Fantasy is one of the most popular genres of our time. Its manifestations can be found in literature, music, painting, cinema, dramaturgy. This genre is loved by representatives of all ages: children - for a fabulous, magical plot, adults - for hidden meanings and ideas, the opportunity to escape from everyday life. In order to understand its significance in the modern world, one should first study its features and sources of formation.
The concept of genre in modern literary criticism
In modern literary criticism there is no single definition of the concept of "genre", as well as a single classification. The problem is in the focus of attention of scientists, to designate the science of literary types and genres, even (and without even) the term "genology" came into use (Paul Van Tiegem, 1920). Let us consider the dynamics of solving this problem in Russian literary criticism.
Belinsky was the first to raise this problem in the article "The Division of Poetry into Genus and Types"; there is no need to outline it, but if you are talking about the history of the issue, then start with Beklinsky and briefly in your own words what he wrote about.
Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky (1836-1906) was engaged in the study of the relationship "content - form". In "Historical Poetics", the scientist asserts the commonality and continuity of the elements of form among different peoples in different historical periods. The content that fills these forms is different at each historical moment, it renews and brings certain forms to life. New forms are not created, innovation is manifested in combinations of new contents and existing elements of forms, the latter, in turn, are a product of the primitive collective psyche. According to Veselovsky's doctrine of syncretism, the prototypes of literary genres were in a mixed state within the framework of ritual actions connecting songs and dances. Genres at this moment are inseparable from each other; over time, they are one by one separated from the rite and develop independently. Veselovsky writes about the criteria for delimiting the types of literature, but the criteria for delimiting the content are related to genres. The content of childbirth, the researcher sees different stages of the relationship between man and society, highlighting three stages, correlated with three types of literature:
1) "a common mental and moral outlook, the non-identification of the individual in the conditions of the clan, tribe, squad" (epos);
2) "the progress of the individual on the basis of a group movement", isolation within the framework of estates (ancient Greek and medieval lyrics, ancient Greek and chivalric romance);
3) "the general recognition of a person", the fall of the class and the assertion of a personal principle (short story and novel of the Renaissance) [Veselovsky, 1913].
The indicated stages are stable, since they change only with the change of epochs, and have content in the relationship between man and society. According to V.M. Zhirmunsky, Veselovsky wrote "Historical Poetics" as a "history of the genre" [Zhirmunsky, 1978 - p.224].
For the first time, speech genres became an object of study in the works of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) in the 1930s and 40s. "It was MM Bakhtin who helped to realize that genre studies are the fundamental, basic area of the science of literature" [Golovko, 2009]. In the article "The Problem of Speech Genres", Bakhtin argues that a person uses language in the form of statements, which, being specific and individual, nevertheless combine into relatively stable types depending on the areas in which they are used. The sphere of communication determines the content, language style and composition of the statement (depending on the purpose and conditions of the sphere of communication). Utterances are thus grouped into a set of types which Bakhtin designates as "speech genres". The researcher notes the heterogeneity and diversity of genres within each area and in connection with the multiplicity of areas of communication; within spoken and written language. Bakhtin identifies primary, or simple, and secondary, or complex, speech genres. Primary genres are formed within the framework of actual speech communication and then enter, transforming, into the structure of secondary genres organized on the basis of a highly developed society (such as novels, dramas, scientific research, and so on).
The boundaries of an utterance are outlined by a change in the subjects of speech, as well as integrity, which is determined by "subject-semantic exhaustion, speech intent or speech will of the speaker, as well as typical compositional-genre forms of completion" [Bakhtin, 1996]. The features of these characteristics, in turn, determine the style of the utterance. Statements of a certain speech genre are filled with certain lexical units peculiar to the genre.
Bakhtin spoke about the dialogism of genres, this applied both to primary genres that actually exist in the process of communication, and to secondary ones. On the one hand, the choice of literary (secondary) genres is dictated to the author by the characteristics of the era in which the work was created and the audience for which it is intended. On the other hand, "genre expectation" implies a set of reader requirements for works of different genres. Thus, genres are formed and exist within the framework of dialogue.
In opposition to Yu. Tynyanov, who argued that the system of genres would change with the change of the historical epoch due to the leading role of the author's individuality, Bakhtin considered the genre to be the most stable structure over time.
Boris Viktorovich Tomashevsky (1890-1957) defined the concept of genre as follows: "special classes<…>works, characterized by the fact that in the techniques of each genre we observe a grouping of techniques specific to this genre around these tangible techniques, or features of the genre. "The subject, motivation for leading topics, as well as the form of speech - poetic or prosaic - determine the belonging of the work to a particular genre. Compositional techniques Tomashevsky recognizes as dominating over all other techniques, together they give the definition of the genre, and are therefore called "dominant" [Tomashevsky, 1999 - p. [Tomashevsky, 1999 - p.146]. Such "diversity", according to the scientist, does not allow genres to be classified according to common grounds. At best, it is possible to subdivide into dramatic, lyrical and narrative genres. A genre can evolve and change quite significantly, growing with new works, moving further and further away from the original canon a. The genre can break up into new ones. In general, there is a gradual transition from low genres to high genres.
E.S. Babkina notes that with the genetic approach - considering the genre as a dynamic developing system - it becomes impossible to completely correlate the genres of different historical eras, since at a certain period the genre carries both "dying" features that cease to be essential, and new ones that are not yet significant. become. However, different genres are at different stages of development. As V.E. Khalizev, the time of existence of genres is not the same: some, like, for example, a fable, exist for many centuries, while others arise and cease to exist within the framework of one historical period [Khalizev, 1999].
Viktor Maksimovich Zhirmunsky (1891-1971) pointed out the equivalence of thematic (substantial) and compositional characteristics in distinguishing between genres, as well as, in some cases, the importance of style components in this issue. At the same time, the relationship between these characteristics is unstable, historically determined. Recognizing that genres have typical features, Zhirmunsky suggested studying not the most striking creations of epochs, but the most massive ones, which should contain the most typical for the genre in a particular period: "... it is the secondary poets who create the literary "tradition". great literary work into genre features…" [Zhirmunsky, 1978 - p.226]. In each historical epoch, certain patterns are formed that are characteristic of specific genres, and these patterns are created from minor authors from the most striking manifestations of prominent authors. The scientist notes the possibility of mutual influence of genres, including new and half-forgotten ones, and as a result, the "rejuvenation" of the latter by enriching them with the patterns of the former. By the end of the literary epoch, the boundaries of the accepted genre are “loosened”, boundary genres arise as a result of the exhaustion of patterns and attempts to go beyond them.
According to Gennady Nikolaevich Pospelov (1899-1992), genres do not exist in isolation, but in a system. "Without comparing some genres with others, it is difficult to find out the originality of each of them" [Pospelov, 1978 - p.232]. D.S. was the first to draw attention to this circumstance. Likhachev, explaining the systemic nature by the mutual influences of genres and the common causes that provoke their emergence.
According to Pospelov, genres are repeated during different historical eras, and since the formal features of the same genre are different in different eras, one should pay attention to the content aspect. Agreeing with Veselovsky on the issue of the origin of genres from primitive folklore, Pospelov reproaches him for excluding the prose genre of primitive fairy tales from the field of view. He also uses separate names of genres as names of genre forms - such as epic, fairy tale, story, song, poem, fable, ballad, plays and poems, since the content aspect in these forms can be completely different.
The division into literary genres and genres, according to Pospelov, is carried out for various reasons. He derives genre groups based on the content aspect, each of which includes genres of all three kinds of literature.
Moses Samoylovich Kagan (1921 - 2006) in his work "Morphology of Art" classified genres according to four parameters, arguing that the more grounds for classification, the more complete description of genres is possible. He described the genres in the following aspects:
1) thematic (plot-thematic) (for example, genres of love or civil lyrics);
2) cognitive capacity (story, story, novel);
3) axiological aspect (for example, tragedy or comedy);
4) the type of models created (documentary / fiction, and so on) [Kagan 1972].
Lilia Valentinovna Chernets (1940) points to the reader's typical genre expectations, which, due to differences in genre features in different eras, are also different. Due to the specificity of reader's expectations, a large volume of literary genres arises. Chernets sees the function of the genre in the classification and indication of the literary tradition. Works belonging to different kinds of literature may, nevertheless, belong to the same genre. Such criteria as the pathos of the work and "repeating features of the problematic" allow them to be combined within the framework of one genre. However, belonging to a particular genus is also a criterion for distinguishing between genres. Following G.N. Pospelov, L.V. Chernets adheres to the understanding of the genre as primarily a content structure.
The formal concept of the genre, as opposed to the substantive one, sees the genre as an established type of text structure (including composition and non-plot elements). N. Stepanov, G. Gachev, V. Kozhinov adhered to this position. The genre form is dictated by tradition and the author's idiostyle. The discussion about whether form or content is decisive in the concept of genre is still ongoing.
In addition to the fact that, as noted above, genres form a system, each genre is itself a system, where the core is made up of essential features, and the periphery - variable.
Summarizing the considered features of the genre, it seems appropriate to propose a definition of a genre as a subtype of a kind of literature, characterized by the presence of relatively stable and different from other genres typical formal and content properties, determined by tradition, reader's expectation and author's attitude.
Thus, with all the variety of approaches, the following understanding of the genre has developed in Russian literary criticism. A genre is a specific type of literary work. The main genres can be considered epic, lyrical and dramatic, but it is more correct to apply this term to their individual varieties, such as, for example, an adventure novel, a clownish comedy, etc. Every literary genre, possessing only its inherent features, has gone and is going through certain paths in its development, why one of the main tasks of both theoretical and historical poetics is, on the one hand, the clarification of these features, and on the other, the study of their states in different eras due to their evolution
In modern literary criticism, in the presence of different concepts and approaches to the definition of a genre, a general classification of literary genres has developed:
1. in form (ode, story, play, novel, story, etc.);
2. by birth:
epic (fable, story, myth, etc.);
lyrical (ode, elegy, etc.);
lyric-epic (ballad and poem);
dramatic (comedy, tragedy, drama).
In popular literature, such genres as detective, action novel, fantasy, historical adventure novel, popular song, women's novel can be distinguished. The issue of genre is relevant here as well. Let's take a closer look at the classification of fantasy genres.
Elena Afanasyeva in her article "Fantasy Genre: The Problem of Classification" [Afanas'yeva, 2007 - p.86-93] combines the classifications of other authors and creates her own, most general and complete: epic fantasy, dark fantasy, mythological fantasy, mystical fantasy, romantic fantasy , historical fantasy, urban fantasy, heroic fantasy, humorous fantasy and parody, science fantasy, techno-fantasy, Christian or sacred fantasy, philosophical thriller, children's and women's fantasy. This will be discussed in more detail in the next paragraph.
Apr 16 2010
To this day, the problem of developing the theory of genres is considered the most difficult in literary criticism. This is due to the fact that the understanding of the genre by different researchers differs radically from each other. At the same time, everyone recognizes this category as central, the most general, universal, and at the same time quite specific. The genre reflects the features of a wide variety of artistic methods, schools, trends in literature, and it also receives its direct reflection of literary. Without knowledge of the laws of the genre, it is impossible to assess the individual artistic merits of this or that writer. Therefore, literary criticism pays more and more attention to genre problems, since the genre of a work determines the aesthetics of a work of art.
There are diverse conceptions of the genre; taken together, they form a very mixed picture. Comparison of different genre concepts is useful not only for understanding the problem itself, but also from a methodological point of view. The literary genre occupies a central position in the system of literary concepts. The most important regularities of the literary process intersect and find expression in it: the ratio of content and form, the author's intention and the requirements of tradition, the expectations of readers, etc.
The question of continuity in the development of genres, of historically repeatable features found in the diversity of individual genres, in the history of literary criticism, was most profoundly raised by scientists who studied literature in close connection with social life.
The theories of Hegel and A. Veselovsky are classical: Hegel's aesthetics is the pinnacle of German idealistic aesthetics; the historical poetics of the Russian scientist is the undoubted culmination of academic science. Against the background of many differences in their works, one can clearly see the closeness (although not identity) of some results in the field of studying genres, achieved on the basis of a historical approach to. Both concepts are brought together, first of all, by the typology of the genres of artistic literature, which is based on a meaningful criterion, proof of the historical stadial nature of the emergence of genre types.
In the genre theory of Hegel, the principle of historicism was clearly manifested, discrediting the appeal to the unshakable authorities and unchanging rules of poetry. This principle performs not so much the role of a descriptive factor as an explanation of genre differentiation, tracing the genesis of the most important genres.
It is necessary to distinguish the Hegelian theory of poetic genera - epic, lyric - which are distinguished according to the principle different ratio object (“the world in its objective meaning”) and the subject (“inner world” of a person), from his theory of genres.
For the theory of genres, Hegel introduces another pair of concepts - "substantial" (epos) and "subjective" (lyrics). But both epic, and lyrics, and drama are capable of expressing both substantial and subjective content.
To understand the Hegelian theory of genres, it is necessary to clarify the meaning of the concepts of the substantial and the subjective. The substantial, according to Hegel, is “the eternal forces that govern the world”, “the circle of universal forces”; true, reasonable content of art; ideas of general interest. Substantial is opposed by subjective content as the desire of an individual. This shows that Hegel separates the substantial from reality, that is, the subjective.
In contrasting the substantial (true) subjective (random), strong and weak sides philosophy of Hegel. Since the substantial was interpreted idealistically, it was separated from the subjective, which was evaluated negatively. Hence the Hegelian underestimation of the activity of the artist himself - the subject, who must completely immerse himself in the material and least of all think about expressing his "I". E.G. Rudneva generally considers this moment “the most vulnerable side Hegelian theory". From this follows the hierarchy of genres: for example, satire depicting a world devoid of substantive content is unpoetic.
Hegelian substantial was understood as universal not only in the sense of divine destiny, but also as social. The relationship between society and the individual is another important criterion for meaningful genre differentiation in Hegel. Hegel's historicism lies in the fact that he considers genres primarily as an artistic projection of a certain stage in the development of society. Explaining the emergence, flourishing, extinction of groups of genres related in content, Hegel proceeds from the stadial nature of social development.
In characterizing genres, he consistently considers the “general state of the world”, which is the basis of a given genre; the attitude of the author to his subject; the main collision of the genre; characters. “The General State of the World” acts as the basis for the content of the genre. The soil of the epic is the “age of heroes” (“the pre-legal age”), the soil of the novel is the era of a developed state with an established legal order, satires and an unreasonable existing order.
From the various premises of the epic, the novel and the satire, conflicts typical of these genres follow. For the epic, the military conflict, “enmity of foreign nations” (XX, T .14,245), which has a world-historical justification, is most suitable. Accordingly, the hero of the epic sets himself substantial goals and fights for their implementation. The heroes and the team are united. In the novel, the usual collision is, according to Hegel, “between the poetry of the heart and the opposing prose of relations, as well as the randomness of external circumstances.”
This conflict reflects the separation of the personal and the public. The hero and the society surrounding him are opposed. The collisions of satire and comedy, according to Hegel, are not an artistic projection of a life collision, it is created by the poet's attitude to the subject. creates "perverted reality in such a way that this corruption is destroyed in itself due to its own absurdity." Naturally, in this situation there is no place for true characters. Heroes are "unreasonable", "incapable of any genuine pathos."
So, epic, satire (), reflect in Hegel's theory three successive stages in the development of society; their collisions are derived from the “general world” (in satire) and from the poet's attitude to this state. At the same time, Hegel's underestimation of the author's activity, his subjectivity in the creation of the epic and the novel simplifies the content of these genres.
Some provisions of the Hegelian theory of genres need to be corrected, such as the philosopher's underestimation of the poetic significance of satire; the illegitimacy of Hegel's denial of heroic situations outside the "age of heroes"; denial of the possibility of "true" epics in his contemporary era, etc.
The Hegelian theory of genres had many followers, including V.G. Belinsky developed it. In the article “The Division of Poetry into Genres and Genres”, the critic gave a description of literary genres, linking them with the tasks of Russian literary and social development. The most important innovative provisions of this theory are aimed at overcoming the Hegelian attitude towards satire by the critic, at the recognition of the novel and the story as the dominant genres of modern poetry, which testified to the sensitivity of V.G. Belinsky to the process of restructuring the genre system; to a more rigorous and distinct application of the cross principle of genre classification. The original conception of Alexander Veselovsky has much in common with the Hegelian typology of genres. He also links the history of genres to the development of the individual; a certain stage in the relationship of the individual and society gives rise to this or that content (epics, novels). But all this is given by Veselovsky in a different conceptual and methodological context.
Understanding Veselovsky's genre theory is hampered by the terminological inseparability in it of questions related to the literary genre and questions related to the genre. Veselovsky's theory is revealed by comparing such works of his as “or the theory of the novel?”, “From the history of personality development”, “Three chapters from historical poetics”, etc.
As noted by L.V. Chernets, Veselovsky was mainly engaged in the study of literary genres, but the criteria he proposed for distinguishing genres by content rather cover genre differences. Properly generic remains the formal difference in the way of representation of the genera. The hypothesis of the syncretism of primitive poetry and the further differentiation of genders speaks of the forms, but not of the content of art. The content is not differentiated from syncretism, but is born in the following sequence: epic, lyric, drama. Veselovsky emphasizes that the development of forms and content of genera does not coincide; he strives to strictly separate "questions of form from questions of content."
Veselovsky dealt mainly with the genesis of the content of childbirth, but not with its further development. Perhaps that is why he has open question about the criteria for generic differences (in content) in the new literature, where the individual-subjective principle penetrates into all kinds of poetry.
Studying the content of childbirth. Veselovsky, in fact, always studied one problem - the history of personality development and its gradual reflection in literary genres. In essence, we are talking about historical stages in the development of the content of art, in works of all kinds.
Veselovsky's theory outlines three successive stages in the relationship between the individual and society:
1. “Community of mental and moral outlook, non-identification of the individual in the conditions of the clan, tribe, squad” (epos);
2. “The progress of the individual on the basis of a group movement”, individualization within the framework of class allocation (ancient Greek lyrics and lyrics of the Middle Ages, ancient Greek and chivalric romance);
3. “The general recognition of man”, the destruction of the class and the triumph of the personal principle (short story and novel of the Renaissance).
Thus, in all its genera, it captures the dynamics in the relationship of the individual and society.
Need a cheat sheet? Then save -» Problems of genre theory in literary criticism. Literary writings!Top Essay Topics.
The concept of the literary process in modern literary criticism includes the constant interaction of two trends: “Continued development is the dialectical unity of preservation and negation, the growth of the new on the basis of the old, with its acceptance or in the fight against it. Without preservation there is no enrichment, no accumulation; without negation there is no development, no renewal.” (XIV, 28). The complex process of literary development can only be reflected in a branched system of literary concepts that differ in their function: after all, it is necessary to fix as the most
Changeable, and relatively stable in creativity. Genre is one of the categories pointing to the enormous role of tradition and elements of repetition in literature.
According to researchers, the study of genre specificity is new approach to the study of genres, which allows not only to explain the genres themselves and their evolution, but also the integrity that arises in the process of interaction of genres, whether it be a relatively independent period in the development of literature or the literary trends of modern times. The greatest degree of this integrity is possessed by the writer's work, which, according to M. B. Khrapchenko, "represents a systemic unity." In our work, we will turn not to the study of the genre originality of the entire work of I. S. Turgenev, but only to his legacy certain period(1864-1870s), which is the least studied in terms of the genre. In this work, an attempt is made to address the creative and philosophical prerequisites for the appearance of such works of the writer as “Ghosts”, “Enough”, “Strange story”, “Steppe King Lear”, which, in turn, will allow us to begin to analyze the main genre forms the said works. The combination of the above circumstances dictates the relevance of the presented work, the main objectives of which are:
Acquaintance of the reader with the work of I. S. Turgenev in the most “mysterious” period of his life - the 60-70s of the XIX century;
Study of the writer's artistic world as an integral system;
Identification of the genre originality of his individual works.
Based on the above goals, specific tasks works:
To identify and analyze the worldview and aesthetic principles of the writer;
Clarify the specifics of Turgenev's genre poetics in the specified period of creativity.
During the work, literature was used relating to the problem of literary genres, biographical information and materials about the creative path of I. S. Turgenev.
The most complete and accurate monograph devoted to literary genres is the work of L. V. Chernets “Literary genres (problems of typology and poetics)”, where the researcher considers the following range of issues: the role of genre categories in the process of creativity and perception of works, the historical change in genre norms, genre groups (types) distinguished in the dynamics of the literary process, the poetics of moralistic works, etc.
Among other literary works, we singled out for our study the works of M. M. Bakhtin, G. N. Pospelov, V. Kozhinov, the ideas of which are presented most fully.
We were also attracted by the work of V. M. Golovko “The Poetics of the Russian Story”, where the author presents his concept of the genre. He believes that the study of the genre involves the disclosure of the artistic and epistemological nature of literary creativity. The author's vision of life through the “eyes” of different genres is different both in content and in form. Each truly artistic work, being individual, retains certain genre features. “Genre,” wrote M. Bakhtin, “is a representative of creative memory in the process of literary development. That is why the genre is able to ensure the unity and continuity of this development.” V. Golovko believes that it is methodologically fruitful to study the poetics of the genre from the standpoint of concrete historicism. The “eternal” in any genre is inseparable from the new, the traditional from the changeable. Genre is usually considered as a substantive-formal category. It is believed that this is a historically established type of artistic construction, objectifying a certain content. The structure of the work is an ideological and aesthetic integrity. “In the case when the method of formation, organization of a work as an aesthetic whole is considered, its genre is characterized,” wrote M. B. Khrapchenko. But the way of formation is determined by the genre content. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that each genre has its own problems, embodied in the appropriate form. Exploring the genre structure, one can understand the forms in which reality is reflected and cognized by one or another writer.
V. Stennik thinks that "a genre is a reflection of a certain completeness of the stage of cognition, a formula of an obtained aesthetic truth."
It is hardly expedient to consider the genre only as a category of artistic content, or form of a literary work. The genre expresses one or another aesthetic concept of reality, which reveals its content in the entire ideological and artistic integrity of the work.
From the biographical literature devoted to the description of the life and creative path of I. S. Turgenev, we used the following: Shatalov S. E. “Problems of the poetics of I. S. Turgenev”; Batyuto A. I. "Turgenev - a novelist"; Petrov S. M. “I. S. Turgenev. Creative way”; monographs by A. B. Muratov, P. G. Pustovoit, G. B. Kurlyandskaya and others, important from the point of view of determining the worldview and aesthetic views of the writer, the significance of his literary work of the period under consideration.
Based on the above tasks and objectives of the study, it is advisable to use the following terminological apparatus:
Genus literary - one of the three groups of literary works - epic, lyric, drama - singled out according to a number of features in their unity (the subject of the image and the relationship of the speech structure to it, ways of organizing artistic time and space).
Literary genre - a historically emerging type of literary work (novel, poem, ballad, etc.); the theoretical concept of a genre generalizes the features characteristic of a more or less extensive group of works of an epoch, a given nation, and world literature in general. The content of the concept is continuously changing and becoming more complex; this is partly due to the insufficient development of the theory of the genre.
The story is an epic prose genre; gravitates towards epic, chronicle plot and composition. The middle form of epic prose. This refers to the volume, coverage of events, time frame, structural features (plot, composition, system of images, etc.).
Novella is a literary genre comparable to a short story in terms of volume, but opposed to it in structure. A small, very eventful, economically telling narrative about them with a clear plot; she is alien to the intensity in the depiction of reality and descriptiveness; she sparingly portrays the soul of the hero. The novel should have an unexpected turn, from which the action immediately comes to a denouement.
Story - small epic form fiction- a small volume of the depicted phenomena of life, and hence the volume of the text, a prose work. The story is created on the basis of creative imagination; The plot is based on conflict.
Essay - variety small form epic literature, differs from its other forms, the story and the short story, by the absence of a single, quickly resolving conflict and the greater development of the descriptive image, it has great cognitive diversity. An autobiography is a description of one's life, a literary genre. The basis of autobiography is the work of memory. The genre of autobiography is close to memoirs; focused on the psychological experiences, thoughts and feelings of the author. An autobiography is usually written in the first person.
Travel is a literary genre based on the description by the traveler (eyewitness) of reliable information about any countries, peoples in the form of notes, diaries, essays, memoirs.
Tradition is an oral narrative in folk poetry that contains information about real people and reliable events.
A fairy tale is a literary genre, predominantly prose, magical, adventurous or everyday in nature with a focus on fiction.
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Philological sciences / 1. Methods of teaching language and literature
Ph.D. Agibaeva S.S.
North Kazakhstan State University them. M. Kozybayeva, Kazakhstan
On some approaches to the study of the problem of genre in literary criticism
Literary genre, according to the definition of V.V. Kozhinov in the "Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary" (1987), - a historically emerging type of literary work; the theoretical concept of a genre generalizes the features characteristic of a more or less extensive group of works of an epoch, a given nation, or world literature in general. The principle of historicism regarding the genre category was emphasized by V.M. Zhirmunsky: “... the concept of genre is always a historical and<..>the connection between the elements of content (theme) and the elements of composition, language and verse that we find in one genre or another, be it a fable, be it a ballad, represents a typical, traditional unity that has developed historically, in certain historical conditions.<...>Genres in the narrow sense of the word are the historically established types of works of art. according to: 2, 318]. The concept of a literary genre is based on the fact of "historical stability of the types of artistic structures", noted in the work of Yu.V. Stennik "Systems of genres in the historical and literary process" .
Genres are difficult to systematize and classify - largely because of the difficulties in defining genre criteria. So, B. V. Tomashevsky called genres specific “groupings of techniques” that are compatible with each other, have stability and depend “on the environment for the emergence, purpose and conditions for the perception of works, on imitation of old works and the literary tradition that arises from this ... Construction techniques are grouped around some tangible tricks. Thus, special classes or genres of works are formed, characterized by the fact that in the techniques of each genre we observe a grouping of techniques specific to this genre around these tangible techniques, or features of the genre. The scientist characterizes the features of the genre as dominant in the work and determining its organization: “These features of the genre are diverse and can refer to any side of the work of art ... The features are diverse, they intersect and do not allow a logical classification of genres on any one basis.”
The same idea sounds in the works of V.M. Zhirmunsky: “It is typical that the features of the genre cover all aspects of a poetic work. They include the features of the composition, the construction of the work, but also the features of the theme, that is, the peculiar content, certain properties of the poetic language (stylistics), and sometimes the features of the verse. So, when we talk about a genre as a type of literary work, we are not limited to composition, but we mean the type of combination of a certain theme established by tradition with the compositional form and features of the poetic language. according to: 2, 234].
These two features of the category of genre: historicism and structural complexity, determined the directions in the scientific approach to the problem of genre. Firstly, this is the study of a whole range of issues related to the evolution of genres (development of genre systems, historical poetics, etc.); secondly, the formulation and commentary of various concepts of the genre.
In the context of the first direction, the works of Yu.N. Tynyanov and V.B. Shklovsky played a decisive role. According to Yu. N. Tynyanov, “it is impossible to give a static definition of the genre that would cover all the phenomena of the genre: the genre is shifting ...”. D.S. Likhachev wrote: “The category of literary genres is a historical category. Literary genres appear only at a certain stage in the development of the art of the word and then constantly change and change ... the very principles of distinguishing individual genres change, the types and nature of genres change, their functions change in one or another era. D. S. Likhachev pointed to the existence of a “balance” of genres within a certain system in the literature of each era. This balance is dialectical, the genres of one system support each other and at the same time compete with each other. V.B. wrote about the “canonization of junior genres”. Shklovsky in his work "On the Theory of Prose" (1929). His idea was developed and supplemented by Yu. N. Tynyanov: “In the era of the decomposition of some genre, it turns from the center into the periphery, and in its place from the little things of literature, from its backyards and lowlands, a new phenomenon floats into the center.”
B. V. Tomashevsky singled out the following processes in the life and development of genres: the birth of a genre (according to Yu. century, a romantic poem of the 19th century is born), the displacement of some genres by others (in two ways: a) the complete withering away of the genre - an ode and epic of the 18th century; b) penetration into the high genre of the techniques of the low genre). At the level of the general historical and literary process, researchers talk about the canonization and decanonization of genre structures (canonical and non-canonical genre forms), about genre confrontations and traditions in a large historical time. Genres appear as "cultural and historical individualities" (V. E. Khalizev), "heroes" of the literary process (M. M. Bakhtin).
In the context of another scientific approach - the formulation and commenting on various concepts of the genre - modern researchers rely on the works of M. M. Bakhtin. On the material of the novel genre, the scientist built the concept of a “three-dimensional constructive whole”, or three aspects of the genre structure of a work of art: stylistic three-dimensionality in the organization of speech material; violation of the absolute epic distance, i.e., change in temporal orientation; restructuring of the image of the hero, the disintegration of the epic integrity of man in the novel.
The authors study guide"The Theory of Literary Genres" (Moscow, 2012) distinguishes several general concepts of the genre that have developed over time: installation on the audience, which determines the volume of the work, its stylistic tone, stable themes and compositional structure. 2) The perception of the genre as a picture of the world, representing the traditionally general or individual author's vision (works by O.M. Freidenberg, G.D. Gachev, G.N. Pospelov). 3) Formation, on the basis of the theory of tragedy from Aristotle onwards, “the idea of the border between the aesthetic reality and the extra-aesthetic reality of the reader-viewer and the specific interaction of these two worlds (the concept of catharsis).
Based on the teachings of M.M. Bakhtin on speech genres, the authors of the manual consider the literary genre as the implementation of a certain communicative strategy of aesthetic discourse.
As a result, the problem of genre structures, the functioning of genres and the evolution of genre systems is currently one of the most urgent in literary criticism.
Literature:
1. Kozhinov V.V. Literary genre // Literary encyclopedic dictionary. - M., 1987. - S. 106-107.
2. Tamarchenko N.D. theoretical poetics. Reader-workshop. - M., 2004. - S. 317-341.
3. Stennik Yu. V. Systems of genres in the historical and literary process // Historical and literary process - L., 1974. - P. 168-202.
4. Tomashevsky B. V. Theory of Literature. Poetics - M., 1999. - S. 206-210.
5. Tynyanov Yu.N. Poetics. History of literature. Movie. - M., 1977. - S. 255-270.
6. The theory of literary genres. Ed. N.D. Tamarchenko. - M., 2012. - S. 6-14.
literary criticism
T. I. Dronova
Saratov State University E-mail: [email protected] l.ru
The article discusses the most authoritative concepts of the genre as a literary category, identifies alternative approaches to its comprehension, defines the methodological principles of genre identification of the historical and historiosophical novel.
Category of Genre in Contemporary Literary studies Т. I. Dronova
The article considers well-established approaches to genre as a category of literary studies; alternative approaches to its understanding are revealed, methodological principles of genre identity of historic and philosophy of history novels are defined.
Key words: genre convention, author/reader, statics/dynamics, universality/specificity, novel, historic novel, novel of the philosophy of history.
In literary studies of the last decade, devoted to the study of the historiosophical novel of the 20th century, preference is given to the consideration of historiosophical concepts that determine the problematics of the work1. The novel nature of the author's statement does not seem to deserve special attention by modern scientists. In dissertation research of the late 2000s - early 2010s. the idea was established that the historiosophical interests of writers at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. led to a loosening of the novel form, in contrast to the situation in the literature of the 19th century, in which the historical interests of the authors contributed to the strengthening of the genre of the novel2. This provision extends to the literary situation of the late XX - early XXl century. Historical and historiosophical novels are opposed to each other on the basis of the canonicity/non-canonicity of the genre structure3 from the point of view of the function of history in the structure of works4. In our opinion, the approach declared by modern authors leads to a narrowing of ideas about the historical novel, identified with its classical model, and to insufficient clarity of the genre specifics of the historiosophical novel5.
Obviously, the genre preferences of researchers are decisively influenced by their general aesthetic ideas (about the category of genre, the specifics of novel thinking, etc.). This circumstance, as well as the ambiguity of the concepts of "historical" and "historiosophical novel", encourage us to turn to understanding the theoretical aspects of the problem: to clarify the structure of the genre category, to analyze the mechanisms of genre renewal.
In our field of vision are alternative approaches to the category of genre, due to the emphasis on one of the facets of dialectical
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According to the figurative expression of G. Hegel, “any work of art is a dialogue with every person standing in front of it”6. The genre is one of the bridges connecting the writer and the reader, an intermediary between them7. But the nature of this mediation, as well as the category of the genre itself, turn out to be variable and multi-level values and, as a result, are treated differently in different eras and in the theoretical concepts of one time.
The acuteness of the problem in modern literary criticism is due to the clash of various, moreover, alternative approaches to the literary text and, thus, to the category of genre. Depending on which instance - the author or the reader - is positioned as a source of creativity, the researchers emphasize the formal-content or functional aspects of the concept. At the same time, the tendency to oppose them, to abandon the systematic approach inherent in domestic literary criticism in its pinnacle achievements, becomes decisive8.
From the point of view of M. Kagan - a researcher of the internal structure of the art world, the creator of its "morphology", - the genre category implies "selectivity of artistic creativity". The process of "genre self-determination", in his opinion, "depends to a large extent on the consciousness and will of the artist." If “the choice of a generic structure that is most appropriate for the creative task being solved<...>is carried out intuitively and categorically rather than consciously and searchingly, since the generic features of a nascent work should already be present in the conception”, then “genre specificity is sought by the artist most often in the process of implementing the idea, and the solution to this problem is more a function of skill than talent (highlighted by the author. - T. D.) "9. It is indicative that the scientist does not consider it productive to introduce a functional criterion for dividing genres as a determining one10.
The richness of genre possibilities, the diversity and variety of genre structures that spread before the artist and are updated by him11 present serious difficulties for the theoreticians of literature and art. In an effort to cover all the planes of the genre division of forms of artistic creativity, to reveal the correlation of different levels of classification of genres as a "system, not a chaotic conglomerate", M. Kagan proposes considering the genre in four aspects - cognitive, evaluative, transformative and sign (linguistic) (highlighted by the author. - T. D.) 12.
A different, functional, approach to the problem is offered by T. A. Kasatkina, the author of a discussion publication on the structure of the genre category. She made an attempt, quite characteristic of modern theoretical thought, to clarify the specifics of this category by rejecting previous literary constructions13. Polemically sharpening the situation, T. A. Kasatkina contrasts the functional aspect with the traditional Russian literary criticism understanding of the genre as a formally meaningful unity14.
The researcher argues that “the genre determines (and the genre is determined) not by the rules for constructing an artistic whole (this happens insofar as.), but by the rules for perceiving the artistic whole.<...>. That is, the reader's attitude to the writer's attitude to reality. At the same time, the author of the article believes that “a genre is as much a genre as it is recognizable, and not as much as it is original” and that a genre is “that which is established before the analysis of a separate work, and not what is revealed as a result of this analysis (highlighted us. - T. D.) "16. T. A. Kasatkina opposes the literary characteristics of the genre, which are born as a result of scientific research, the author's, presupposed by the work of the artist, which, in her opinion, is a true genre substance.
Without sharing the confidence of T. A. Kasatkina in the salutary simplicity of the proposed solutions17, while remaining on the traditional positions of understanding the genre for Russian literary criticism as a formal-content unity, which is exactly the channel through which communication with the reader is carried out, we note the significance of the study of the functional aspect of genre nominations undertaken by the researcher18 .
A work of art as a form of dialogue between the author and the reader does presuppose a kind of "genre convention". According to
V. Shklovsky, “genre is a convention, an agreement on the meaning and coordination of signals. The system should be clear to both the author and the reader. Therefore, the author often announces at the beginning of a work that it is a novel, drama, comedy, elegy, or epistle. It seems to indicate the way of listening to the thing, the way of perceiving the structure of the work.
But in real artistic practice, the writer does not always offer the reader his own (traditional or original) genre designation, and if he does, then he does not exhaust the “rules by which a work should be read” (T. A. Kasatkina).
It seems that the genre is not a situation simplified to its ordinary understanding (romantic, idyllic, tragic, etc.), placed in a subtitle, and not another, often outrageous naming practice, designed to attract attention, which has a playful character.
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rakter, according to T. A. Kasatkina, and a category that characterizes the highest, final level of the artistic form (M. M. Bakhtin). The "genre convention" established before reading the text20 is corrected, clarified, deepened in the process of its perception. Thus, the "reading codes", which are "laid" by the author into the structure of the work, are "programmed" as signs that accompany the reader from the genre subtitle to the finale.
T. A. Kasatkina, who absolutized the concept of “genre convention” proposed by V. Shklovsky, deprived it of the internal dynamics inherent in it in the author's interpretation. Arguing with the ideas of the formalists - with the "pan-changeability" of the category of genre in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov - she gravitates towards its static understanding and, moreover, to the interpretation of the concept as some kind of "abstract" form, which "can only serve as a label for recognition" , since, in her opinion, “genre features do not express the essence of the genre, but only determine its recognition”21.
Considering the issues of genre convention on the material of the novel, V. Shklovsky focuses on the dialectic of the stable / changeable, using Hegelian terminology: “The structure is usually realized as not quite foreseen, surprising, located in the studied area, but “different”<. >The novel, always crossing horizons, denies its past. The new "harmony" is a new change in "one's own"
< . >The history of the novel is continuous in denial.
Denies "one's other"<.>What we call genre is really the unity of the collision”22 of the expected and the new.
Since in the history of art, as one believes
V. Shklovsky, there are no disappearing forms and there are no pure repetitions (“the old returns with the new in order to express the new”), the novelist, who discovers “unexplored” paths, concludes a “new convention” about the genre. This, of course, increases the requirements for the recipient, who often, not understanding or not recognizing the "laws" established by the author over himself and offered to him, the reader, perceives new form according to the old code.
Such a conflict between the author and the reader is especially frequent, in our opinion, in the perception of works about the distant past, traditionally called historical novels. Genre specificity This novel variety requires special consideration. Let us preliminarily express only one judgment: the term historical novel is neither a definition of the genre essence of a work, nor a characteristic of the author's pathos. It only means that we have before us a large epic form, the action of which takes place in the past. In different eras, due to the “borderline” nature of this genre variety, its essence is interpreted either as “novel”, or as “historical”. Thus, a feature
literary existence and aesthetic comprehension of the historical novel in different periods is the variable nature of its "essence", the interpretation of which turns out to depend on the peculiarities of the relationship between literature and history in the real practice and aesthetic consciousness of the era. Undoubtedly, its perception is influenced by the researcher's understanding of the stability/variability of genre categories in general and the novel in particular.
2. statics and dynamics
The “late” Shklovsky strives to remove, in a kind of dialectical synthesis, the contradictions between stability and variability in the category of genre and to overcome the characteristic of the first third of the 20th century. perception of statics and dynamics in the genre sphere as antinomic principles. Such an approach defines one of the vectors of literary comprehension of the genre in the 1980s-1990s.
A productive attempt to overcome the dilemma of stable/changeable genre in the category is, in our opinion, the analysis of the structural nature of this concept, proposed by the Polish researcher N. F. Kopystyanskaya. She distinguishes four interrelated, interdependent spheres of its implementation: 1) genre as an abstract general theoretical concept, meaning the totality and interconnection of persistent genre features that develop over epochs (for example, a novel); 2) genre as a historical concept, limited in time and in “social space” (not a novel in general, but, as in our case, a historical novel of the late 19th and early 20th centuries); 3) genre - a concept that takes into account the specifics of a particular national literature (Russian symbolist historical novel); 4) genre as a manifestation of individual creativity (Merezhkovsky's historiosophical novel).
“Thus, in the very concept of a genre, stable and changeable are combined. Genre is stable as a theoretical concept (sphere 1)<...>The genre is changeable in continuous historical development and national identity (sphere 2, sphere 3). The genre is uniquely individual (sphere 4) (the work of outstanding writers is distinguished by a special refraction of genre features and often gives some new direction to the development of one or another genre or its offshoot, contributes to the transformation of the concept)23 (highlighted by the author. - T. D.). The last statement, in our opinion, is directly related to the historiosophical novel by D. S. Merezhkovsky, which stands at the origins of the historiosophical prose of the 20th century.
Rich possibilities for understanding the problem are opened up by the reinterpretation24 undertaken in Russian literary criticism of the genre theories of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhti-
on 25. For a long time, their concepts were perceived as alternative. The time distance separating us from the first third of the century - the period of the most fierce disputes between different scientific schools, allows us to detect a certain closeness of the positions of their creators.
At the level of the author's intentionality and derivational formulations, Tynyanov's and Bakhtin's theories of genre evolution appear as negating each other. So, Yu. N. Tynyanov claims: “<...>it becomes clear that to give a static definition of the genre<...>Impossible: the genre shifts< . >26 (highlighted by us.
etc.). M. M. Bakhtin “objects” to his colleague: “The literary genre by its very nature reflects the most stable, “eternal” trends in the development of literature. The genre always retains undying archaic elements<...>. Genre
Representative of creative memory in the process of literary development. That is why the genre is able to ensure the unity and continuity of this development”27 (highlighted by the author. - T. D.).
But, as V. Eidinova rightly notes, Tynyanov's and Bakhtin's concepts, if treated thoughtfully, also reveal points of intersection28. Rejecting a one-sided approach to the ideas of representatives of the formal and philosophical-aesthetic (Bakhtinian) schools, the researcher reveals in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhtin “a special energy of resistance to frozen, dogmatic literary views; energy of struggle against tendencies - of any kind - finality, finality, establishment of "high-29
our limit”29, and in the concepts of each of them
In a folded form - the presence of a dialectically complex combination of "traditional" and "new", "stable" and "changeable".
Indeed, for Yu. N. Tynyanov, the mechanism of “shift”, “turn” is a mechanism of “double action”, and the concept of “shift” implies “inheritance”: “Derzhavin inherited Lomonosov, only shifting his ode;<.. >Pushkin inherited the large form of the 18th century, making the Karamzinists' trifles a large form;<.>all of them could inherit their predecessors only because they shifted their style, shifted their genres.<...>each such phenomenon of change is unusually complex in composition<.. >30 (highlighted by us. - T. D.)”.
Equally revealing are Bakhtin's "reservations" about the role of "renewal" in the process of "reproducing" traditional forms: "Undying elements of the archaic are always preserved in the genre. True, this archaism is preserved in it only thanks to constant renewal, so to speak, modernisation. The genre is always the same and not the same, always old and new at the same time. The genre is revived and updated at each new stage in the development of literature and in each individual work of this genre.<.. >Therefore, the archaic, preserved in the genre, is not dead, but eternally alive.
vay, that is, capable of being renewed”31 (highlighted by us. - T. D.).
But in judgments about the genre identity of the historical novel and the ways of studying it, scientists differ. Yu. N. Tynyanov focuses on the “novel” component of this variety of the genre and on the need to see its inclusion in the contemporary artistic context: “Tolstoy’s historical novel is not correlated with Zagoskin’s historical novel, but is correlated with his contemporary prose”32. M. M. Bakhtin - on the specifics, due to the presence of a "historical" beginning in its structure, on the formal-content commonality of the chronotopes of historical novels of different eras, provided by the "two-nature" of this genre variety: "The subject of the image is the past< .>. But the starting point of the image is modernity.<.>it is she who gives points of view and value orientations”33. These reflections implicitly contain the idea of duality as a constructive principle that determines the structure of artistic time in a historical novel.
A literary scholar striving for a systematic analysis of the historical novel as a thematic variety of the genre must take into account the possibilities of both approaches. In our opinion, there is no fundamental contradiction between them, since the category of genre is taken in different planes in Tynanov's and Bakhtin's studies. Yu. N. Tynyanov considers the genre as a historical and literary category, dynamic by definition, which, in our opinion, determines the emphasis on its variability. M. M. Bakhtin proceeds from the “genre essence” of the novel and operates with genre categories in its general theoretical understanding, which prompts the identification of the most persistent genre features that have been developing over a “great time”.
At the same time, both Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhtin regard the historical novel as an artistic phenomenon, which owes its birth to the expansion of the cognitive capabilities of the novel genre, its transition through the external and internal boundaries established by the literature of previous periods and normative aesthetics.
3. universality and specificity
The assessment of the aesthetic possibilities of the historical novel is conditioned by the general theoretical positions of the researcher: whether he considers the thematic varieties of the novel genre (historical, philosophical, etc.) as full-blooded forms of novel thinking, or considers them specific modifications of the genre, obviously inferior to the "proper novel" in the completeness and diversity of its embodiment. substantive content.
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Such a distinction exists in modern research as in the works of general
order34, and devoted to the work of individual authors35, is due to a certain system of ideas about the genre essence of the novel. Paradoxical as it may seem, we are faced with an approach to the category of genre that has very deep roots, genetically going back to the traditions that have developed in ancient aesthetics.
The works of S. S. Averintsev, devoted to the genre aspects of the study of ancient literature, contain deep reflections on the birth of aesthetic concepts and the ongoing impact on the later literary consciousness of Aristotelian views on the essence of genres. “We must start, according to Aristotle, with the definition of the genre, that is, with the establishment of the sum of its substantial features; then it is the definition that serves as a measure of practice, a starting point for developing recommendations”36. This notion of genres as "entities that are identical to themselves and impenetrable to each other"37 turned out to be amazingly tenacious in the European aesthetic consciousness.
In modern poetics, the identification of the essence of genres with living beings, characteristic of Aristotle, is preserved: “And what, according to Aristotle, gives the clearest idea of the essence? “Bodies and what is made of them are living beings and celestial bodies”<...>. The existence of genres is conceived by analogy with the existence of bodies, in particular living bodies, which can be in “family relations”, but cannot be mutually permeable to each other”38.
In these judgments, in the opinion of a modern researcher, there is an unexhausted source of not always conscious metaphors for describing the existence of genres (their "birth", "life", "flourishing", "withering", etc.). Of particular interest to us are the problems of interpretation of "borderline" (historical novel, philosophical novel) and "hybrid" (historiosophical novel) genres that arise along this path.
Considering a genre as a literary type, according to S. S. Averintsev, inevitably gives rise to an analogy with a biological species: “If a living being belongs to one species, it cannot therefore belong to another species. Of course, crosses and hybrids are possible, but they do not remove, but emphasize the line between species forms: in a hybrid, the characteristics of two species can coexist only due to the fact that neither one nor the other species appears in the fullness and purity of its “essence”39 .
In the light of these reflections, the origins (perhaps unconscious by the researchers themselves) of a wary attitude towards such “borderline” novel varieties as the historical novel, the philosophical novel, and especially their interpenetration, become clear.
into each other in the "hybrid" form of the historiosophical novel.
The famous maxim O.-Yu. I. Senkovsky: “The historical novel, in my opinion, is an illegitimate son without a family, without a tribe, the fruit of the seductive adultery of history with imagination<.>»40 - for all its outrageousness, is in line with the metaphorization of genre concepts, going back to Aristotle's Poetics.
V. G. Belinsky, who did a lot to comprehend the novel as the freest, widest, most comprehensive kind of poetry41, who paid great attention to its historical and philosophical varieties, sees in the position of the adherents of the “purity of genres” an attempt to slow down the development of literature. Speaking about the wary attitude of contemporary critics towards the work of poets-thinkers, he ironically:<^отят видеть в искусстве своего рода умственный Китай, резко отделенный точными границами от всего, что не искусство в строгом смысле слова. А между тем эти пограничные линии существуют больше предположительно, нежели действительно; по крайней мере их не укажешь пальцем, как на карте границы государств. Искусство по мере приближения к той или другой своей границе постепенно теряет нечто от своей сущности и принимает в себя то, с чем граничит, так что вместо разграничивающей черты является область, примиряющая обе стороны»42.
Extremely relevant for the 20th century, which received deep theoretical understanding in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov, M. M. Bakhtin, D. S. Likhachev, Yu. “the birthplace of the new”44 was formulated, as we see, by V. G. Belinsky.
At the same time, for Belinsky himself, "hybrid" combinations of historical and philosophical novels, manifesting, in his opinion, different types of genre thinking, were unacceptable. The critic contrasts “painting” and “interpretation”, the talent of a “poet-artist” and the talent of a “poet-thinker”. And, as a result, the historical novel and the philosophical novel appear in his aesthetics as independent artistic and cognitive systems, alternative in their intentionality.
In one of his journal reviews, speaking disapprovingly of the translated historical novel, Belinsky stated: “The historical novel is not a German thing. The novel is philosophical, fantastic - this is their triumph. The German will not present to you, like an Englishman, a man in relation to the life of the people, or, like a Frenchman, in relation to the life of society; he analyzes it in the highest moments of its existence, depicts its life in relation to the higher world life, and remains true to this trend even in the historical novel.
Seeing the top achievements of the realistic historical novel in its "fidelity to reality", Russian literary criticism of the 19th-20th centuries. she was more or less wary of attempts to “combine the uncombinable” - history and philosophy, “painting” and “interpretation” in the structure of the novel whole. It seems that the genre initiative of D. S. Merezhkovsky, the creator of the historiosophical novel, can be adequately assessed only if such a synthesis is rejected a priori.
In Russian aesthetics from Belinsky to Bakhtin (including their modern interpreters), the emphasis is on the universality of the novel in comprehending the reality that distinguishes it from other genres. This approach is deeply rooted in the aesthetic thought of modern times. The understanding of the special place of the novel among other genres takes shape in European aesthetics already in the 17th-18th centuries.
As A. V. Mikhailov convincingly showed, the aesthetic comprehension of the novel (as it becomes an anti-rhetorical genre) moves in the direction of awareness and more and more distinct formulation of its unique, in comparison with other genres, universality in comprehension of reality46. Already in the “Experience on the Novel” (1774) by F. von Blankenburg “the fullness of the novel is the fullness of the life seen, reality. At the basis of such completeness is not a given general semantic measure (in rhetorical genres given by a myth. - etc.), but a measure of reality itself, its internal law”47.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the romantic theorist Friedrich Ast draws the prospect of the development of the novel as a universal genre, “in which not only literature (literature), but all art in general, having described its historical circle, comes to itself. The novel, in Asta's view, is the self-awareness of art. The individual expands in it to the universal, all genres and forms of art reach absoluteness in it. The novel is the totality, it is the "all" of poetry.
The tradition of German philosophical thought through G. Hegel, V. G. Belinsky, D. Lukach, M. M. Bakhtin enters modern aesthetic consciousness, introducing into it a special attitude to the novel as a genre that is only conditionally introduced into the nomenclature, school system of literary genres. This situation leads to the emergence of a number of methodological and methodological problems in the field of genre studies, the solution of which presents significant difficulties for the researcher of individual thematic varieties of the genre.
The perception of the novel as having a certain essence implicitly contains the Aristotelian understanding of the formation of the genre as “coming to oneself; reaching self-
identities, genre naturally
stops, he has nowhere to go.
In the case of the novel, whose “entelechy” (internal assignment, the imperative of self-identity) consists in the universality and totality of the reconstruction of reality, a situation arises of recognizing the status of the “last” novel instance for a realistic novel. The further existence of the novel can only be considered in terms of "preservation" or "crisis". A natural consequence of this approach is the perception of the realistic novel as a “top”, a “peak”, from which only a descent is possible: “The novel, therefore, acts as the final genre of realistic literature. It acts as a universal genre of realistic literature - as one in which all the richness of possible stylistic solutions is deployed50 (highlighted by the author. - T. D.).
The orientation of literary scholars and critics to the realistic model of the genre as “exemplary” largely determined the nature of aesthetic reflection on the fate of the novel in the 20th century: 1) doubts about the possibilities of the genre in the new era and prophecies about the “end of the novel”; 2) the perception of the modernist novel as a "damage", "loss" of novel possibilities and, as a result, the recognition of its achievements only with reservations; 3) a suspicious attitude towards specific varieties of the novel (historical and philosophical) that do not have the fullness of its universality as a mimetic narrative.
Thus, the absolutization of the "genre essence" of the novel can become a brake on the researcher of the literature of the 20th century, especially its first third, marked by exceptional dynamism, a change in aesthetic systems, purposeful efforts to overcome the realistic novel tradition and / or its synthesis with the experience of modernism.
Let's sum up some results. Being a thematic variety of the novel genre, the historiosophical novel, due to its “borderline” nature, presents certain difficulties for literary research.
Firstly, in the historiosophical novel there is a violation of the "external" boundaries of the novel genre - between literature and philosophy, literature and history. The active intrusion of non-fiction discourses into the novel structure leads to its ideologization and historicization. The qualification of these processes in line with genre thinking is one of the conditions for literary analysis.
Secondly, the “hybrid” nature of this genre variety, which provides a meeting in a single artistic space of historical and philosophical discourses, leads to an acute conflict. In our opinion, overcoming this collision by aesthetic means is the main source of genre energy of the historiosophical novel.
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Thirdly, the specificity of the historiosophical discourse determines the nature of the existential problematics mastered by the novel. The religious-philosophical paradigm, in which the search for the meaning of history is conducted, requires its appropriate qualification. There is a need to combine axiological and aesthetic approaches in the process of analysis with the dominance of the latter.
Notes
1 See: Polonsky V. Mythopoetics and genre dynamics in Russian literature of the late 19th-early 20th century. M., 2008; He is. Mythopoetic aspects of genre evolution in Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th century: author. dis. ... Dr. Philol. Sciences. M., 2008; Breeva T. Conceptualization of the national in the Russian historiosophical novel of the situation of boundary: author. dis. .Dr. Philol. Sciences. Yekaterinburg, 2011 ; Sorokina T. Artistic historiosophy of the modern novel: autoref. dis. . Dr. Philol. Sciences. Krasnodar, 2011.
2 See: Polonsky V. Mythopoetics and genre dynamics in Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries. pp. 50-51.
3 For the argumentation of the refusal to consider the historical novel as a significant object of study, see: Sorokina T. Decree. op. S. 12.
4 According to T. N. Breeva, “in the historical novel, history acts as an object of utterance, in this capacity it is arranged by its own novel beginning.<. >In contrast to this, in the historiosophical novel, history begins to be considered already as a subject of utterance, which to a large extent contributes to the transformation of the relationship between the novel and the historical beginning ”(T. Breeva, decree. Op. P. 12).
5 On the lack of clarity of the term "historiosophical novel" in literary criticism at the end of the 20th century. see: Dronova T. Historiosophical novel of the 20th century: the problem of genre identity // Little-known pages and new concepts of the history of Russian literature of the 20th century: materials of the Intern. scientific conf. MGOU, June 27-28, 2005. Issue. 3. Part 1: Literature of the Russian Diaspora. M., 2006.
6 Hegel G. Aesthetics: in 4 vols. M., 1968. T. 1. S. 274.
7 See about this: Chernets L. Literary genres. M., 1982. S. 77.
8 See: Bakhtin M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. M., 1975; He is. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. M., 1979, etc.
9 Kagan M. Morphology of art: historical and theoretical study of the internal structure of the art world. L., 1972. S. 410-411.
10 Considering the concept of Sohor (Sohor A. Aesthetic nature of the genre in music. M., 1968), who considered the functional criterion to be decisive, M. Kagan concludes that such a solution “led to a mixture of completely different classification planes and - which is especially important - gave well-known fruits in relation to music, but it turned out
completely inapplicable to other arts ”(Kagan M. Decree. Op. P. 411).
11 We note some mechanistic nature in M. Kagan’s description of the situation of “genre choice”, apparently inevitable in the study of the “morphology of art”: “... in a real creative process, an artist always faces the need to more or less consciously choose a certain genre structure that seems to him optimal for solving this creative problem. And even in the case when none of the genre structures existing in his time suits the artist and he goes in search of a new one - either by modifying one of the existing ones, or by crossing two or three genres known to him, or by trying to construct something completely in in this regard, unprecedented - even in this case, he is forced to carry out a certain act of “genre self-determination” ”(Kagan M. Decree. Op. P. 410).
12 Ibid. S. 411.
13 See: Kasatkina T. The structure of the genre category // Context-2003: literary and theoretical studies. M., 2003. It is indicative that the same edition published the materials of the discussion on topical problems of the theory of literature, the participants of which anxiously note the desire of the newest literary schools to abandon what their predecessors did. I. B. Rodnyanskaya sees the reason for the attempts to “throw off the ship of modernity” the results of predecessors on a new wave of ideologization of humanitarian knowledge in general: “Previously, we knew ideologization in only one form - the Marxist press
< .>It seemed that the heavy fetters would fall, and the ideological injections would stop. In fact, ideologization has found a home for itself in the latest schools of knowledge, and its first sign is the rejection of what the predecessors did. If literary criticism is a form of knowledge (science not in the sense of science, but in the sense of knowledge), then something established by it cannot be discarded by each new school, by the new generation in order to bring everything to a zero cycle. In humanitarian knowledge, if it is not subordinated to ideological goals that are extraneous to it, continuity cannot be rejected.<...>. Unlike science, philosophy and other forms of spiritual activity, ideologies (as well as utopias inseparable from them) like to start everything from scratch” (Round table “ Actual problems theory of literature” in IMLI // Context-2003. pp. 12-13).
14 See Bakhtin's reflections on the interaction of form and content in aesthetic activity: “So, form is an expression of the active value attitude of the author-creator and perceiver (co-creator of form) to content; all the moments of the work in which we can feel ourselves, our value-related activity related to the content and which are overcome in their materiality by this activity, must be attributed to the form ”(Bakhtin M. M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. P. 59).
15 Kasatkina T. Decree. op. S. 70.
16 Ibid. S. 65.
17 “A genre is a certain program of behavior in a certain situation, a certain stereotype.<. >That's why
so, in essence, the titles (often very sensible works) of the type “Genre originality.” are ridiculous. Genre is what remains when the work (behavior) has already been rid of any originality. Everything else is related to something else ”(Kasatkina T. Decree. op.
pp. 72-73). Of course, there is a certain sense in the search for life analogies with genre structures in literature. But this, as V. E. Khalizev rightly believes, is related to the sphere of the genesis of literary genres (see: Khalizev V. A life analogue of artistic imagery (the experience of substantiating the concept) // Principles of analysis of a literary work. M., 1984).
18 When T. A. Kasatkina’s judgments are included in the context of Bakhtin’s reflections on the nature of the genre, it becomes obvious that the researcher updates the theory of genres more phraseologically than in essence, but the question of the addressee is pointed out correctly. At the same time, she simplifies the idea of literary genres, identifying primary (simple) and secondary (complex, including artistic) genres, ignoring the speech nature of the genre and the variety of genre forms of expression.
19 Shklovsky V. Has the novel ended? // Foreign literature. 1967. No. 8. S. 220.
21 Kasatkina T. Decree. op. S. 85.
22 Shklovsky V. Decree. op. pp. 220-221.
23 Kopystyanskaya N. The concept of "genre" in its stability and variability // Context-1986: literary and theoretical studies. M., 1987. S. 182. In real literary practice, the interaction of different levels of the concept of genre is by no means without conflict. The novel as an abstraction and the novel as a historical-literary category are in a relationship of attraction and repulsion, since the genre as an entity tends to stability, and as a literary fact - to variability up to the denial of substantial principles established by aesthetic theory.
24 See: EidinovaV. "Antidialogism" as a stylistic principle of "Russian literature of the absurd" of the 20s - early 30s (on the problem of literary dynamics) // XX century. Literature. Style. Stylistic patterns of Russian literature of the XX century (1900-1930). Yekaterinburg, 1994.
25 As is known, in Yu. N. Tynyanov's theory of literary evolution, the problem of genre is central. After all, it is precisely the comprehension of genre transformations in Russian literature of the 13th-19th centuries. gave the scientist grounds for determining the "basic laws" of literary evolution. In the works of M. M. Bakhtin, genres appear as the main characters of the “drama of literary development”: “Behind the superficial variegation and hype of the literary process, they do not see the great and significant destinies of literature and language, the leading heroes of which are genres, and trends and schools are heroes of only the second and of the third order ”(highlighted by us. - T. D.) (Bakhtin M. M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. P. 451).
26 Tynyanov Y. Poetics. History of literature. Movie. M., 1977. S. 256.
27 Bakhtin M. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. M., 1979.
28 The position of G. S. Morson is indicative, emphasizing that formalism for M. M. Bakhtin is “a friendly other” (Makhlin V. - Morson G. Correspondence from two worlds // Bakhtinskii sbornik-2. M., 1991. P. 40.
29 Eidinova V. Decree. op. S. 9.
30 Tynyanov Yu. Decree. op. S. 258.
31 Bakhtin M. Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics. pp. 121-122.
32 Tynyanov Yu. Decree. op. S. 276.
33 Bakhtin M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. S. 471.
34 See, for example: “It is necessary to see and understand the core, essential properties of the figurative and directly verbal form of the novel. References to transitional, dual types of the novel (satirical, romantic-historical, utopian, in which the features discussed above appear in a complex interweaving with other qualities), all these clarifying amendments, designed, it would seem, to protect against dogmatism and normativity, are actually capable of only obscure, obscure the great artistic discovery made in the course of the novel ”(Kozhinov V.V. Origin of the novel. M., 1963.
35 See, for example: Miroshnikov V. The novels of Leonid Leonov: the formation and development of the artistic system of philosophical prose. Ryazan, 1992. Commenting on the definition of "philosophical novel", applied to works of a purely philosophical nature, which took the form of a figurative narrative (the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Unamuno, Musil, Camus, Sartre, Huxley, etc.), he writes : “... this is without any doubt a “synthetic form of culture”, which must be recognized only as such and, in order to avoid confusion, decisively separated from fiction proper<. >In our country, without any theoretical justification, such works are often called “philosophical novels” only on the basis of their philosophical and fiction, which, however, is not enough to recognize their aesthetic “fullness”” (p. 23).
36 Averintsev S. Genre as abstraction and genres as reality: the dialectic of closedness and openness // Averintsev S. Rhetoric and origins of the European literary tradition. M., 1996. S. 192.
37 Ibid. S. 194.
38 Ibid. pp. 192-193.
39 Ibid. pp. 197-198.
40 Library for reading. 1834. Vol. II. Dep. V. C. 14.
41 “The novel and the story have now become at the head of other kinds of poetry<. >The reasons for this are in the very essence of the novel and the story as a kind of poetry. In them it is better, more convenient than in any other kind of poetry, fiction merges with reality, artistic invention is mixed with a simple, if only true, copying from nature.<...>This is the widest, most comprehensive kind of poetry; he has talent
G. S. Prokhorov. Organization of the narrative in the work
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yourself infinitely free. It combines all other kinds of poetry - both lyricism as an outpouring of the author's feelings about the event described, and drama as a brighter and more embossed way to make these characters speak out. Digressions, reasoning, didactics, unbearable in other kinds of poetry, in the novel and story can have their rightful place. The novel and the story give full scope to the writer in relation to the predominant property of his talent, character, taste, direction, etc. ” (Belinsky V. G. A look at Russian literature in 1947: the second and last article // Belinsky V. G. Collected works: in 9 vols. M., 1982. T. 8. P. 371).
42 Belinsky V. Decree. op. S. 374.
43 “The cultural area has no internal territory: it is all located on the borders, the borders run everywhere, through every moment of its<.>Every cultural act essentially lives on the frontiers: in this it
seriousness and significance; distracted from the boundaries, he loses ground, becomes empty, arrogant, degenerates and dies ”(Bakhtin M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. P. 25).
44 On the border as a place of dialogue, cultural bilingualism, an area of accelerated semiotic processes, see: Lotman Yu. About the semiosphere // Lotman Yu. Selected articles: in 3 vols. Tallinn, 1992. Vol. 1; He is. Culture and Explosion. M., 1992; He is. Inside thinking worlds. Man - Text - Semiosphere - History. M., 1996.
45 Belinsky V. G Decree. op. T. 1. S. 354.
46 See: Mikhailov A. Roman and Style // Theory of Literary Styles: Modern Aspects of Study. M., 1982.
47 Ibid. S. 155.
48 Ibid. S. 142.
49 Averintsev S. Decree. op. S. 191.
50 Mikhailov A. Decree. op. S. 141.
organization of narration in an artistic and journalistic work
G. S. Prokhorov
Moscow State Regional Social and Humanitarian Institute E-mail: [email protected]
The article is devoted to the problem of the organization of narration in an artistic and journalistic work. The author proves that, contrary to traditional views on the speech organization of artistic journalism, the narrator, the hero and the author-creator do not aesthetically coincide in them. The speech subject of artistic journalism is a special type of narrator, the specificity of which lies in the structurally manifested inseparable connection with the author-creator.
Keywords Keywords: artistic and journalistic unity, author-creator, narration, type of narrator, M. M. Bakhtin.
The Narrative structure of Aesthetic Journalism Work G. s. Prokhorov
The article dwells on the problem of narrative structure in an aesthetic journalism work. The author proves that, contrary to the traditional views on the speech structure of aesthetic journalism, the narrator, the hero, and the author-creator of such works aesthetically do not correspond. The speech subject of aesthetic journalism is a special type of narrator, whose peculiarity is made up of the structurally manifested unmerging and inseparable bond with the author-creator.
Key words: aesthetic journalism, author-creator, narration, narrator, M. M. Bakhtin.
The concept of "artistic and journalistic work", despite a significant number of references to it1, remains to a high degree
blurry. We can talk about both a work of art containing a large number of prototypical or documentary references, and a skillfully executed text that is purely descriptive in nature.
While the status of an artistic and journalistic literary form is doubtful, the narrative model inherent in it turns out to be even more problematic. In a work of art, the narrator is “not a person, but a function”2. Being a function, the narrator, like any of the characters, was created by the author, only not to live in the inner form of the work, but to organize a story about events, situations and collisions of the inner world3. Therefore, the narrator is a fictional subject4, like any hero: “One of the main features of a narrative literary text is its fictitiousness, that is, the fact that the world depicted in the text is fictitious, fictional”5.
The correlation of narration, narrator and fiction leads to difficulties in using these concepts in relation to artistic journalism. After all, according to the existing basic ideas, a literary and journalistic text, if not completely non-fictional (cf.: “In the method of typing, there is a fundamental difference between the creative method of an essayist and a prose writer. A prose writer synthesizes a type, creates it through an individual general idea of the typical features of a particular
© Prokhorov G.S., 2012