Compositional parts of the work. Chapter VI. Composition of a literary work

In literary studies, they say different things about composition, but there are three main definitions:

1) Composition is the arrangement and correlation of parts, elements and images of the work (components of the artistic form), the sequence of introducing the units of the depicted and speech means text.

2) Composition is a construction artwork, the correlation of all parts of the work into a single whole, due to its content and genre.

3) Composition - the construction of a work of art, a certain system of means of disclosing, organizing images, their connections and relationships that characterize the life process shown in the work.

All these scary literary concepts, in essence, a fairly simple decoding: composition is the arrangement of the novels passages in a logical order, in which the text becomes whole and acquires an inner meaning.

How, following the instructions and rules, we collect from small parts constructor or puzzle, so we collect from text fragments, be it chapters, parts or sketches, and a whole novel.

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The composition of the work is external and internal.

External composition of the book

External composition (aka architectonics) is a breakdown of the text into chapters and parts, highlighting additional structural parts and an epilogue, introduction and conclusion, epigraphs and lyrical digressions. The external composition is also the division of the text into volumes (separate books with a global idea, a branching plot and a large number of heroes and characters).

External composition is a way of dosing information.

A novel text written on 300 pages is unreadable without a structural breakdown. At a minimum, he needs parts, at a maximum - chapters or semantic segments, separated by spaces or asterisks (***).

By the way, short chapters are more convenient for perception - up to ten sheets - after all, we, as readers, having mastered one chapter, no, no, but let's count how many pages there are in the next - and continue to read or sleep.

Internal composition of the book

The internal composition, in contrast to the external, includes much more items and text layout techniques. All of them, however, boil down to a common goal - to arrange the text in a logical order and reveal author's intention, but they go to it in different ways - plot, figurative, speech, thematic, etc. Let us examine them in more detail.

1. Subject elements of the internal composition:

• prologue - introduction, most often - prehistory. (But some authors take the event from the middle of the story in the prologue, or the original compositional move from the finale.) The prologue is an interesting but optional element of both external and external composition;
• exposition - the initial event, in which the heroes are presented, the conflict is outlined;
• tie - events in which the conflict is tied;
• development of actions - the course of events;
• culmination - the highest point of tension, the clash of opposing forces, the peak of the emotional intensity of the conflict;
• denouement - the result of the climax;
• epilogue - the summary of the story, conclusions on the plot and assessment of events, outline later life heroes. Optional element.

2. Figurative elements:

• images of heroes and characters - advance the plot, are the main conflicts, reveal the idea and the author's intention. The system of characters - each image separately and the connections between them - an important element of the internal composition;
• images of the setting in which the action develops are descriptions of countries and cities, images of the road and accompanying landscapes, if the heroes are on the way, interiors - if all events take place, for example, within the walls of a medieval castle. The images of the environment are the so-called descriptive "meat" (the world of history), atmosphere (the sense of history).

The figurative elements work mainly on the plot.

So, for example, the image of a hero is assembled from the details - an orphan, without clan and tribe, but with magical power and purpose - to learn about his past, about his family, to find his place in the world. And this goal, in fact, becomes a plot - and compositional one: from the search for the hero, from the development of the action - from the progressive and logical advancement - the text is formed.

And the same goes for the images of the environment. They both create the space of history, and at the same time limit it to certain frames - a medieval castle, city, country, world.

Specific images complement and develop the story, make it understandable, visible and tangible, like correctly (and compositionally) arranged household items in your apartment.

3. Speech elements:

• dialogue (polylogue);
• monologue;
• lyrical digressions (the author's word, which does not concern the development of the plot or the images of the heroes, abstract reflections on a specific topic).

Speech elements are the speed of perception of the text. Dialogues are dynamics, and monologues and lyrical digressions (including descriptions of action in the first person) are static. Visually, the text, in which there are no dialogues, seems cumbersome, inconvenient, unreadable, and this is reflected in the composition. Without dialogues, it is difficult to understand - the text seems to be drawn out.

A monologue text - like a bulky sideboard in a small room - relies on many details (and even more contains), which are sometimes difficult to understand. Ideally, in order not to burden the composition of the chapter, a monologue (and any descriptive text) should take no more than two or three pages. And by no means ten or fifteen, just few people will read them - they will skip, look diagonally.

Conversely, dialogues are composed of emotions, easy to understand and dynamic. At the same time, they should not be empty - only for the sake of dynamics and "heroic" experiences, but informative, and the disclosure of the hero's image.

4. Inserts:

• retrospective - scenes from the past: a) long episodes, revealing the image of the heroes, showing the history of the world or the origins of the situation, may take several chapters; b) short skits(flashbacks) - from one paragraph, often extremely emotional and atmospheric episodes;
• short stories, parables, fairy tales, tales, poems are optional elements that interestingly diversify the text ( good example compositional tale - "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by Rowling); chapters of another story in the composition "a novel in a novel" ("The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov);
• dreams (dreams-premonitions, dreams-predictions, dreams-riddles).

Inserts are extra-plot elements, and remove them from the text - the plot will not change. However, they can scare, amuse, disturb the reader, suggest the development of the plot, if there is a complex series of events ahead. The scene should logically flow from the previous one, each next chapter should be connected with the events of the previous one (if several storylines, then the chapters are fastened by events lines);

— arrangement and design of the text in accordance with the plot (idea)- this is, for example, the form of a diary, term paper student, novel in novel;

— theme of the work- a hidden, cross-cutting compositional technique that answers the question - what is the story about, what is its essence, what main idea the author wants to convey to the readers; in practical terms, it is solved through the choice of significant details in key scenes;

— motive Are persistent and repetitive elements that create end-to-end images: for example, the images of the road are the motive of travel, the adventurous or homeless life of the hero.

Composition is a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, and it is difficult to understand all its levels. However, you need to understand in order to know how to arrange the text so that it is easily perceived by the reader. In this article, we talked about the basics, about what lies on the surface. And in the following articles we will dig a little deeper.

Stay tuned!

Daria Gushchina
writer, science fiction author
(VK page

COMPOSITION OF LITERARY AND ARTISTIC WORKS. TRADITIONAL COMPOSITIONAL TECHNIQUES. DEFAULT / RECOGNITION, "MINUS" - RECEPTION, CO- AND CONTRADICTIONS. MOUNTING.

Composition literary work- this is the mutual correlation and arrangement of units of the depicted and artistic and speech means. The composition realizes the unity and integrity of artistic creations. The foundation of the composition is the orderliness of the fictional reality depicted by the writer.

Elements and levels of composition:

• plot (in the understanding of the formalists - artistically processed events);
• system of characters (their relationship to each other);
• narrative composition (change of narrators and point of view);
• composition of details (correlation of details);
• the ratio of narrative and description elements (portraits, landscapes, interiors, etc.)

Traditional compositional techniques:

• repetitions and variations. They serve to highlight and accentuate the most significant moments and links of the subject-speech fabric of the work. Direct repetitions not only dominated the historically early song lyrics, but also constituted its essence. Variations are altered repetitions (description of the squirrel in Pushkin's "The Tale of Tsar Saltan"). Strengthening the repetition is called gradation (the increasing claims of the old woman in Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish"). Repetitions also include anaphoras (monotony) and epiphores (repeating endings of stanzas);
• co- and opposition. At the origins of this technique is figurative parallelism developed by Veselovsky. It is based on the conjugation of natural phenomena with human reality ("Creeps and winds / Silk grass in the meadow / Kisses, has mercy / Michael his wife"). For example, Chekhov's plays are based on comparisons of similarities, where the general life drama of the depicted environment prevails, where there are neither completely right nor completely guilty. Contrasts take place in fairy tales (the hero is a pest), in Griboyedov's Woe from Wit between Chatsky and 25 Fools, etc .;
• “Silence / recognition, minus trick. The defaults are outside the detailed image. They make the text more compact, activate the imagination and increase the reader's interest in the depicted, sometimes intriguing him. In a number of cases, omissions are followed by clarification and direct detection of the hitherto hidden from the reader and / or the hero himself - what Aristotle calls recognition. Recognitions can complete a re-created series of events, as, for example, in the tragedy of Sophocles "Oedipus the king." But omissions may not be accompanied by recognitions, remaining gaps in the fabric of the work, artistically significant misunderstandings - minus devices.
• mounting. In literary criticism, montage is the fixation of juxtapositions and contrasts that are not dictated by the logic of the depicted, but directly capture the author's train of thought and associations. A composition with such an active aspect is called editing. Spatio-temporal events and the characters themselves in this case are weakly or illogically connected, but everything depicted as a whole expresses the energy of the author's thought, his association. Editing beginning somehow exists where there are inserted stories ("The Tale of Captain Kopeikin" in "Dead Souls"), lyrical digressions ("Eugene Onegin"), chronological rearrangements ("A Hero of Our Time"). The assembly structure corresponds to the vision of the world, which is versatile and wide.

ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF ARTISTIC DETAILS IN A LITERARY WORK. RELATIONSHIP OF PARTS AS A COMPOSITIONAL RECEPTION.

An artistic detail is an expressive detail in a work that carries a significant semantic, ideological and emotional load. The figurative form of a literary work contains three sides: a system of details of subject depiction, a system of compositional techniques and a speech system. TO artistic detail usually include subject details - life, landscape, portrait.

The detailing of the objective world in literature is inevitable, since only with the help of details can the author recreate an object in all its features, evoking the necessary associations in the reader with details. Detailing is not decoration, but the essence of the image. The addition of mentally missing elements by the reader is called concretization (for example, the imagination of a certain human image, an image that is not given by the author with exhaustive certainty).

According to Andrey Borisovich Esin, there are three large groups details:

• plot;
• descriptive;
• psychological.

The predominance of one type or another gives rise to the corresponding dominant property of the style: plot ("Taras and Bulba"), descriptiveness (" Dead Souls"), Psychologism (" Crime and Punishment).

Details can both "agree with each other" and oppose each other, "argue" with each other. Efim Semenovich Dobin proposed a typology of details based on the criterion: singularity / multitude. He defined the ratio of detail and detail as follows: detail tends to singularity, detail acts in a multitude.

Dobin believes that by repeating and acquiring additional meanings, the detail grows into a symbol, and the detail is closer to the sign.

DESCRIPTIVE ELEMENTS OF THE COMPOSITION. PORTRAIT. LANDSCAPE. INTERIOR.

It is customary to refer to the descriptive elements of the composition as a landscape, an interior, a portrait, as well as characteristics of heroes, a story about their repeated, regularly repeated actions, habits (for example, a description of the usual daily routine of heroes in Gogol's "The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich" ). The main criterion for a descriptive element of a composition is its static nature.

Portrait. Character portrait - a description of his appearance: bodily, natural, and in particular age properties(facial features and figures, hair color), as well as all that in the appearance of a person that is formed by the social environment, cultural tradition, individual initiative (clothing and jewelry, hairstyle and cosmetics).

For traditional high genres idealizing portraits are characteristic (for example, the Pole in Taras Bulba). The portraits in works of a comical, comedy-farcical nature had a completely different character, where the center of the portrait is the grotesque (transforming, leading to some ugliness, incongruity) presentation of the human body.

The role of a portrait in a work differs depending on the type and genre of literature. In the drama, the author is limited to indicating the age and general characteristics given in the remarks. In the lyrics, the technique of replacing the description of the appearance with an impression from it is used as much as possible. Such a replacement is often accompanied by the use of the epithets "beautiful", "adorable", "charming", "captivating", "incomparable". Comparisons and metaphors based on the abundance of nature are very actively used here (a slender camp - a cypress, a girl - a birch, a timid doe). Gems and metals are used to convey the shine and color of eyes, lips, hair. Comparisons with the sun, moon, gods are characteristic. In the epic, the appearance and behavior of the character are associated with his character. Early epic genres, for example heroic tales, are full of exaggerated examples of character and appearance - ideal courage, extraordinary physical strength... The behavior is also appropriate - the majesty of postures and gestures, the solemnity of unhurried speech.

In creating a portrait up to late XVIII v. the leading trend remained its conventional form, the prevalence of the general over the particular. In the literature of the XIX century. two main types of portrait can be distinguished: expositional (tending to static) and dynamic (passing into the whole narrative).

The exposition portrait is based on a detailed listing of details of the face, figure, clothing, individual gestures and other features of appearance. It is given on behalf of the narrator, who is interested in the specificity of the external appearance of representatives of some social community. A more complex modification of such a portrait is a psychological portrait, where features of appearance prevail, indicating the properties of character and inner peace(not laughing eyes of Pechorin).

A dynamic portrait, instead of a detailed listing of outward features, presupposes a short, expressive detail that arises in the course of the narrative (the images of the heroes in The Queen of Spades).

Landscape. Landscape is best understood as a description of any open space. outside world... Landscape is optional artistic world, which emphasizes the conventionality of the latter, since landscapes are everywhere in the reality that surrounds us. The landscape carries several essential functions:

• designation of the place and time of action. It is with the help of the landscape that the reader can clearly imagine where and when events take place. At the same time, a landscape is not a dry indication of the space-time parameters of a work, but an artistic description using a figurative, poetic language;
• plot motivation. Natural, and, in particular, meteorological processes can direct the plot in one direction or another, mainly if this plot is chronicle (with the primacy of events that do not depend on the will of the characters). Landscape also occupies a lot of place in animalistic literature (for example, the works of Bianchi);
• form of psychologism. The landscape creates a psychological mood for the perception of the text, helps to reveal the inner state of the characters (for example, the role of the landscape in the sentimental "Poor Liza");
• form of presence of the author. The author can show his patriotic feelings by giving the landscape national identity(for example, Yesenin's poetry).

The landscape has its own characteristics in different types of literature. In the drama, he is presented very sparingly. In the lyrics, he is emphatically expressive, often symbolic: personifications, metaphors and other tropes are widely used. In the epic much more possibilities for the introduction of the landscape.

The literary landscape has a very ramified typology. Distinguish between rural and urban, steppe, marine, forest, mountainous, northern and southern, exotic - opposed to flora and fauna native land the author.

Interior. The interior, in contrast to the landscape, is an image of the interior, a description of a closed space. Used mainly for social and psychological characteristics characters, demonstrates the conditions of their life (Raskolnikov's room).

"NARRATIVE" COMPOSITION. NARRATOR, NARRATOR AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AUTHOR. "POINT OF VIEW" AS A CATEGORY OF NARRATIVE COMPOSITION.

The narrator is the one who informs the reader about the events and actions of the characters, fixes the course of time, depicts the appearance of the characters and the setting of the action, analyzes the inner state of the hero and the motives of his behavior, characterizes him human type, while not being either a participant in the events, or an object of the image for any of the characters. The narrator is not a person, but a function. Or, as Thomas Mann put it, "the weightless, disembodied and omnipresent spirit of storytelling." But the function of the narrator can be attached to the character, provided that the character as a narrator does not coincide at all with him as with the protagonist. So, for example, the narrator Grinev in “ Captain's daughter"- by no means a definite personality, in contrast to Grinev - the actor. Grinev's character's outlook on what is happening is limited by the conditions of place and time, including the characteristics of age and development; much deeper is his point of view as a narrator.

In contrast to the narrator, the narrator is entirely within the depicted reality. If no one sees the narrator inside the depicted world and does not assume the possibility of his existence, then the narrator will certainly enter the horizons of either the narrator or the characters - listeners of the story. The narrator is the subject of the image associated with a certain socio-cultural environment, from the position of which he depicts other characters. The narrator, on the other hand, is close in his outlook to the author-creator.

In a broad sense, narration is a set of those statements of speech subjects (narrator, narrator, image of the author) that perform the functions of "mediation" between the depicted world and the reader - the addressee of the entire work as a single artistic statement.

In narrower and more precise, and also more traditional meaning, narration - a set of all speech fragments of a work containing a variety of messages: about the events and actions of the characters; about the spatial and temporal conditions in which the plot unfolds; about the relationship between the actors and the motives of their behavior, etc.

Despite the popularity of the term "point of view", its definition has raised and raises many questions. Let us consider two approaches to the classification of this concept - by B. A. Uspensky and by B. O. Korman.

Ouspensky talks about:

• ideological point of view, understanding by it a vision of an object in the light of a certain perception of the world, which is transmitted different ways testifying to his individual and social position;
• phraseological point of view, understanding by it the use of the author to describe different heroes a different language or, in general, elements of someone else's or substituted speech when describing;
• to the spatio-temporal point of view, meaning by it the place of the narrator, which is fixed and determined in spatio-temporal coordinates, which may coincide with the place of the character;
• point of view in terms of psychology, understanding by it the difference between the two possibilities for the author: to refer to one or another individual perception or to strive to describe events objectively, based on the facts known to him. The first, subjective, possibility, according to Uspensky, is the psychological one.

Korman is closest to Ouspensky regarding a phraseological point of view, but he:

• delimits the spatial (physical) and temporal (position in time) points of view;
• divides the ideological and emotional point of view into direct-evaluative (open, lying on the surface of the text, the ratio of the subject of consciousness and the object of consciousness) and indirectly evaluative (the author's assessment, not expressed in words that have obvious evaluative meaning).

The disadvantage of Corman's approach is the absence of a "plan of psychology" in his system.

So, the point of view in a literary work is the position of the observer (narrator, narrator, character) in the depicted world (in time, space, in the socio-ideological and linguistic environment), which, on the one hand, determines his outlook - both in terms of volume ( field of view, degree of awareness, level of understanding), and in terms of assessing the perceived; on the other hand, it expresses the author's assessment of this subject and his horizons.

Composition is the arrangement of parts of a literary work in a certain order, a set of forms and methods of artistic expression by the author, depending on his intention. Translated from Latin means "composing", "building". The composition builds all parts of the work into a single complete whole.

It helps the reader to better understand the content of the works, maintains interest in the book and helps to draw the necessary conclusions in the final. Sometimes the composition of a book intrigues the reader and he looks for a continuation of the book or other works of this writer.

Composite elements

Among such elements are narration, description, dialogue, monologue, inserted stories and lyrical digressions:

1. Narration- the main element of the composition, the author's story, revealing the content of a work of art. Occupies most the volume of the entire work. It conveys the dynamics of events, it can be retelled or illustrated with drawings.
2. Description... It is a static item. During the description, events do not occur, it serves as a picture, a background for the events of the work. Description is a portrait, interior, landscape. A landscape is not necessarily a depiction of nature, it can be a city landscape, a lunar landscape, a description of fantastic cities, planets, galaxies, or a description of fictional worlds.
3. Dialogue- a conversation between two people. It helps to reveal the plot, to deepen the characters of the characters. Through the dialogue of the two heroes, the reader learns about the events of the past of the heroes of the works, about their plans, begins to better understand the characters of the heroes.
4. Monologue- the speech of one character. In the comedy of A.S. Griboyedov, through Chatsky's monologues, the author conveys the thoughts of the leading people of his generation and the feelings of the hero himself, who learned about the betrayal of his beloved.
5. Image system... All images of the work that interact in connection with the intention of the author. These are images of people fairy tale characters, mythical, toponymic and subject. There are absurd images invented by the author, for example "The Nose" from the novel of the same name by Gogol. The authors simply came up with many images, and their names became common.
6. Insert stories, story within story. Many authors use this technique to strike up intrigue in a work or at a denouement. There may be several inserted stories in the work, the events in which take place in different time... Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita uses the novel-in-novel technique.
7. Author's or lyrical digressions... There are many lyrical digressions in Gogol's work "Dead Souls". Because of them, the genre of the work has changed. This is great prose called the poem "Dead Souls". And "Eugene Onegin" is called a novel in verse because of a large number copyright digressions, thanks to which an impressive picture is presented to readers Russian life early 19th century.
8. Author's characteristic... In it, the author talks about the character of the hero and does not hide his positive or negative attitude to him. In his works, Gogol often gives ironic characteristics to his characters - so precise and succinct that his characters often become household names.
9. Narrative plot is a chain of events that take place in a work. The plot is the content artistic text.
10. Fable- all events, circumstances and actions that are described in the text. The main difference from the plot is the chronological sequence.
11. Landscape- description of nature, real and imaginary world, city, planet, galaxies, existing and fictional. The landscape is artistic technique, thanks to which the character of the heroes is revealed more deeply and the events are assessed. You can remember how it changes seascape in Pushkin's "Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish", when the old man comes to the Golden Fish again and again with another request.
12. Portrait- This is a description of not only the appearance of the hero, but also his inner world. Thanks to the author's talent, the portrait is so accurate that all readers equally imagine the appearance of the hero of the book they have read: what Natasha Rostova, Prince Andrei, Sherlock Holmes looks like. Sometimes the author draws the reader's attention to some characteristic feature hero, for example, the mustache of Poirot in the books of Agatha Christie.

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Compositional techniques

Subject composition

The development of the plot has its own stages of development. There is always a conflict in the center of the plot, but the reader does not know about it immediately.

Subject composition depends on the genre of the work. For example, a fable necessarily ends with morality. Dramatic works of classicism had their own laws of composition, for example, they were supposed to have five acts.

The composition of works is distinguished by its unshakable features. folklore... Songs, fairy tales, epics were created according to their own laws of construction.

The composition of the tale begins with a saying: "As on the sea-ocean, but on the island of Buyan ...". The proverb was often composed in poetic form and at times was far from the content of the tale. The storyteller attracted the attention of the audience with a saying and waited for the listeners to listen to him without distraction. Then he said: “This is a saying, not a fairy tale. The tale will be ahead. "

Then the beginning followed. The most famous of them begins with the words: "Once upon a time" or "In a certain kingdom, in the thirty state ...". Then the storyteller moved on to the fairy tale itself, to its heroes, to wonderful events.

Techniques of a fairy-tale composition, three-fold repetition of events: the hero fights the Serpent Gorynych three times, the princess sits at the window of the tower three times, and Ivanushka flies to her on horseback and breaks the ring, three times the Tsar tests his daughters-in-law in the fairy tale "The Frog Princess."

The ending of the fairy tale is also traditional, about the heroes of the fairy tale they say: "They live - they live and they make good." Sometimes the ending hints at a treat: "It's a fairy tale for you, but I have a knot of bagels."

Literary composition- this is the arrangement of parts of the work in a certain sequence, this is an integral system of forms artistic image... Means and techniques of composition deepen the meaning of what is depicted, reveal the characteristics of the characters. Each work of art has its own unique composition, but there are its traditional laws that are observed in some genres.

In the days of classicism, there was a system of rules that prescribed certain rules for writing texts to the authors, and they could not be violated. This is the rule of three unities: time, place, plot. This is a five-act construction of dramatic works. These are speaking surnames and a clear division into negative and goodies... The peculiarities of the composition of the works of classicism are a thing of the past.

Compositional techniques in literature depend on the genre of the work of art and on the talent of the author, who has available types, elements, techniques of composition, knows its features and knows how to use these artistic methods.

The integrity of a work of art is achieved by various means. Among these means, composition and plot play an important role.

Composition(from Latin componere - to compose, connect) - the construction of a work, the ratio of all its elements, creating the whole picture life and conducive to expression ideological content... In the composition, external elements are distinguished - division into parts, chapters, and internal - grouping and arrangement of images. When creating a work, the writer carefully thinks over the composition, place and interconnection of images and other elements, trying to give the material the greatest ideological and artistic expressiveness. Composition can be simple or complex. So, A. Chekhov's story "Ionych" has a simple composition. It consists of five small chapters(external elements) and a simple internal system of images. In the center of the image is Dmitry Startsev, who is opposed by a group of images of the local inhabitants of the Turkins. The composition of L. Tolstoy's epic novel "War and Peace" looks quite different. It consists of four parts, each part is divided into many chapters, a significant place is occupied by the philosophical reflections of the author. These are the external elements of the composition. The grouping and arrangement of images-characters, of which there are more than 550, is very difficult. The outstanding skill of the writer was manifested in the fact that, with all the complexity of the material, he was arranged in the most expedient manner and subordinated to the disclosure of the main idea: the people are the decisive force of history.

V scientific literature sometimes the terms are used architectonics, structure as synonyms of the word composition.

Plot(from the French sujet - subject) - a system of events of a work of art, revealing the characters of the heroes and contributing to the most complete expression of the ideological content. The system of events is a unity that develops in time, and driving force the plot is conflict. Conflicts are different: social, love, psychological, domestic, military and others. The hero usually comes into conflict with public environment, with other people, with yourself. There are usually several conflicts in a work. In L. Chekhov's story "Ionych", the hero's conflict with the environment is combined with a love affair. A striking example psychological conflict- "Hamlet" by Shakespeare. The most common type of conflict is social. To denote social conflict literary scholars often use the term collision, and love - intrigue.

The plot consists of a number of elements: exposition, set, development of action, climax, denouement, epilogue.

Exposition - initial information about the characters that motivate their behavior in the context of the conflict. In the story "Ionych" it is Startsev's arrival, a description of the "most educated" family of the Turkins in the city.

Stitch - an event that initiates the development of action, conflict. In the story "Ionych" Startsev's acquaintance with the Turkins' family.

After the set, the development of the action begins, highest point which is the culmination In L. Chekhov's story - Startsev's declaration of love, Katya's refusal.

Interchange- an event that removes the conflict. In the story "Ionych" there is a break in relations between Startsev and the Turkins.

Epilogue - information about the events that followed the denouement. Sometimes. the author himself calls the final part of the story an epilogue. The story of L. Chekhov contains information about the fate of the heroes, which can be attributed to the epilogue.

In a large artwork, as a rule, there are many storylines and each of them. developing, intertwined with others. Individual plot elements can be shared. Define classic scheme it can be difficult.

The movement of the plot in a work of art occurs simultaneously in time and space. To designate the relationship of temporal and spatial relations, M. Bakhtin proposed the term chronotope. Art time is not a direct reflection of real time, but arises by assembling certain representations of real time. Real time moves irreversibly and only in one direction - from the past to the future, while artistic time can slow down, stop and move in the opposite direction. Returning to the image of the past is called flashback... Artistic time is a complex interweaving of the times of the narrator and heroes, and often a complex layering of times of different historical eras("The Master and Margarita" by M. Bulgakov). It can be closed, closed in itself, and open, included in the flow of historical time. An example of the first "Ionych" L. Chekhov, the second - "Quiet Don" M. Sholokhov.

Parallel to the term plot there is a term plot, which are usually used synonymously. Meanwhile, some theorists consider them inadequate, insisting on their independent significance. The plot, in their opinion, is a system of events in a causal sequence, and a plot is a system of events in the author's presentation. Thus, the plot of I. Goncharov's novel Oblomov begins with a description of the life of an adult hero who lives in St. Petersburg with his servant Zakhar in a house on Gorokhovaya Street. The plot assumes a presentation of the events of Oblomov's life. since childhood (chapter "Oblomov's Dream").

We define the plot as a system, a chain of events. In many cases, the writer, in addition to telling about events, introduces descriptions of nature, everyday pictures, lyrical digressions, reflections, geographical or historical references... They are usually called off-plot elements.

It should be noted that there are different principles of plot organization. Sometimes events develop sequentially, in chronological order, sometimes with retrospective digressions, times overlap. Quite often there is a method of plot framing a plot within a plot. A striking example is Sholokhov's "The Fate of a Man". In it, the author tells about his meeting with the driver at the crossing of the overflowing river. While waiting for the ferry, Sokolov spoke about his difficult life, about being in German captivity, the loss of a family. In the end, the author said goodbye to this man and thought about his fate. The main, main story by Andrey Sokolov is framed by the author's story. This technique is called framing.

The plot and composition of lyric works are very peculiar. The author depicts in them not events, but thoughts and experiences. The unity and integrity of the lyric work is ensured by the main lyrical motive, the carrier of which is the lyric hero. The composition of the poem is subordinated to the disclosure of thought-feeling. "The lyrical unfolding of the topic," writes the famous literary theorist B. Tomashevsky, "resembles the dialectic of theoretical reasoning, with the difference that in the reasoning we have a logically justified introduction of new motives ... and in the lyrics the introduction of motives is justified by the emotional unfolding of the topic." Typical is, but in his opinion, the three-part construction of lyric poems, when in the first part the theme is given, in the second it develops by means of lateral motives, and the third is an emotional conclusion. As an example, we can cite A. Pushkin's poem "To Chaadaev".

1st part of Love, hope, quiet glory

The deception did not live long for us.

2nd part We wait with vexation of hope

Holy minutes of freedom ...

3rd part Comrade, believe! She will rise

The star of captivating happiness ...

The lyrical development of a theme is of two types: deductive - from the general to the particular and inductive - from the particular to the general. The first - in the above poem by A. Pushkin, the second in the poem by K. Simonov "Do you remember, Alyosha, the roads of Smolensk ...".

In some lyric works there is a plot: " Railway"I. Nekrasov, ballads, songs. They are called plot lyrics.

The pictorial details serve to reproduce the specific sensory details of the characters' world, created by the artist's creative imagination and directly embodying the ideological content of the work. The term "figurative details" is not recognized by all theorists (the terms "thematic" or "subject" details are also used), but everyone agrees that the artist recreates the details of the appearance and speech of the heroes, their inner world, the environment in order to express his thought ... However, accepting this position, one cannot interpret it too straightforwardly and think that every detail (eye color, gestures, clothing, description of the area, etc.) is directly related to the author's goal setting and has a very definite unambiguous meaning. If this were so, the work would have lost its artistic specificity and would have become tendentious and illustrative.

The pictorial details help the world of characters appear before the reader's inner gaze in all its fullness of life, in sounds, colors, volumes, smells, in spatial and temporal extent. Unable to convey all the details of the picture being drawn, the writer reproduces only a few of them, trying to give impetus to the reader's imagination and force him to complete the missing features with the help of his own imagination. Without "seeing", not imagining "living" characters, the reader will not be able to empathize with them, and his aesthetic perception of the work will be defective.

Figurative details allow the artist to plastically, visually recreate the life of the characters, to reveal their characters through individual details. At the same time, they convey the author's evaluative attitude to the depicted reality, create an emotional atmosphere for the story. So, rereading the mass scenes in the story "Taras Bulba", one can be convinced that seemingly scattered remarks and statements of the Cossacks help us to "hear" polyphonic crowd Cossacks, and a variety of portrait and everyday details - to visually represent it. At the same time, the heroic warehouse is gradually becoming clear. folk characters, developed in the conditions of wild freemen and poeticized by Gogol. At the same time, many details are comical, cause a smile, and create a humorous tone for the narration (especially in scenes peaceful life). The pictorial details here, as in most works, perform pictorial, characterizing and expressive functions.

In the drama, pictorial details are conveyed not by verbal, but by other means (there is no description of the external appearance of the heroes, their actions, setting, because there are actors on the stage and there are scenery). The speech characteristics of the characters acquire special significance.

In the lyrics, the pictorial details are subordinated to the task of recreating the experience in its development, movement, and contradiction. Here they serve as signs of the event that caused the experience, but they mainly play the role of a psychological characteristic of the lyric hero. At the same time, their expressive role is also preserved; the experience is conveyed as sublimely romantic, heroic, tragic, or in lowered, for example, ironic tones.

The plot also belongs to the sphere of visual detailing, but stands out for its dynamic character. In epic and dramatic works, these are the actions of the characters and the events depicted. The actions of the characters that make up the plot are varied - these are all sorts of actions, statements, experiences and thoughts of the heroes. The plot most directly and effectively reveals the character of the character, the protagonist. However, it is important to understand that the actions of the characters also reveal the author's understanding of the typical character and the author's assessment. By forcing the hero to act in one way or another, the artist evokes in the reader a certain evaluative attitude not only to the hero, but to the whole type of people he represents. So, forcing his fictional hero to kill a friend in a duel in the name of secular prejudices, Pushkin evokes a feeling of condemnation in the reader and makes him reflect on Onegin's inconsistency, on the inconsistency of his character. This is the expressive role of the plot.

The plot moves due to the emergence, development, resolution of various conflicts between the characters of the work. Conflicts can be of a private nature (Onegin's quarrel with Lensky), or they can be a moment, part of socio-historical conflicts that have arisen in historical reality itself (war, revolution, social movement). By depicting plot conflicts, the writer pays most attention to the problematics of the work. But it would be wrong to identify these concepts on the basis of this (there is a tendency towards such an identification in Abramovich's textbook, section 2, ch. 2). The problematic is the leading side of the ideological content, and the plot conflict is an element of the form. It is just as wrong to equate plot with content (as is common in spoken language). Therefore, the terminology of Timofeev, who proposed to call the plot, together with all the other details of the depicted life, "immediate content" ("Foundations of the Theory of Literature", part 2, chap. 1, 2, 3), did not receive recognition.

The question of the plot in the lyrics is solved in different ways. However, there is no doubt that this term can be applied to the lyrics only with great reservations, denoting the outline of those events that "shine through" through the lyrical experience of the hero and motivate him. Sometimes, however, this term designates the very movement of lyrical experience.

The composition of pictorial, including plot details, is their arrangement in the text. Using antitheses, repetitions, parallelisms, changing the tempo and chronological sequence of events in the narrative, establishing chronic and causal relationships between events, the artist achieves their relationship that expands and deepens their meaning. In all teaching aids the compositional methods of narration, the introduction of the narrator, framing, introductory episodes, the main points in the development of the action, various motivations of plot episodes are quite fully defined. The discrepancy between the order of plot events and the order of narration about them in the work makes us talk about such an expressive means as the plot. It should be borne in mind that a different terminology is also widespread, when the actual compositional method of rearranging events is called a plot (Abramovich, Kozhinov, etc.).

To master the material of this section, we recommend that you independently analyze the figurative details, plot and their composition in any epic or dramatic work. It is necessary to pay attention to how the development of action serves the development of artistic thought - the introduction of new topics, the deepening of problem motives, the gradual disclosure of the characters' characters and copyright to them. Each new plot scene or description is prepared, motivated by the entire previous image, but does not repeat it, but develops, complements and deepens. These form components are most directly related to artistic content and depend on it. Therefore, they are as unique as the content of each work.

In view of this, the student needs to get acquainted with those theories that ignore the close connection of the plot-pictorial sphere of the form with the content. This is primarily the so-called comparative theory, which was based on a comparative historical study of the literatures of the world, but misinterpreted the results of such a study. Comparativists focused primarily on the influence of literatures on each other. But they did not consider that the influence is due to similarity or difference. public relations in the respective countries, but proceeded from the immanent, that is, internal, supposedly completely autonomous laws of the development of literature. Therefore, comparativists wrote about "stable motives", about "ancient bequeathed images" of literature, as well as about "wandering plots", without distinguishing between the plot and its scheme. The characteristic of this theory is also in the textbook, ed. G.N. Pospelov and G.L. Abramovich.

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-TRAINING (m. 2)

1. Literary work as an integral unity.

2. The theme of the work of art and its features.

3. The idea of ​​a work of art and its features.

4. Composition of a work of art. External and internal elements.

5. The plot of a literary work. Conflict concept. Elements of the plot. Off-plot elements. Plot and plot.

6. What is the role of the plot in revealing the ideological content of the work?

7. What is plot composition? What is the difference between narration and description? What are off-plot episodes and lyrical digressions?

8. What is the function of landscape, household furnishings, portrait and speech characteristics character in the work?

9. Features of the plot of lyric works.

10. Spatio-temporal organization of the work. The concept of a chronotope.

LITERATURE

Korman B.O. Study of the text of a work of art. - M., 1972.

Abramovich G.L. Introduction to Literary Studies. Ed. 6. - M., 1975.

Introduction to Literary Studies / Ed. L.V. Chernets /. M., 2000 .-- S. 11 -20,

209-219, 228-239, 245-251.

Galich O. that in. Theopia of Literature. K., 2001. -S. 83-115.

Getmanets M.F. Suchasiny vocabulary of lgeraturological terms1niv. - Kharkiv, 2003.

MODULE THIRD

THE LANGUAGE OF ARTISTIC LITERATURE

Significantly influences the expression of his ideas. The writer focuses his attention on those who attract him at a given time. life phenomena and embodies them through the artistic depiction of characters, landscapes, mood. At the same time, he seeks to connect them in such a way that they are truly convincing and really reveal what he wanted to show, so that they prompt the reader to think.

The fact that composition in the literature significantly affects disclosure ideological concept writer, Belinsky constantly pointed out in his works. He believed that main idea the author must meet the following criteria: isolation and completeness of the whole, completeness, proportionate distribution of roles between the heroes of a work of art. Thus, composition in literature is determined by the author's positions: ideological and aesthetic. But the idea and the theme can be harmoniously combined only in a mature work.

The composition of the text is considered by literary scholars from different points of view. Moreover, they have not agreed on a common definition to this day. Most often, composition in the literature is defined as the construction of the correlation of all its parts with a single whole. It is known that it has many components that writers use in their works to complete the depiction of life pictures. The main elements that make up the composition in literature are lyrical digressions, and portraits, and plug-in episodes, epigraphs, titles, landscapes, surroundings.

Epigraphs and titles carry a special load.

The title usually indicates the following aspects of the work:

Subject (for example, Bazhov "Malachite box");

Images (for example, Georges Sand "Countess Rudolfstadt", "Valentina");

Problems (E. Bogat "What moves the Sun and the stars").

An epigraph is a kind of additional name, which is usually associated with the main idea of ​​the work or hints at bright features Main character.

Lyrical digressions stand aside storyline... With their help, the author has the opportunity to express his own attitude to the events, phenomena and images that he depicts. There are also such lyrical digressions in which the experiences of several characters merge, but at the same time it is still clear that here the writer also expressed his feelings and thoughts. For example, as in the digression about maternal hands in the novel "Young Guard" by Fadeev.

Choosing the sequence of connection of the listed elements, their own principles of their "assembly", each author creates a unique work. And he uses the following:

• Ring composition, or framing composition. The writer repeats artistic descriptions, stanzas at the beginning of the work, and then at the end; the same events or characters at the beginning of the story and at the end. This technique is found in both prose and poetry.
• Reverse composition. When the author puts the ending at the beginning of the work, and then shows how the events unfolded, he explains why exactly this way, and not otherwise.
• Using the technique of retrospection - when the writer places readers in the past, when the reasons for those events that happened at the moment were formed. Sometimes a flashback is presented in the form of the protagonist's recollections or his story (the so-called "story within a story").
• Compositional rupture of events, when one chapter ends at the most intriguing moment, and the next begins with a completely different action. This technique is more common in the works of the detective, adventure genre.
• Using exposure. It can precede the main action, or it can be absent altogether.