depth and versatility, the Ayrens have considerably enriched the Armenian love lyrics. The strongest airens in this are poems about suffering, bitterness, separation. The love airens reflected the entire humanism of the poets. The poets' faith in man was so deep that even in their thoughts, betrayal in love was not allowed, which was compared to a snowfall in the middle of summer. Such views on love were in contradiction with the customs of feudal society, which trample on the free feelings of man.

Ayren consists, as a rule, of four fifteen-syllable lines (occasionally five). Each line is clearly divided by the caesura into two half-lines. The two-and three-syllable feet alternate strictly. Thus, the stressed syllables in each line are the 2nd, 5th, 7th, 10th, 12th, 15th syllables. The rhyme is masculine, usually through (the endings of all four lines are consonant). Sometimes there is an additional rhyme: some middle lines, indicated by caesura, rhyme with each other, or with the end of their own or an adjacent line. In accordance with these features, some Russian translators (for example, V.Ya.Bryusov, P.G. Antokolsky, V.K.Zvyagintseva) transmitted airens in quatrains, and some in eight verses.

Examples:

1 You said: "I am yours!" Is this really a lie?
You have repent of love! Or will you find another?
I will be so grief that you will cling to another
And you will press his lips to the traces of my kissing!

2. "You walk high, - say hello to the darling, moon!"
- "Say hello, I'm cute, but I don't know where she is."
- "Do you see the tree in the garden, where is the high wall?
She drinks from a blue bowl under the tree
And in Armenian speech he praises the sweetness of caress and wine. "

Nahapet Kuchak
(XVI century)

Rubai (quatrain)

Rubai is a Persian quatrain. A special genre of poetry is the quatrain with the AABA rhyme scheme. Each of them contains at least a grain of humor and (or) wisdom.
Rubai is an exclusively Persian poetic genre, originally folk, not borrowed from Arabic literature.
Apparently, Rudaki was the first to introduce such quatrains into written poetry. Omar Khayyam approved the internal laws of the rubaiyat, shaped and transformed this form into a new philosophical and aphoristic poetic genre. Each of his quatrains is a small poem. Later, influenced by Persian culture, this genre was adapted and used in other countries.

Examples:
1

Here again the day disappeared, like a light moan of the wind,
From our life, friend, he fell forever.
But as long as I'm alive, I won't worry
About the day that passed away and the day that was not born.

Where do we come from? Where will we make our way?
What is the meaning of our life? He is incomprehensible to us.
How many pure souls under the azure wheel
Burns to ashes, to dust, and where, tell me, is the smoke?

Omar Khayyam (1048-1123).

According to the classical canon, a tanka should consist of two stanzas. The first stanza contains three lines of 5-7-5 syllables, respectively, and the second two lines of 7-7 syllables. The total is 31 syllables. This is about form. We must not forget that the line and the line are different things.
The content should be like this. The first stanza represents a natural image, the second - the feeling or sensation that this image evokes. Or vice versa.

Ah, don't fall asleep
Alone on a cold bed.
And then this rain -
It knocks so that even for a moment
It is impossible to close your eyes.

Akazome-emon
translator: T. Sokolova-Delyusina

I thought everything about him
And I forgot myself by an accidental slumber.
And then she saw him.
Oh, to realize that this is a dream
Would I wake up ?!

Has dissolved in vain
The cherry blossom has passed, -
Oh, my century is short!
Without a century, I look
With a look as long as rain.
Tanka by the poetess Ono no Komachi.
Translator V. Sanovich

Limerick (limrick)

This genre first appeared in England in the 18th century. But already in the 20th century, the original limericks spread throughout Europe.
In Russia, the limerick genre is actively developing thanks to poets - ironists, in particular, Anatoly Belkin, Igor Irtenev, Sergei Satin, Sergei Shorgin, Olga Arefieva and many others.

Traditionally, limerick has five lines, built according to the AABBA scheme, and in the canonical form the end of the last line repeats the end of the first. The plot of the limerick is structured like this: the first line says who and where, in the second - what he did, and then - what came of it. Most often, limerick is written in anapest (1st, 2nd and 5th lines - tricyke, 3rd and 4th - two-foot), less often amphibrach, even less often - dactyl.

Examples of limericks:

Edward Lear (1872)

There was a young person of Ayr.
Whose head was remarkably square: Seemingly perfectly square.
On the top, in fine weather, Whoever met her,
She wore a gold feather; I admired with all my heart:
Which dazzled the people of Ayr. "How nice this lady is!"
Translated by Grigory Kruzhkov (1993)

Anatoly Belkin:

Folketing MP from Denmark
He excelled in Kabbalah and divination
And friends from parliament
Through the pages of the regulations
Predicts the outcome of the meeting.

Folklore genres of oral folk art

Fairy tale
An epic narrative, predominantly of a prosaic nature, with a focus on fiction; reflects the most ancient ideas of the people about life and death, about good and evil; is designed for oral transmission, therefore the same plot has several versions (Kolobok, Linden Leg, Vasilisa the Wise, Fox and Crane, Zayushkina's Hut).

Song
Musical and poetic art form; expresses a certain ideological and emotional attitude to human life (Songs about S. Razin, E. Pugachev)

Small genres of folklore
Riddle
A poetic description of an object or phenomenon based on similarity or contiguity with another object, characterized by brevity, compositional clarity. "Hanging sieve, not twisted by hands" (web).

Proverb
A short figurative, rhythmically organized folk expression, which has the ability to use it in multiple meanings according to the principle of analogy (“Seven do not wait for one”).

Proverb
An expression that figuratively defines the essence of a life phenomenon and gives it an emotional assessment; does not contain a complete thought ("Light in sight").

Patter
A playful expression intentionally built on a combination of words that are difficult to pronounce together
("The Greek rode across the river, sees the Greek cancer in the river, thrust the Greek hand into the river: the cancer by the Greek tsap's hand").

Ditty
A short, rhymed song performed at a fast pace, a quick poetic response to an event of an everyday or social nature.

"I'm going to dance
There's nothing to bite at home
Rusks and crusts
And on the legs there are supports. "
Genrikh Uzhegov

Hello dear readers of the blog site. The question of a genre as a variety of one or another is rather complicated. This term is found in music, painting, architecture, theater, cinema, literature.

Determining the genre of a work is a task that not every student can cope with. Why is genre division necessary at all? Where are the boundaries that separate the novel from the poem, and the story from the story? Let's try to figure it out together.

Genre in literature - what is it

The word "genre" comes from the Latin genus ( species, genus). Literary reference books report that:

genre is a historically developed variety, united by a certain set of formal and substantial features.

The definition shows that in the process of genre evolution, it is important to highlight three points:

each genre of literature has been formed over a long time (each of them has its own history);
the main reason for its appearance is the need to express new ideas in an original way (meaningful criterion);
distinguish external signs help one type of work from another: volume, plot, structure, (formal criterion).

All genres of literature can be represented as follows:

These are three variants of the typology that help to classify the work as one or another genre.

The history of the emergence of genres of literature in Russia

The literature of European countries was formed according to the principle of movement from the general to the particular, from the anonymous to the author's. Artistic creativity both abroad and in Russia was fed by two sources:

spiritual culture, the center of which was monasteries;
folk speech,.

If you look closely at the history of literature in Ancient Rus, you can see how, patericons, the lives of saints and patristic writings, new ones gradually come.

At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries such genres of Old Russian literature, as a word, walking (the ancestor of the travel novel), (everyday "fragment" of a moral parable), a heroic poem, a spiritual verse. Based on oral legends, which stood out separately during the disintegration of the ancient myth into a fairy-tale epic and a realistic military story.

By interacting with foreign written traditions, Russian literature is enriched new genre forms: a novel, a secular philosophical story, an author's tale, and - a lyric poem, a ballad.

The realistic canon brings to life a problem novel, novella, story. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, genres with blurred boundaries become popular again: essay (), essay, small poem, symbolist. Old forms are filled with original meaning, merge into each other, and destroy the set standards.

Dramatic art has a powerful influence on the formation of the genre system. Setting for theatricality changes the appearance of such genres familiar to the average reader as a poem, a story, a short story, and even a small lyric poem (in the era of poets of the "sixties").

IN contemporary literature remains open. The prospect of interaction is outlined not only within certain genres, but also within various types of art. Every year a new genre appears in literature.

Literature on genera and species

The most popular classification breaks down works "by gender" (all of its components are shown in the third column in the figure at the beginning of this publication).

To understand this genre classification, it is necessary to remember that literature, like music, is worth on the "three whales"... These whales, called genera, are in turn divided into species. For clarity, we present this structure in the form of a diagram:

The most ancient "whale" is considered. His progenitor, who fell apart into legend and legend.
appeared when humanity stepped over the stage of collective thinking and turned to the individual experiences of each member of the community. The nature of the lyrics is the author's personal experience.
older than the epic and lyrics. Its appearance is associated with the era of antiquity and the emergence of religious cults - the mysteries. Drama has become an art of the street, a means of releasing collective energy and influencing the masses.

Epic genres and examples of such works

The largest epic forms known to modern times are epic and epic novel. The ancestors of the epic can be considered a saga, widespread in the past among the peoples of Scandinavia, and a legend (for example, the Indian "Legend of Gilgamesh").

Epic Is a multivolume story about the fate of several generations of heroes in historical circumstances and fixed by cultural tradition.

A rich socio-historical background is required, against which the events of the private life of the heroes unfold. For an epic, such characteristics as the multicomponent plot, the connection between generations, the presence of heroes and antiheroes are important.

Since she depicts large-scale events over the centuries, there is rarely a thorough psychological drawing in it, but the epics created in the last few centuries combine these attitudes with achievements contemporary art... The Forsyte Saga by J. Galsworthy not only describes the history of several generations of the Forsyte family, but also provides subtle vivid images of individual characters.

Unlike the epic, epic novel covers a shorter period of time (no more than a hundred years) and tells about 2-3 generations of heroes.

In Russia this genre is represented by the novels "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy, "Quiet Don" by M.A. Sholokhov, "Walking through the agony" by A.N. Tolstoy.

To medium forms epics include a novel and a story.

The term " novel"Comes from the word" Roman "(Roman) and reminds of the antique, which gave birth to this genre.

The example of an antique novel is Petronius's Satyricon. In medieval Europe, a rogue novel is spreading. gives the world a romance journey. Realists develop the genre and fill it with classical content.

At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, the following appear types of novels:

philosophical;
psychological;
social;
intellectual;
historical;
love;
detective;
adventure novel.

IN school curriculum many novels. Citing examples, name the books of I.A. Goncharov "An Ordinary History", "Oblomov", "Break", works by I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons", "The Noble Nest", "On the Eve", "Smoke", "Nov". The genre "Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov" by FM Dostoevsky is also a novel.

Story does not affect the fate of generations, but has several storylines developing against the background of one historical event.

"The Captain's Daughter" A. S. Pushkin and "The Overcoat" N. In. Gogol. V.G. Belinsky spoke about the primacy of narrative literature in the culture of the 19th century.

Small epic forms (story, essay, short story, essay) have one storyline, a limited number of characters and are characterized by a short volume.

For example, the stories by A. Gaidar or Yu. Kazakov, the short stories by E. Po, essays by V.G. Korolenko or an essay by V. Wulf. Let's make a reservation, sometimes it "works" as a genre of scientific style or journalism, but has artistic imagery.

Lyric genres

Large lyrical forms represented by a poem and a wreath of sonnets. The first is more story-driven, which makes it akin to an epic. The second is static. In a wreath of sonnets, consisting of 15 14 lines, a topic and the author's impressions of it are described.

In Russia, poems are of a socio-historical nature. "The Bronze Horseman" and "Poltava" by A.S. Pushkin, "Mtsyri" M.Yu. Lermontov, "Who Lives Well in Russia" by N.A. Nekrasov, "Requiem" by A.A. Akhmatova - all these poems lyrically describe Russian life and national characters.

Small forms of lyrics are numerous. This is a poem, canzona, sonnet, epitaph, fable, madrigal, rondo, triolet. Some forms originated in medieval Europe (the lyric poetry in Russia especially fell in love with the sonnet genre), some (for example, the ballad) became the legacy of the German romantics.

Traditionally small poetic works are usually divided into 3 types:

philosophical lyrics;
love lyrics;
landscape lyrics.

Recently, urban lyrics have also emerged as a separate subspecies.

Dramatic genres

Drama gives us three classic genres:

comedy;
tragedy;
the drama itself.

All three types of performing arts originated in ancient Greece.

Comedy was originally associated with religious cults of purification, mysteries, during which a carnival action unfolded on the streets. The sacrificial goat "comos" walking along the streets with the artists, later called the "scapegoat", symbolized all human vices. According to the canon, comedy should make fun of them.

Comedy is the genre "Woe from Wit" by A.S. Griboyedov and "The Minor" by D.I. Fonvizin.

There are 2 types of comedy: comedy provisions and comedy characters... The first played with circumstances, passed off one hero for another, had an unexpected outcome. The second pushed the characters against an idea or task, creating a theatrical conflict on which the intrigue was held.

If during a comedy the playwright was expecting the healing laugh of the crowd, then tragedy made it her task to cause tears. She was obliged to end with the death of the hero. Empathizing with heroes, spectator or cleansing.

"Romeo and Juliet" and "Hamlet" by William Shakespeare were written in the genre of tragedy.

Actually drama - This is a later invention of drama, removing therapeutic tasks and making an installation for subtle psychologism, objectivity, play.

Definition of the genre of a literary work

How was the poem "Eugene Onegin" called a novel? Why did Gogol define Dead Souls as a poem? And why is Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" a comedy? Genre notations are clues that remind you that the art world has the right direction, but luckily there are no beaten paths forever.

Above is a video that helps determine the genre of a particular literary work.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

Literary genres and their definitions

Definition of genres by form:

A novel is an extensive narrative in prose, reflecting the events of any period of time, with a detailed description of the life of the main characters and all other characters who, to one degree or another, participate in these events.

A story is a form of narration that does not have a certain volume. The work usually describes episodes from real life, and the characters are presented to the reader as an integral part of the events taking place.

The story (short story) is a widespread genre of short prose, is defined as "short story". Since the format of the story is limited in length, the writer usually manages to unfold the narrative within the framework of one event with the participation of two or three characters. An exception to this rule was the great Russian writer Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who could describe the events of an entire era with many characters in several pages.

The essay is a literary quintessence that combines the artistic style of storytelling and elements of journalism. It is always presented in a concise form with a high content of specificity. The subject of the essay, as a rule, is associated with social and social problems and is of an abstract nature, i.e. does not affect specific individuals.

The play is a special literary genre designed for a wide audience. Plays are written for the theater stage, television and radio performances. Structurally, the plays are more like a story, since the duration theatrical performances fits perfectly with a medium-sized story. The genre of the play differs from other literary genres in that the story is told from the perspective of each character. The text contains dialogues and monologues.

Oda is a lyrical literary genre, in all cases of positive or laudatory content. Dedicated to something or someone, often a verbal monument to heroic events or feats of patriotic citizens.

An epic is a narrative of an extensive character, which includes several stages of state development that are of historical importance. The main features of this literary genre are global events of an epic nature. The epic can be written both in prose and in verse, an example of this is Homer's poem "The Odyssey" and "Iliad".

An essay is a short piece of prose in which the author expresses his own thoughts and views in an absolutely free form. An essay is to some extent an abstract work that does not claim to be completely authentic. In some cases, essays are written with a grain of philosophy, sometimes the work has a scientific connotation. But in any case, this literary genre deserves attention.

Detectives and fiction

Detectives are a literary genre based on the eternal confrontation between police and criminals, the stories and stories of this genre are of an action-packed nature, murders take place in almost every detective story, after which experienced detectives begin an investigation.

Science fiction is a distinct literary genre with fictional characters, events and an unpredictable ending. In most cases, the action takes place either in space or in underwater depths. But at the same time, the heroes of the work are equipped with ultra-modern machines and devices of fantastic power and efficiency.

Is it possible to combine genres in literature

All of these types of literary genres have unique characteristics of distinction. However, there is often a mixture of several genres in one work. If this is done professionally, a rather interesting, unusual creation is born. Thus, the genres of literary creativity contain a significant potential for the renewal of literature. But these opportunities should be used carefully and thoughtfully, since literature does not tolerate profanity.

Genres of literary works by content

Each literary work is classified according to its belonging to a certain type: drama, tragedy, comedy.

What comedies are

Comedies come in many different types and styles:

Farce is a light comedy based on elementary comic techniques. It is found both in literature and on the stage. Farce as a special comedic style is used in circus clownery.
Vaudeville is a comedy play with many dance numbers and songs. In the USA, vaudeville became the prototype of the musical, in Russia small comic operas were called vaudeville.
An interlude is a small comic scene that was acted out between the actions of the main play, performance or opera.
Parody is a comedic technique based on the repetition of recognizable features of famous literary characters, texts or music in a deliberately modified form.

Contemporary genres in literature

Types of literary genres:

Epic - fable, myth, ballad, epic, fairy tale.
Lyric - stanzas, elegy, epigram, message, poem.

Modern literary genres are periodically updated, over the past decades, several new directions in literature have appeared, such as political detective, psychology of war, and paperback literature, which includes all literary genres.

Over the millennia of cultural development, humanity has created countless literary works, among which some basic types can be distinguished, similar in the way and form of reflection of a person's ideas about the world around him. These are three kinds (or types) of literature: epic, drama, lyrics.

What is the difference between each type of literature?

Epic as a kind of literature

Epos(epos - Greek, narration, story) is an image of events, phenomena, processes external to the author. Epic works reflect the objective course of life, human being in general. Using various artistic means, the authors of epic works express their understanding of the historical, socio-political, moral, psychological and many other problems that human society in general and each of its representatives in particular lives with. Epic works have significant pictorial capabilities, thereby helping the reader to learn about the world around him, to comprehend the deep problems of human existence.

Drama as a kind of literature

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

Associated with this features of dramatic works :

2) the text of the play consists of the conversations of the characters: their monologues (the speech of one character), dialogues (the conversation of two characters), polylogs (the simultaneous exchange of replicas of several participants in the action). That is why the speech characteristic is one of the most important means of creating a memorable character of the hero;

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

Lyrics as a kind of literature

Lyrics (lyra - Greek, a musical instrument, to the accompaniment of which poetic works, songs were performed) is distinguished by a special type of construction of an artistic image - it is an image-experience in which the individual emotional and spiritual experience of the author is embodied. Lyrics can be called the most mysterious kind of literature, because it is addressed to the inner world of a person, his subjective sensations, ideas, ideas. In other words, a lyric work primarily serves the individual self-expression of the author. The question arises: why readers, i.e. other people refer to such works? The thing is that the lyricist, speaking on his own behalf and about himself, surprisingly 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, species) is a historically developed type of literary works that has similar typological features. The names of genres help the reader navigate the boundless sea of \u200b\u200bliterature: someone loves detective stories, another prefers fantasy, and the third is 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 of the author's definitions seem unexpected to us: remember that A.P. Chekhov emphasized that "The Cherry Orchard" is a comedy, and not a drama at all, but A.I. Solzhenitsyn regarded One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich as a story, not a story. Some literary critics 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, even 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 XX century literary critics agreed to call the brilliant creation of L.N. Tolstoy's epic novel.

Each literary genre has a number of stable features, the knowledge of which allows us to assign a particular work to one or another group. Genres develop, change, die off and are born, for example, literally before our very eyes, a new genre of blog (web loq) - a personal Internet diary - has emerged.

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

Literature literary works - see table 1).

Table 1.

Genres of literary works

Epic genres of literature

Epic genres primarily differ in volume, according to this criterion they are divided into small ( sketch, story, short story, fairy tale, parable ), average ( story ), large ( novel, epic novel ).

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

Story - a small narrative genre, which usually depicts one episode, an incident, a human character, or an important incident in the life of the hero that influenced his further destiny ("After the Ball" by L. Tolstoy). The stories are created both on a documentary, often autobiographical basis ("Matryonin Dvor" by A. Solzhenitsyn), and thanks to pure fiction ("The Lord from San Francisco" by I. Bunin).

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

Novella (novella ital. news) is in many ways akin to a story and is considered a kind of it, but it is distinguished by a special dynamism of the narrative, sharp and often unexpected turns in the development of events. Quite often the narrative in a novel begins with the ending, is built according to the law of inversion, i.e. the reverse order, when the denouement precedes the main events ("Terrible revenge" by N. Gogol). This feature of the construction of the novel will later be borrowed by the detective genre.

The word "novel" has another meaning that future lawyers need to know. In ancient Rome, the phrase "novellae leges" (new laws) was the name given to laws introduced after the official codification of law (after the release of the Code of Theodosius II in 438). The novels of Justinian and his successors, published after the second edition of the Code of Justinian, later formed part of the corpus of Roman laws (Corpus iuris civillis). In the modern era, a novel is called a law submitted to parliament (in other words, a draft law).

Fairy tale - the oldest of the small epic genres, one of the main in the oral work of any nation. This is a small work of a magical, adventurous or everyday character, where fiction is clearly emphasized. Another important feature of a folk tale is its edifying nature: "A fairy tale is a lie, but it contains a hint, a lesson for good fellows." It is customary to divide folk tales into magic ("The Tale of the Frog Princess"), everyday ("Porridge from the Ax") and tales about animals ("Zayushkina's hut").

With the development of written literature, literary tales appear in which traditional motives and symbolic possibilities are used. folk tale... 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 tales are not only extraordinary, and sometimes even strange adventures of heroes, they contain a deep philosophical and moral meaning, enclosed in beautiful symbolic images.

From the European literary tales of the 20th century, The Little Prince (1942) by the French writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery has become a classic. 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 JR Tolkien, are written in the fantasy genre, which can be called a modern transformation of an ancient folk tale.

In Russian literature, the tales of A.S. Pushkin: "About the 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." The replacement storyteller was P. Ershov, the author of The Little Humpbacked Horse. E. Schwartz in the XX century creates the form of a fairy tale play, 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, in contrast to the fairy tale, the parables contained written monuments: the Talmud, the Bible, the Koran, a monument of Syrian literature "Teaching to Akhara". A parable is an instructive, symbolic work, distinguished by its sublimity and seriousness of content. Ancient parables, as a rule, are small in volume, they do not contain a detailed story about the events or psychological characteristics of the character of the hero.

The purpose of the parable is edification or, as they once said, the teaching of 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 unrighteous judge, about the insane rich man and others. Christ often spoke allegorically to his disciples, and if they did not understand the meaning of the parable, he explained it.

Many writers turned to the genre of the parable, not always, of course, putting a high religious meaning into it, but rather trying to express some moralistic edification in an allegorical form, as, for example, L. Tolstoy in his later work. Carry it. V. Rasputin - Farewell to Mother ”can also be called a detailed parable in which the writer speaks with alarm and sorrow about the destruction of the“ ecology of conscience ”of a person. The story “The Old Man and the Sea” by E. Hemingway is also considered by many critics to be a literary parable tradition. The famous modern Brazilian writer Paulo Coelho also uses the parable form in his novels and stories (the novel "Alchemist").

Story - an average literary genre, widely represented in world literature. The story depicts several important episodes from the life of the hero, as a rule, one storyline and a small number of characters. The stories are characterized by great psychological saturation, the author focuses on the experiences and changes in the moods of the characters. Often the main theme the story becomes the love of the protagonist, for example, "White Nights" by F. Dostoevsky, "Asya" by I. Turgenev, "Mitya's Love" by I. Bunin. Novels 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 differ in a huge variety: tragic, addressing acute social and moral issues (“Everything flows” by V. Grossman, “House on the Embankment” by Y. Trifonov), romantic, heroic (“Taras Bulba” by N. Gogol), philosophical , parable ("The Pit" by A. Platonov), mischievous, comic ("Three in a boat, not counting the dog" by the English writer Jerome K. Jerome).

Novel (French gotap. Initially, in the late Middle Ages, any work written in the Romance language, as opposed to those written in Latin) is a major epic work in which the narrative is focused on the fate of an individual person. The novel is the most complex epic genre, which is distinguished by an incredible number of themes and plots: love, historical, detective, psychological, fantastic, historical, autobiographical, social, philosophical, satirical, etc. All these forms and types of the novel are united by its central idea - the idea of \u200b\u200ba person's personality, individuality.

The novel is called the epic of private life, because it depicts the diverse connections between the world and man, society and personality. 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 affects a person's character, how he is formed, how his life develops, whether he managed to find his purpose and realize himself.

The origin of the genre is attributed by many to antiquity, this is "Daphnis and Chloe" by Long, "The Golden Donkey" by Apuleius, the knightly novel "Tristan and Isolde".

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

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

Famous Russian novels writers XIX in .:

In the 20th century, Russian writers develop and multiply the traditions of their great predecessors and create equally wonderful novels:

Of course, none of these enumerations can claim completeness and exhaustive objectivity, especially in contemporary prose. In this case, the most famous works are named, which glorified both the country's literature and the name of the writer.

Epic novel... In ancient times, there were forms of 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 in an idealized, often exaggerated form, the hero's feats were magnified. Later epic poems "Iliad" and "Odyssey" by Homer, "Shah-name" by Ferdowsi, retaining the mythological character of the early epic, nevertheless, had a pronounced connection with real story, and the theme of the intertwining of human fate 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 XIX-XX centuries, when writers will try to comprehend the dramatic relationship between the era and the individual personality, tell about what tests morality, and sometimes the human psyche, is subjected to at the time of the greatest historical upheavals. Let us recall the lines of F. Tyutchev: "Blessed is he who visited this world in its fateful moments." The poet's romantic formula in reality meant the destruction of all habitual forms of life, tragic losses and unrealized dreams.

The complex form of the epic novel allows writers to artistically explore these problems in their entirety and contradictions.

When we talk about the genre of an epic novel, of course, we immediately recall "War and Peace" by L. Tolstoy. Other examples can be named: "Quiet Don" by M. Sholokhov, "Life and Fate" by V. Grossman, "The Forsyte Saga" by the English writer Galsworthy; the book of the American writer Margaret Mitchell "Gone with the Wind" can also be considered with great reason to this genre.

The name of the genre itself indicates a synthesis, a combination of two basic principles in it: the novel and the epic, i.e. associated with 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 fates of the heroes (as a rule, the heroes themselves and their fates are fictional, invented by the author) against the background and in close connection with epoch-making historical events. So, in "War and Peace" - these are the fates of individual families (Rostovs, Bolkonskys), beloved heroes (Prince Andrei, Pierre Bezukhov, Natasha and Princess Marya) in the historical period of the beginning of the 19th century, the Patriotic War of 1812, a turning point for Russia and all Europe ... In Sholokhov's book - the events of the First World War, two revolutions and a bloody civil war tragically invade the life of a Cossack farm, the Melekhov family, the fate of the main characters: Grigory, Aksinya, Natalia. V. Grossman talks about the Great Patriotic War and its main event - the Battle of Stalingrad, about the tragedy of the Holocaust. Historical and family themes are also intertwined in Life and Fate: the author traces the history of the Shaposhnikovs, trying to understand why the fates of the members of this family have developed so differently. Galsworthy describes the life of the Forsyte family during the legendary Victorian era in England. Margaret Mitchell is the central event in the history of the United States, the Civil War between North and South, which drastically 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 (Greek tragodia 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 magic games were played with mummers, satyrs, whom the ancient Greeks represented in the form of two-legged goat-like creatures. It is assumed that it was precisely this appearance of the satyrs who performed hymns to the glory of Dionysus that gave such a strange name to this serious genre in translation. Theatrical performance in Ancient Greece was given a magical religious significance, and theaters, built in the form of large open-air arenas, were always 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 presented show. The heyday of the ancient Greek tragedy is 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) - the author of "King Oedipus", "Antigone", etc .; and Euripides (480-406 BC) - the creator of "Medea", "Troyanok" and others. Their creations will remain examples of the genre for centuries, they will try to imitate them, but they will remain unsurpassed. Some of them ("Antigone", "Medea") are staged on the stage 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 a person, his will, free choice, on the other. In the tragedies of later eras, this conflict took on 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, compromise, and therefore there are often many deaths at the end of the tragedy. This is how the tragedies of the great English playwright William Shakespeare (1564-1616) are constructed, let us recall 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, Polyeuct) and Racine (Andromache, Britannica), this conflict received a different interpretation - as a conflict of duty and feeling, rational and emotional in the souls of the protagonists, that is ... acquired a psychological interpretation.

The most famous in Russian literature is the romantic tragedy "Boris Godunov" by A.S. Pushkin, based on historical material. In one of his best works, the poet sharply raised the problem of the "real trouble" of the Moscow state - a chain reaction of impostors 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, and discussions continue to this day about what Pushkin wanted to say. The opera of the same name by M.P. Mussorgsky was written based on the tragedy, which became a masterpiece of Russian opera classics.

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

In comedy with satire and humor, i.e. comic, moral vices are ridiculed: hypocrisy, stupidity, greed, envy, cowardice, self-righteousness. Comedies are usually topical, i.e. addressing social issues, exposing the shortcomings of the authorities. Distinguish between sitcoms and comedies of characters. In the first, the cunning intrigue, the chain of events ("The Comedy of Errors" by Shakespeare) are important, in the second - the characters of the heroes, their absurdity, one-sidedness, as in the comedies "The Minor" by D. Fonvizin, "Bourgeois in the Nobility", "Tartuffe", belonging to the classics genre, by the 17th century French comedy writer Jean Baptiste Moliere. In Russian drama, the satirical comedy with its sharp social criticism, such as, for example, "The Inspector General" by N. Gogol, "Crimson Island" by M. Bulgakov, turned out to be especially in demand. Many wonderful comedies were created by A. Ostrovsky ("Wolves and Sheep", "Forest", "Mad Money", etc.).

The comedy genre is invariably popular 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, 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, it is also the most literary of the stage genres, for example, A. Chekhov's plays are largely perceived more as texts for reading, and not as theatrical performances.

Lyric genres of literature

The division into genres in the lyrics is not absolute, since 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, you can name some genres that have pronounced individual characteristics: elegy, sonnet, epigram, message, epitaph.

Elegy(elegos Greek, plaintive song) - poem middle length, as a rule, moral-philosophical, love, confessional content.

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

The longed-for moment has come: my work of many years is over, Why is an incomprehensible sadness secretly disturbing me?

A. Pushkin

In the poetry of the 19th-20th centuries, division into couplets is no longer such a strict requirement, now semantic features that are associated with the origin of the genre are more significant. Essentially, the elegy goes back to the form of the Ancient funeral "lamentations", in which, while mourning the deceased, at the same time recalled his extraordinary merits. This origin predetermined the main feature of the elegy - the combination of sorrow with faith, regret with hope, acceptance of being through sorrow. 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 faded fun

It's hard for me like a vague hangover.

But like wine is the sadness of days gone by

In my soul, the older the stronger.

My path is dull. Promises me labor and sorrow

The coming agitated sea.

But I don’t want to die, oh friends;

I want to live in order to think and suffer;

And I know I will enjoy

Between sorrows, worries and worries:

Sometimes I'll revel in harmony again,

I will shed tears over fiction,

And maybe - to my sad sunset

Love will shine with a farewell smile.

Sonnet (sonetto ital. song) - the so-called "solid" poetic form, which has strict rules of construction. The sonnet has 14 lines, divided into two quatrains (quatrains) and two three verses (tercets). In quatrains, only two rhymes are repeated, in tercets, 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 coryphaeus of the genre is the 14th century Italian poet Petrarch. He dedicated all his sonnets to his beloved Donna Laura.

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

Epigram (Greek epigramma, inscription) is 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 around for A.S. Pushkin's hatred of this nobleman and, ultimately, the expulsion from Odessa to Mikhailovskoe:

Popu-my lord, half-merchant,

Half-sage, half-ignorant,

Half-scoundrel, but there is hope

That will be complete at last.

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

Could Biche like Dante create,

Went Laura to glorify 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. Horses were appointed to the Senate, ill-wishers extended an evil epigram to him:

Caligula brought a horse to the Senate,

It stands, dressed in velvet and gold.

But I will say, we have the same arbitrariness:

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

To which A.F. Koni, who was distinguished by his outstanding literary talent, replied:

(Greek epitafia, tombstone) - a poem-farewell to a deceased person, intended for a tombstone. Initially, this word was used in a literal sense, but later acquired a more figurative meaning. For example, I. Bunin has a lyrical miniature in prose "Epitaph", dedicated to parting with the road for the writer, but forever receding into the past Russian estate. Gradually, the epitaph is transformed into a dedication poem, a farewell poem (“Wreath for 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 M. Lermontov's Epitaph dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Venevitinov, a poet and philosopher who died at the age of twenty-two.

Lyro-epic genres of literature

There are works in which some features of lyrics and epics are combined, as evidenced by the very name of this group of genres. Their main feature is the combination of the narrative, i.e. a story about events, with the transfer of feelings and experiences of the author. It is customary to refer to lyric-epic genres poem, ode, ballad, fable .

Poem (poeo Greek. I create I create) is a very famous literary genre. The word "poem" has many meanings, both direct and figurative. In ancient times, poems were called large epic works, which today are considered epics (the poems of Homer already mentioned above).

In the literature of the XIX-XX centuries, a poem is a large poetic work with a detailed plot, for which it is sometimes called a poetic story. The poem has characters, a plot, but their purpose is somewhat different than in a prosaic story: in the poem they help the lyrical self-expression of the author. This is probably why the romantic poets loved this genre so much (Ruslan and Lyudmila early Pushkin, "Mtsyri" and "Demon" by M. Lermontov, "A Cloud in Pants" by V. Mayakovsky).

Oh yeah (oda Greek song) - a genre represented mainly in the literature of the 18th century, although it also has an ancient origin. The ode goes back to the ancient genre of dithyramba - a hymn glorifying a national hero or winner of the Olympic Games, i.e. an outstanding person.

Poets of the 18th-19th centuries created odes on various occasions. This could have been an appeal to the monarch: M. Lomonosov dedicated his odes to Empress Elizabeth, G. Derzhavin to Catherine P. Glorifying their deeds, the poets simultaneously taught the empresses and inspired them with important political and civic ideas.

Significant historical events could also be the subject of glorification and admiration in an ode. G. Derzhavin after the capture of the Russian army under the command of A.V. Suvorov's Turkish fortress Izmail wrote the ode "Thunder of victory, sound!", Which for some time was the unofficial anthem of the Russian Empire. There was a kind of spiritual ode: “Morning Meditation on God's Greatness” by M. Lomonosov, “God” by G. Derzhavin. Civil, political ideas could also become the basis of the ode ("Liberty" by A. Pushkin).

This genre has a pronounced didactic nature; it can be called a poetic sermon. Therefore, it is distinguished by the solemnity of syllable and speech, the unhurried narrative. An example is the famous excerpt from "Ode on the day of her Majesty Empress Elizabeth Petrovna's accession to the All-Russian throne in 1747" by M. Lomonosov, written in the year when Elizabeth approved the new charter of the Academy of Sciences, significantly increasing funds for its maintenance. The main thing for the great Russian encyclopedist is the enlightenment of the young generation, the development of science and education, which, in the poet's conviction, will become the guarantee of Russia's prosperity.

Ballad (balare provence - dance) was especially popular in the early 19th century, in sentimental and romantic poetry. This genre originated in French Provence as a folk dance of love content with obligatory choruses-repetitions. Then the ballad migrated to England and Scotland, where it acquired new features: now it is a heroic song with a legendary plot and heroes, for example, the famous ballads about Robin Hood. The only thing that remains unchanged is the presence of refrains (repetitions), which will be important for ballads written later.

The poets of the 18th and early 19th centuries fell in love with the ballad for its special expressiveness. If we use an analogy with epic genres, the ballad can be called a poetic novella: it requires an unusual love, legendary, heroic plot that captures the imagination. Often, fantastic, even mystical images and motives are used in ballads: let us recall the famous "Lyudmila" and "Svetlana" by V. Zhukovsky. No less famous are A. Pushkin's "Song of the Prophetic Oleg", M. Lermontov's "Borodino".

In Russian lyric poetry of the 20th century, a ballad is a romantic love poem, often accompanied by musical accompaniment. Ballads are especially popular in "bardic" poetry, the anthem of which can be called the ballad of Yuri Vizbor, beloved by many.

Fable (basnia lat. story) - a short story in verse or prose of a didactic, satirical nature. Elements of this genre have been present in the folklore of all peoples since ancient times as tales about animals, and then transformed into anecdotes. The literary fable took shape in Ancient Greece, its founder is Aesop (V century BC), after his name the allegorical speech began to be called "Aesopian language". In a fable, as a rule, there are two parts: a plot and a moralizing one. The first contains a story about some funny or ridiculous incident, the second - morality, a lesson. The heroes of fables are often animals, under the masks of which there are quite recognizable moral and social vices that are ridiculed. The great fabulists were Lafontaine (France, XVII century), Lessing (Germany, XVIII century) In Russia, I.A. Krylov (1769-1844). The main advantage of his fables is a living, folk language, a combination in the author's intonation of cunning and wisdom. The plots and images of many of I. Krylov's fables look quite recognizable even today.