The plot basis of the work. Plot as a form of fiction

Architectonics of the work. Composition of the work.

Architectonics is the construction of a work as a single whole, the relationship of its constituent parts and elements, determined by the idea of the work.

Architectonics is the construction of a work of art, its general external form and the interrelation of individual parts.

The concept of architectonics combines the relationship of parts of a work, the arrangement and mutual connection of its components (components), which together form some artistic unity. The concept of architectonics includes both the external structure of the work and the construction of the plot: the division of the work into parts, the type of narration (from the author or on behalf of a special narrator), the role of dialogue, one or another sequence of events (temporary or in violation of the chronological principle), an introduction to narrative fabric of various descriptions, author's reasoning and lyrical digressions, grouping characters etc. Techniques of architectonics constitute one of the essential elements of style (in the broad sense of the word) and along with it are socially conditioned. If we take, for example, Turgenev’s novels, we will find in them consistency in the presentation of events, smoothness in the course of the narrative, an orientation toward the harmonious harmony of the whole, an important compositional role landscape. These features are easily explained both by the life of the estate and the psyche of its inhabitants. Dostoevsky's novels are constructed according to completely different laws: the action begins in the middle, the narrative flows quickly, in leaps and bounds, and the external disproportion of the parts is also noticeable. These properties of architectonics are in the same way determined by the characteristics of the depicted environment - the metropolitan philistinism. Within the same literary style Architectural techniques vary depending on artistic genre(novel, story, short story, poem, dramatic work, lyric poem). Each genre is characterized by a number of specific signs, requiring a unique composition.

Composition- the construction of a work of art, determined by its content and character. Composition is the most important element artistic form, giving the work unity and integrity.

Composition(from Latin compositio - composition, composition), 1) the construction of a work of art, determined by its content, nature and purpose and largely determining its perception. Composition is the most important organizing component of a work of art, giving it integrity, subordinating its elements to each other and to the whole. The laws of composition in a work of art, emerging in the process artistic comprehension reality, to one degree or another reflect objective patterns real world. These patterns appear in a figuratively translated form, associated with the specifics of a particular type of art, artistic idea, material of the work, etc., reflecting aesthetic principles era, style, artistic direction.

The composition determines the nature and strength of the impact literary text on perception.

#composition of “The Iliad” – several days and several bright episodes.

Free composition - through the perception of the heroes of life associated with associations # "Wheels" J. Joyce

The drama has its own composition. There are works without the composition “Theater of the Absurd”

The problem of composition is connected with the problem of artistic time - perhaps. sequential “War and Peace”, maybe linear (develops in the present and past) # “The Shore” by Bondarev; M.B. time is “flat” - the principle of the bed “The Sound and the Fury” William F.

Types of metaphor

Since antiquity, there have been descriptions of some traditional types metaphors:

A sharp metaphor is a metaphor that brings together concepts that are far apart from each other. Model: saying filling.
An erased (genetic) metaphor is a generally accepted metaphor, the figurative nature of which is no longer felt. Model: chair leg.
A formula metaphor is close to an erased metaphor, but differs from it by even greater stereotyping and sometimes the impossibility of transformation into a non-figurative construction. Model: worm of doubt.
An extended metaphor is a metaphor that is consistently implemented throughout a large fragment of a message or the entire message as a whole. Model: The book hunger does not go away: products from the book market increasingly turn out to be stale - they have to be thrown away without even trying.
The realized metaphor involves operating metaphorical expression without taking into account its figurative character, that is, as if the metaphor had a direct meaning. The result of the implementation of a metaphor is often comic. Model: I lost my temper and got on the bus.

Among other tropes (Trope is a change in the own meaning of a word or a verbal turn, which results in an enrichment of meaning), metaphor ranks central place, as it allows you to create a capacious image based on vivid, unexpected associations. Metaphorization can be based on the similarity of a wide variety of features of objects: color, shape, volume, purpose, position, etc. In poetry, metaphors are most often used to help create images. In a broad sense, the term “image” means a reflection of some phenomenon of the external world in our consciousness. In a work of art, images are the embodiment of the author’s thinking, his unique vision and a vivid image of the picture of the world. Creation bright image based on the use of similarities between two objects that are distant from each other, almost on a kind of contrast. In order for a comparison of objects or phenomena to be unexpected, they must be quite different from each other, and sometimes the similarity can be quite insignificant, unnoticeable, giving food for thought, or may be absent altogether.
The uniqueness of metaphor, as a type of trope, is that it represents a comparison, the members of which have merged so much that what was being compared was supplanted by what it was being compared with, for example:
"A bee from a wax cell
Flies for field tribute"
(A.S. Pushkin)
In the above lines, honey is compared with tribute and a beehive with a cell, with the first terms being replaced by the second.

Why do we need metaphors at all? Russian language experts say that:
- Metaphor is needed to make some idea or thought more memorable.
- Metaphor is necessary when you need to reformulate a problem, destroy a limitation, see the situation in a new perspective.
- A metaphor can be used to unobtrusively present a new point of view, or even to make it clear that a person’s problem is not new and there have been solutions to it for a long time.
- Metaphor is even used to change a person’s limiting beliefs, leading the person to new possibilities.

Forms of irony

Direct irony is a way to belittle, give a negative or funny character to the phenomenon being described.

Anti-irony is the opposite of direct irony and allows you to present the object of anti-irony as underestimated.

Self-irony is irony directed at oneself. In self-irony and anti-irony, negative statements can imply the opposite (positive) subtext. Example: “Where can we fools drink tea?”

Socrates irony is a form of self-irony constructed in such a way that object, to which it is addressed, as if independently comes to natural logical conclusions and finds hidden meaning ironic statement, following the premises of “one who does not know the truth” subject.

Ironic worldview- a state of mind that allows one not to take common assertions on faith and stereotypes, and not to take various “generally accepted values” too seriously.

Irony as a means comic supply of material is powerful tool formation of literary style, built on the opposition of the literal meaning of words and their statements true meaning(“The bullet turned out to be poisoned after hitting the leader’s poisonous body” - Georgy Alexandrov)

The plot of a literary work of art.

Plot (from French sujet) – a chain of events depicted in literary

work, the life of the characters in its spatio-temporal

dimensions, in changing positions and circumstances.

The events recreated by the creator form the basis of the objective

the world of a work are an integral part of its form. How

the organizing beginning of most epic and dramatic

works, the plot can be significant in a lyrical way

literature.

Understanding the plot as a set of events recreated in

work, dates back to Russian literary criticism of the 19th century. :

A. N. Veselovsky in one of the sections of the monograph “ Historical poetics»

presented a holistic description of the problem of literary plots from the point of view

from the point of view of comparative historical analysis.

At the beginning of the 20th century, V. B. Shklovsky, B. V. Tomashevsky and others

representatives of the formal school of literary criticism made an attempt

change the proposed terminology and connect the plot of the work with its

plot (from Latin fibula - legend, myth, fable). They offered under

plot to understand the artistically constructed distribution of events, and

under the plot - a set of events in their mutual internal connection.

Sources of plots - mythology, historical legend, literature

past times. Traditional subjects, i.e. antique, wide

used by classicist playwrights.

Numerous works are based on events

of a historical nature, or taking place in a place close to the writer

reality, his own life. So, the tragic story of the Don

Cossacks and the drama of the military intelligentsia at the beginning of the 20th century, life

prototypes and other phenomena of reality were the subject of the author's

attention in the works of M. A. Sholokhov “Quiet Don”, M. A. Bulgakov

“The White Guard”, V.V. Nabokov’s “Mashenka”. In literature, plots that arose are also common

as a figment of the artist’s imagination (the story “The Nose” by N.V. Gogol).

It happens that the series of events in a work go into subtext,

giving way to the recreation of the hero’s impressions, thoughts, experiences,

descriptions of nature. These are, in particular, stories

I. A. Bunin “Chang’s Dreams”, L. E. Ulitskaya “Pearl Soup”.

The plot has various functions. First of all, he

captures the picture of the world: the writer’s vision of being, possessing

deep meaning, giving hope - a harmonious world order.

In historical poetics, this type of artist’s views is defined as

classic, it is typical for the plots of literature of past centuries

(works of G. Heine, N. Karamzin, I. Goncharov,

A. Chekhov, etc.). Conversely, a writer can imagine the world as

hopeless, deadly existence, conducive to spiritual

darkness. The second way of seeing the world - non-classical - underlies

many literary plots XX–XXI centuries Literary heritage

F. Kafka, B. Poplavsky and others were noted by everyone

pessimism and disharmony in the general state of the characters.

Secondly, the series of events in the works are designed to reveal and

to recreate life's contradictions - conflicts in the fate of heroes who are excited, tense, and experience deep dissatisfaction with something. By its nature, the plot is involved in

What is meant by the term “drama”.

Thirdly, plots organize a field of active search for characters,

allow them to fully reveal themselves to the thinking reader in their actions,

cause a range of emotional and mental responses to what is happening.

The plot form is well suited for detailed recreation

volitional principle in a person and is characteristic of the literature of the detective genre.

Theorists, professional researchers, literary editors

artistic publications distinguish the following types of literary

plots: concentric, chronicle, and also, according to V. E. Khalizev,

those that are in cause-and-effect relationships are supra-genre.

Plots in which one particular aspect comes to the fore

event situation (and the work is based on one plot

lines) are called concentric. Single-line event series

were widespread in the literature of antiquity and classicism.

In literature, chronicles are stories in which events

dispersed and deployed separately from each other. According to

V. E. Khalizeva, in these plots the events have no causal relationship with each other.

investigative connections and are correlated with each other only in time, as is

takes place in Homer's epic "Odyssey", Cervantes' novel " Don Quixote»,

Byron's poem "Don Juan".

The same scientist identifies as a type of chronicle

multilinear plots, i.e. unfolding parallel to each other,

somewhat independent; only occasionally touching

plot schemes, such as, for example, in L. N. Tolstoy’s novels “Anna

Karenina”, I. A. Goncharova “Cliff”.

Particularly deeply rooted in world history literature plots,

where events are concentrated among themselves in cause-and-effect relationships and reveal a full-fledged conflict: from the beginning of an action to its denouement.

A good example is the tragedies of W. Shakespeare, the dramas of A. S. Griboyedov and

A. N. Ostrovsky, novels by I. S. Turgenev.

These types of literary plots are well described and carefully

studied in literary criticism. V. Ya. Propp in the monograph “Morphology

fairy tales" with the help of the concept of "function of characters" revealed

the significance of the character’s action for the further course of events39.

Researchers of structuralist orientation A. Greimas, K. Bremont

believe that storytelling meditation relies on a special way

thinking associated with a change in view of the essence of human

activities marked by signs of freedom and independence, responsibility

and irreversibility.

In classic stories, where actions move from beginning to end,

vicissitudes play a big role - sudden shifts in the destinies of characters:

all sorts of turns from happiness to unhappiness, from success to failure or

vice versa, etc. Unexpected incidents with the characters give

the work is deep philosophical meaning. As a rule, in stories with

abundant twists and turns embody a special idea of power

various accidents over the fate of a person.

The twists and turns add an important element of entertainment to the work.

Causing increased interest in reading among the contemplative reader,

event intricacies are characteristic of both literature

of an entertaining nature, as well as for serious, “summit” literature.

In the literature, along with the considered plots (concentric,

chronicle, those where there is a plot, conflict, denouement),

special emphasis is placed on event sequences that focus on the state

human world in its complexity, versatility and persistent conflict. Moreover, the hero here craves not so much to achieve some

then the goal, how much it correlates itself with the surrounding disharmonious

reality as an integral part of it. He is often task-focused

knowledge of the world and one’s place in it, is in constant search

agreement with oneself. Philosophically important “self-discoveries” of heroes

F. Dostoevsky, N. Leskov, S. Aksakov, I. Goethe, Dante are leveled

external event dynamics of the narrative, and the twists and turns here

turn out to be unnecessary.

The stable-conflict state of the world was actively mastered

literature: works by M. de Cervantes “Don Quixote”, J. Milton

“Paradise Lost”, “The Life of Archpriest Avvakum”, A. Pushkin “Eugene

Onegin”, A. Chekhov’s “Lady with a Dog”, plays by G. Ibsen and others deeply

debatable, consistently revealing “layers of life” and “doomed”

be left without a solution.

Because the plot of a literary work orders the world

artistic images in its temporal extent, then in the environment

professional researchers inevitably face the question of

sequence of events in plots and techniques that provide

unity of perception of the artistic canvas.

The classic scheme of a single-line plot: the plot, action development,

climax, denouement. The chronicle plot is composed, framed by chains

episodes, sometimes including concentric microplots, are not outwardly

related to the main action - inserted short stories, parables, fairy tales and

other literary processed material. This method of connecting parts

the work deepens the internal semantic connection between the inserted and

main plots.

The technique of plot framing in the presence of a narrator reveals

deep meaning transmitted history, as, for example, reflected in

the work of Leo Tolstoy “After the Ball”, or emphasizes various

attitude to many actions, both of the hero-narrator himself and of his

random fellow travelers, in particular, in the story by Nikolai Leskov

"Enchanted Wanderer"

The method of installation (from the gr. montage - assembly, selection) came to

literature from cinema. As a literary term, it

the meaning comes down to the discontinuity (discreteness) of the image, the breakdown

narratives into many small episodes, the fragmentation of which

unity is also hidden artistic design. Assembly

the image of the surrounding world is characteristic of the prose of A. I. Solzhenitsyn.

In a work, the plot inversion is most often

various silences, secrets, omissions that prepare recognition,

discovery, organizing the twists and turns that move the action itself towards

interesting ending.

Plot is a system of incidents, the course of events in narrative and dramatic works, and sometimes in lyrical works. In an extremely general form, a plot is a kind of basic scheme of a work, which includes the sequence of actions occurring in the work and the totality of character relationships existing in it. Typically, a plot includes the following elements: exposition, beginning, development of action, climax, denouement and postposition, and also, in some works, prologue and epilogue. The main prerequisite for the development of the plot is time, and how historical period actions and the passage of time during the work. The basis of the plot is conflict, it can be: 1) a conflict of desires, 2) interests, 3) heroes, 4) persons. The concept of plot is closely related to the concept of the plot of the work. In modern Russian literary criticism The term “plot” usually refers to the very course of events in a work, and the plot is understood as the main artistic conflict, which develops in the course of these events. Repeated attempts have been made to classify the plots of literary works, divide them according to various criteria, and highlight the most typical ones. The analysis made it possible, in particular, to identify a large group of so-called “wandering plots” - plots that are repeated many times in different designs among different nations and in different regions, mostly in folk art (fairy tales, myths, legends). The French researcher Georges Polti published the book “Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations” in 1895, in which he reduced the entire experience of world drama to the development of 36 standard plot collisions.

1. Plot and plot. 2. Types of plots. 3. Composition of the plot. 4. Question about the plot in the lyrics. 5. Motive, its functions and types

We consider plot as a particular aspect of the composition of a literary work. One of the best domestic literary critics B.O. Corman, showing the plot in the text, called the composition "a network of relationships between stories, covering together the entire work." The events recreated by writers, along with the characters, form the basis of the objective world of the work. The plot is the organizing principle of most dramatic and epic works.

The origin of the word is French (sujet - subject, object). In everyday speech, in conversations, we use this particular word to denote a sequence of events. The plot is usually called a sequential change of situations, actions that are held together general idea. It is believed that the plot can be summarized in a few words. But in the science of literature, plot means other things.

1. Plot and plot

The understanding of plot as a set of events recreated in a work goes back to the works of A.N. Veselovsky. In the view of the author of the work “Historical Poetics,” a plot is a scheme of actions, a complex of motives. The patterns themselves can be repeated by many artists, and the smallest units of action, motives, can “wander” from one writer to another.

It is this understanding that is manifested in those modern research, where no distinction is made between categories such as plot and plot.

But there is a tradition of separating these concepts. The theorists of the formal school terminologically distinguished between the natural course of events and their artistic processing. B. Shklovsky called the plot material for plot design. According to B. Tomashevsky, the plot is a set of motives in their logical cause-time relationship.

According to V. Kozhinov, to denote a system of main events that can be retold, it is better to use the Greek word “fable”; this term was used by Aristotle in his work “Poetics”. Fabula (lat. fabula- story, narration) for Aristotle meant action. Kozhinov calls it the subject of the image, the main plan for the course of the action of the epic. or dramatic a work that has already been artistically organized and in which the arrangement of characters and central motifs have been identified.

A supporter of the formal method in literary criticism M.M. Bakhtin wrote: “The plot is the general course of events that can be taken from an actual life incident.” G. Pospelov, the author of the textbook “Fundamentals of the Theory of Literature,” who was influenced by Shklovsky’s theory, considers it a delusion when the plot of a work is replaced by a retelling of events. A plot is a sequence of events in a figurative narrative, conveyed in artistic speech and given aesthetic, artistic meaning. The plot is in artistically neutral. Therefore, no retelling can convey all the imagery, all the details of the plot. The transformation of a simple story into a work of art occurs because the event outline is overgrown with artistic speech, acquiring not only informative, but also aesthetic significance.

The plot is based on information of a non-artistic nature. This is simply a conflict “scheme” that can be periodically repeated, borrowed and each time find a new specific embodiment. An example of a conflict scheme: a man, by force of circumstances, leaves his beloved for a long time, but his thoughts are divided into two: either he realizes the inviolability of her fidelity, or he imagines betrayal; finally, he decides to return secretly to check her feelings and deeds - he will either reward her for devotion or punish her for betrayal. This scheme can be complicated by any circumstances, have different endings, different options artistic treatment and ideological and thematic load. The plots can be similar, but the plots are always unique, because they are connected with a single work, with a theme revealed in a specific way.

If the theme is the vital material that forms the basis of the work, then the plot determines the thematic orientation of the work. The plot makes up the basic outline of the plot; these are events taking place in natural chronological sequence. Its formula can be expressed in the sentence: “The king died and then the queen died.” With this understanding, the plot grows out of the plot; it represents a more complex artistic system. In plot order " Easy breathing“Bunin’s story should have begun with the heroine’s youth and ended with death, but a change was made in the plot. Plot is the sequence of events in which the author places them, with the main emphasis being on their causal relationship. Therefore, the plot is a series of actions, carefully thought out by the author, which lead through struggle to a climax and denouement. “The king died and the queen died of grief” is already a plot formula. The plot may coincide with the plot (“Ionych” by Chekhov), or it may, as in the case of Bunin’s story discussed above, differ from it.

Modern scientist V. Khalizev gives his own, simpler definition of the plot: “The chain of events depicted in literary work, i.e. the life of the characters in its spatio-temporal changes, in changing positions and circumstances.” Taking into account various interpretations, we can offer our own, more adapted definition: plot is a system of events in a literary work that reveals the characters of the characters and the specific relationships between them.

Methods plot construction are different. There may be an inversion of plot elements, delays in action, foreshadowing, digressions, omissions, and introductory episodes.

2. Types of plots

Depending on the nature of the connections between events, there are two types of plots. Plots with a predominance of purely temporal connections between events are chronicle. They are used in epic works of large form (Don Quixote). They can show the adventures of heroes (“Odyssey”), depict the development of a person’s personality (“Childhood Years of Bagrov the Grandson” by S. Aksakov). A chronicle story consists of episodes. Plots with a predominance of cause-and-effect relationships between events are called plots of a single action, or concentric. Concentric plots are often built on such a classicist principle as unity of action. Let us recall that in Griboyedov’s “Woe from Wit” the unity of action will be the events associated with Chatsky’s arrival at Famusov’s house. By using concentric plot One conflict situation is carefully examined. In drama, this type of plot structure dominated until the 19th century, and in epic works small form is still in use today. A single knot of events is most often untied in short stories, short stories Pushkin, Chekhov, Poe, Maupassant. Chronical and concentric principles interact in the plots of multilinear novels, where several event nodes appear simultaneously (“War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, “The Brothers Karamazov” by F. Dostoevsky). Naturally, in newsreels often include concentric microplots.

There are plots that differ in the intensity of the action. Event-filled plots are called dynamic. These events contain an important meaning, and the denouement, as a rule, carries a huge meaningful load. This type of plot is typical for Pushkin’s “Tales of Belkin” and Dostoevsky’s “The Gambler.” And vice versa, plots weakened by descriptions and inserted structures are adynamic. The development of action in them does not strive for a denouement, and the events themselves do not contain any particular interest. Adynamic plots in " Dead souls"Gogol, "My Life" by Chekhov.

3. Composition of the plot.

The plot is the dynamic side of the artistic form; it involves movement and development. The engine of the plot is most often a conflict, an artistically significant contradiction. The term comes from Lat. conflictus - collision. A conflict is an acute clash of characters and circumstances, views and life principles, underlying the action; confrontation, contradiction, clash between heroes, groups of heroes, the hero and society, or the internal struggle of the hero with himself. The nature of the collision can be different: it is a contradiction of duty and inclination, assessments and forces. Conflict is one of those categories that permeate the structure of the entire work of art.

If we consider A. S. Griboedov’s play “Woe is Wit,” it is easy to see that the development of the action here clearly depends on the conflict that lurks in Famusov’s house and lies in the fact that Sophia is in love with Molchalin and hides it from daddy. Chatsky, in love with Sophia, having arrived in Moscow, notices her dislike for himself and, trying to understand the reason, keeps an eye on everyone present in the house. Sophia is unhappy with this and, defending herself, makes a remark at the ball about his madness. Guests who do not sympathize with him happily pick up this version, because they see in Chatsky a person with views and principles different from theirs, and then not just a family conflict is revealed very clearly (Sophia’s secret love for Molchalin, Molchalin’s real indifference to Sophia, ignorance Famusov about what is happening in the house), but also the conflict between Chatsky and society. The outcome of the action (denouement) is determined not so much by Chatsky’s relationship with society, but by the relationship of Sophia, Molchalin and Liza, having learned about which Famusov controls their fate, and Chatsky leaves their home.

In the vast majority of cases, the writer does not invent conflicts. He draws them from primary reality and transfers them from life itself into the realm of themes, issues, and pathos.

Several types of conflicts can be identified that are at the heart of dramatic and epic works. Frequently encountered conflicts are moral and philosophical: the confrontation between characters, man and fate (“Odyssey”), life and death (“The Death of Ivan Ilyich”), pride and humility (“Crime and Punishment”), genius and villainy (“Mozart and Salieri "). Social conflicts consist in the opposition of a character’s aspirations, passions, and ideas to the way of life around him (“ Stingy Knight", "Storm"). The third group of conflicts are internal, or psychological, those that are associated with contradictions in the character of one character and do not become the property of the outside world; this is the mental torment of the heroes of “The Lady with the Dog”, this is the duality of Eugene Onegin. When all these conflicts are combined into one whole, they speak of their contamination. IN to a greater extent this is achieved in novels (“Heroes of Our Time”) and epics (“War and Peace”). The conflict can be local or insoluble (tragic), obvious or hidden, external (direct clashes of positions and characters) or internal (in the soul of the hero). B. Esin also identifies a group of three types of conflicts, but calls them differently: conflict between individual characters and groups of characters; the confrontation between the hero and the way of life, the individual and the environment; the conflict is internal, psychological, when it comes to the contradiction in the hero himself. V. Kozhinov wrote almost the same about this: “ TO. (from Latin collisio - collision) - confrontation, contradiction between characters, or between characters and circumstances, or within character, underlying the action of lit. works. K. does not always speak clearly and openly; For some genres, especially idyllic ones, K. is not typical: they only have what Hegel called “situation”<...>In an epic, drama, novel, or short story, K. usually forms the core of the theme, and K.’s resolution appears as the defining moment of the artist. ideas...” “Artist. K. is a clash and contradiction between integral human individuals.” "TO. is a kind of source of energy lit. production, because it determines its action.” “During the course of action, it can worsen or, conversely, weaken; in the end the conflict is resolved one way or another.”

The development of K. sets the plot action in motion.

The plot indicates the stages of action, the stages of the existence of the conflict.

An ideal, that is, complete, model of the plot of a literary work may include the following fragments, episodes, links: prologue, exposition, plot, development of action, peripeteia, climax, denouement, epilogue. There are three mandatory elements in this list: the plot, the development of the action and the climax. Optional - the rest, that is, not all of the existing elements must take place in the work. The components of the plot can appear in different sequences.

Prologue(gr. prolog - preface) is an introduction to the main plot actions. It may give the root cause of events: the dispute about the happiness of men in “Who Lives Well in Rus'.” It clarifies the author's intentions and depicts the events preceding the main action. These events may affect the organization artistic space- place of action.

Exposition(from Latin expositio - presentation, display) is an explanation, a depiction of the life of the characters in the period before the conflict. It gives the arrangement and relationships of the characters in a play, novel, story, short story, poem. For example, the life of young Onegin. It may contain biographical facts and motivate subsequent actions. An exposition can set the conventions of time and space and depict events preceding the plot. A. Kvyatkovsky’s “Poetic Dictionary” also speaks about exposition in a lyric poem: “Exposition is usually given in the first stanza, where the initial thought is expressed, which is developed in further stanzas.” We think that the term in such a context takes on a metaphorical meaning rather than retaining its main meaning.

The beginning– this is conflict detection.

Development of action is a group of events necessary for the conflict to occur. It presents twists that escalate the conflict.

Unexpected circumstances that complicate a conflict are called twists and turns.

Climax - (from Latin culmen - top ) - the moment of the highest tension of action, the utmost aggravation of contradictions; the pinnacle of conflict; K. reveals the main problem of the work and the characters of the characters most fully; after it the effect weakens. Often precedes the denouement. In works with many plot lines, it is possible to have not one, but several Ks.

Denouement- this is the resolution of the conflict in the work; it completes the course of events in action-packed works, for example, short stories. But often the ending of works does not contain a resolution to the conflict. Moreover, in the endings of many works, sharp contradictions between the characters remain. This happens both in “Woe from Wit” and in “Eugene Onegin”: Pushkin leaves Eugene at “an evil moment for him.” There are no resolutions in “Boris Godunov” and “The Lady with the Dog.” The endings of these works are open. In Pushkin's tragedy and Chekhov's story, with all the incompleteness of the plot, the last scenes contain emotional endings and climaxes.

Epilogue(gr. epilogos - afterword) is the final episode, usually following the denouement. In this part of the work, the fate of the heroes is briefly reported. The epilogue depicts the final consequences arising from the events shown. This is a conclusion in which the author can formally complete the story, determine the fate of the heroes, and summarize his philosophical, historical concept (“War and Peace”). The epilogue appears when resolution alone is not enough. Or in the case when, after the completion of the main plot events, it is necessary to express a different point of view (“ Queen of Spades"), to evoke in the reader a feeling about the final outcome of the depicted life of the characters.

The events related to the resolution of one conflict of one group of characters make up the storyline. Accordingly, if there are different storylines, there may be several climaxes. In “Crime and Punishment” this is the murder of a pawnbroker, but this is also Raskolnikov’s conversation with Sonya Marmeladova.

4. Question about the plot in the lyrics.

Having a plot in a literary work is sometimes problematic. From most definitions it is clear that plot is an artistic way of organizing events, which means that it is associated primarily with the epic and dramatic works. To a lesser extent, the plot manifests itself in the lyrics. IN epic work The plot has its own form of existence - narration. In drama, this is the development of action. What about the lyrics? After all, poetry has more expressiveness, and the word denotes events and objects to a lesser extent.

Lydia Ginzburg and Boris Korman suggested talking about the specifics of the lyrical plot, by which we mean that the word itself in small work becomes an event and the plot in the lyrics is a combination of such words-events. The poem “I loved you...” depicts the movement of a person’s feelings, and not a change in events. Or rather, the event in the poem is a change in the soul. This is a love story that lives only in the heart, without pouring out into the objective, external world.

Scientists therefore say that there are no specific plots in the lyrics, but there is a lyrical, that is, psychological, plot, non-fable motives. In many works of “pure lyricism” there is a chain of mental movements objectified by speech, there is the reality of experiences, states human soul. There is nothing to retell in them.

The plot that appears in a lyrical work transforms it into a lyric-epic or lyric-dramatic plane. This is typical for ballads and poems. B. Tomashevsky wrote: “Fabulous motives are rare in lyric poetry. Static motives appear much more often, unfolding into emotional series. If the poem talks about some action, the act of a hero, an event, then the motive of this action is not woven into the causal-temporal chain and is devoid of plot tension that requires a plot resolution. Actions and events appear in the lyrics in the same way as natural phenomena, without forming a plot situation.” “Lyrics are a non-story genre. The lyrics convey the poet's feelings; elements of the story, action, plot are dissolved here in emotional experience,” and events, facts are only a reason for the poet’s experiences, and they are completely dissolved in these experiences. The poet’s immersion in his emotional experiences, in a lyrical state, allows him to reduce the plot to a minimum and even eliminate it completely.

The paradox associated with the fate of the concept WITH. in the twentieth century, is that as soon as philology learned to study it, literature began to destroy it. So, if in ancient and medieval literature the plot grew out of the plot, then in the literature of the 19th century and later its basis may be different. Tolstoy, for example, speaking about the structure of Anna Karenina, emphasized not the plot significance, but the role of “internal connection”. V. Kozhinov explains that internal connection should be understood as “a certain correlation of characters and circumstances, a specific connection of artistic thoughts.”

Russian scientists and representatives of the formal school played a decisive role in the study of the plot. Writers of modernism and postmodernism played a role in the destruction of the plot (see, for example, new novel, theater of the absurd).

5. Motive, its functions and types

Scientists call the motive either the smallest event unit of the plot, or the unit of the plot, or an element of the text in general, regardless of the plot or plot. Let's try to understand the different interpretations of one of the most common terms.

There are many opinions on the origin of the motif: from him. motive, French motif, from lat. moveo - moving, from French. motif – melody, tune.

In the Russian science of literature, A.N. was the first to turn to the concept of motive. Veselovsky. Analyzing myths and fairy tales, he came to the conclusion that the motive is the simplest narrative unit, which cannot be further decomposed. From our point of view, this category has a plot character.

The thematic concept of the motif is developed in the works of B. Tomashevsky and V. Shklovsky. In their understanding, a motive is the themes into which a work can be divided. Each sentence contains motives - small themes

Most folklore and literary works have a motif, being the smallest element of the plot. The outstanding Russian folklorist V. Ya. Propp played a huge role in the study of the plot. In his book “The Morphology of the Fairy Tale” (1929), he demonstrated the possibility of the existence of several motives in a sentence. Therefore, he abandoned the term motive and resorted to his own category: the functions of the characters. He built a model of the plot of a fairy tale, consisting of sequences of elements. According to Propp, there are a limited number of such functions of heroes (31); Not all fairy tales have all the functions, but the sequence of the main functions is strictly observed. The fairy tale usually begins with the parents leaving the house (absentee function) and turning to the children with a ban on going outside, opening the door, or touching anything (prohibition). As soon as the parents leave, the children immediately violate this prohibition (violation of the prohibition), etc. The meaning of Propp's discovery was that his scheme was suitable for all fairy tales. All fairy tales have the motive of the road, the motive of searching for the missing bride, the motive of recognition. From these numerous motives various plots are formed. In this meaning, the term motive is more often used in relation to works of oral folk art. “Morozko acts differently than Baba Yaga. But a function, as such, is a constant quantity. To study a fairy tale, the question is important What do fairy tale characters, and the question Who does and How does - these are questions of only incidental study. The functions of the characters represent those components with which Veselovsky’s “motives” can be replaced...”

In most cases, a motif is a repeated word, phrase, situation, object or idea. Most often, the term “motive” is used to designate a situation that is repeated in various literary works, for example, the motive of parting with a loved one.

Motifs help create images and have various functions in the structure of the work. Thus, the mirror motif in V. Nabokov’s prose has at least 3 functions. Firstly, epistemologically: the mirror is a means of characterizing the character and becomes a way of self-knowledge of the hero. Secondly, this motif carries an ontological load: it acts as a boundary between worlds, organizing complex spatio-temporal relationships. And thirdly, the mirror motif can perform an axiological function, expressing moral, aesthetic, and artistic values. Thus, the hero of the novel “Despair” turns out to have a favorite word for mirror, he likes to write this word backwards, loves reflections, similarities, but is completely unable to see the difference and goes so far as to mistake a person with a dissimilar appearance for his double. Nabokovsky's Herman kills in order to mystify those around him, to make them believe in his death. The mirror motif is invariant, that is, it has a stable basis that can be filled with new meaning in a new context. Therefore he appears in various options in many other texts where the main ability of a mirror is in demand - to reflect, to double an object.

Each motive generates an associative field for the character, for example, in Pushkin’s story “ Stationmaster“The motif of the prodigal son is set by the pictures hanging on the walls of the caretaker’s house, and is revealed with particular poignancy when his daughter comes to his grave. The motif of the house can be included in the space of the city, which, in turn, can consist of motifs of temptation, seduction, demonism. The literature of Russian emigrants is most often characterized by a mood that is revealed in the motifs of nostalgia, emptiness, loneliness, and emptiness.

A motive is a semantic (content-based) element of the text that is essential for understanding the author’s concept (for example, the motive of death in “The Tale of dead princess..." by A.S. Pushkin, the motive of loneliness in the lyrics of M.Yu. Lermontov, the motive of cold in " Easy breathing" And " Cold autumn"I.A. Bunin, the motif of the full moon in "The Master and Margarita" by M.A. Bulgakov). M., as a stable formal-contain. component lit. text, can be selected within one or several. prod. writer (for example, a certain cycle), and in the complex of his entire work, as well as k.-l. lit. direction or an entire era.” The motif may contain elements of symbolization (a road by N.V. Gogol, a garden by Chekhov, a desert by M.Yu. Lermontov). The motif has a direct verbal (in lexemes) fixation in the text of the work itself; in poetry, its criterion in most cases is the presence of a key, reference word, carrying a special semantic load (smoke in Tyutchev, exile in Lermontov).

According to N. Tamarchenko, each motive has two forms of existence: a situation and an event. A situation is a set of circumstances, a position, a situation in which the characters find themselves. An event is something that happened, a significant phenomenon or a personal fact, public life. An event changes the situation. A motif is the simplest narrative unit that connects the events and situations that make up the lives of the characters in a literary work. An event is something that happened, a phenomenon, a fact of personal or public life. The situation is a set of circumstances, positions in which the characters find themselves, as well as the relationship between them. The event changes this ratio. Motives can be dynamic or adynamic. Motives of the first type accompany changes in the situation, as opposed to a static motive.

IN recent years In literary criticism, a synthesis of approaches to understanding motive is planned. This movement was largely determined by the works of R. Yakobson, A. Zholkovsky and Yu. Shcheglov. The motive is no longer considered as part of the plot or plot. Having lost its connection with the event, the motive is now interpreted as almost any semantic repetition in the text - a repeating semantic spot. This means that the use of this category is quite legitimate when analyzing lyrical works. The motive can be not only an event, a character trait, but also an object, sound, or landscape element that has increased semantic significance in the text. A motive is always a repetition, but the repetition is not lexical, but functional-semantic. That is, in a work it can be manifested through many options.

Motives can be diverse, among them are archetypal, cultural and many others. Archetypal ones are associated with the expression of the collective unconscious (the motive of selling the soul to the devil). Myths and archetypes represent a collective, culturally authoritative variety of motifs to which French thematic criticism devoted itself to the study of the 1960s. Cultural motifs were born and developed in works of literature, painting, music, and other arts. Italian motifs in Pushkin’s lyrics are a layer of the diverse culture of Italy mastered by the poet: from the works of Dante and Petrarch to the poetry of the ancient Romans.

Along with the concept of motive, there is the concept of leitmotif.

Leitmotif. A term of Germanic origin, literally meaning "leading motive". This is a frequently repeated image or motif that conveys the main mood; it is also a complex of homogeneous motifs. Thus, the leitmotif of “the vanity of life” usually consists of motives of temptation, seduction, and anti-home. The leitmotif of “return to a lost paradise” is characteristic of many of Nabokov’s works in the Russian-language period of creativity and it includes motives of nostalgia, longing for childhood, and sadness about the loss of a child’s outlook on life. In Chekhov's "The Seagull" the leitmotif is a sounding image - the sound of a broken string. Leitmotifs are used to create subtext in a work. When combined, they form the leitmotif structure of the work.

Literature

1. Fundamentals of literary criticism: Textbook. manual for philological faculties of pedagogy. university / Under the general ed. V. P. Meshcheryakova. M.: Moscow Lyceum, 2000. pp. 30–34.

2. Tomashevsky B.V. Theory of Literature. Poetics. M., 1996. pp. 182–185, 191–193.

3. Fedotov O.I. Introduction to literary criticism: Textbook. allowance. M.: Academy, 1998. pp. 34–39.

4. Khalizev V. E. Introduction to literary criticism. Literary work: basic concepts and terms / Under. ed. L. V. Chernets. M., 1999. pp. 381–393.

5. Tselkova L.N. Motive // Introduction to literary studies. Literary work: basic concepts and terms / Under. ed. L. V. Chernets. M., 1999. pp. 202–209.

Why is it important to know the basics of plotting?

Because over the centuries of the existence of literature, humanity has developed a certain scheme for the impact of a story on the psyche. If the story does not fit into it, it seems sluggish and illogical.

IN complex works with many storylines, all of the above elements may appear repeatedly; Moreover, the key scenes of the novel are subject to the same laws of plot construction: let us remember the description of the Battle of Borodino in War and Peace.

Plausibility

Transitions from initiation to conflict to resolution must be believable. For example, you cannot send a lazy hero on a journey just because you want to. Any character must have a good reason to act one way or another.

If Ivanushka the Fool mounts a horse, let him be driven by a strong emotion: love, fear, thirst for revenge, etc.

Logic and common sense are necessary in every scene: if the hero of the novel is an idiot, he, of course, can go into a forest infested with poisonous dragons. But if he is a reasonable person, he will not interfere there without a serious reason.

God ex machina

The denouement is the result of the characters' actions and nothing else. In ancient plays, all problems could be resolved by a deity lowered onto the stage on strings. Since then, the absurd ending, when all conflicts are eliminated with a wave of the wand of a sorcerer, angel or boss, is called “god ex machina.” What suited the ancients only irritates the moderns.

The reader feels deceived if the characters are simply lucky: for example, a lady finds a suitcase with money just when she needs to pay interest on a loan. The reader respects only those heroes who deserve it - that is, they did something worthy.

The features of a work of fiction are taken into account in the editorial analysis.

A work of fiction, an artistic object, can be viewed from two points of view - from the point of view of its meaning (as an aesthetic object) and from the point of view of its form (as an external work).

The meaning of an artistic object, enclosed in a certain form, is aimed at reflecting the artist’s understanding of the surrounding reality. And the editor, when evaluating an essay, must proceed from an analysis of the “plane of meaning” and the “plane of fact” of the work (M.M. Bakhtin).

An artistic object is a point of interaction between the meaning and the fact of art. An artistic object demonstrates the world around us, conveying it in aesthetic form and revealing the ethical side of the world.

For editorial analysis, such an approach to considering a work of art is productive, in which literary work explored in its connection with the reader. It is the influence of the work on the individual that should be the starting point in evaluating an artistic object.

An artistic object includes three stages: the stage of creation of the work, the stage of its alienation from the master and independent existence, the stage of perception of the work.

As the starting point of the unifying principle of a work of artistic process in editorial analysis, it is necessary to consider the concept of the work. It is the concept that brings together all the stages of an artistic object. This is evidenced by the attention of the artist, musician, and writer to the selection of appropriate means of expression when creating works that are aimed at expressing the master’s intention.

In the book “How our word will respond,” the writer Yu. Trifonov notes: “The highest concept of a thing - that is, why all this damage to paper - is in you constantly, it is a given, your breath, which you do not notice, but without which you cannot live.” .

The idea embodied in a work of art, it is the idea that is, first of all, perceived by the reader, controlling the stage of perception artistic creativity.

And the entire artistic process is, as already mentioned, a dialogic process of communication between the artist and those who perceive the work.

The writer evaluates what surrounds him and talks about how he would like reality to be. Or rather, it does not “speak”, but reflects the world in such a way that the reader understands it. In a work of art, the presence and necessity of life is realized, the artist’s interpretation is carried out life values. It is the plan that absorbs the writer’s value guidelines and determines the selection of vital material for the work.

But the concept of design not only characterizes the main meaning of the work. The intention is the main component of the impact of a work of art at the moment of its perception.

Thus, the subject of art is not only a person and his connections and relationships with the world. The subject area of the work also includes the personality of the book’s author, who evaluates the surrounding reality.

Having assessed the idea, the editor determines how well the material used by the author corresponds to the idea. Thus, a large, large-scale plan requires a large form, for example, it can be realized in the genre of a novel. An idea that reveals the intimate aspects of a person’s fate, in the genre of a story or short story. Considering the genre of a work, the editor responds to the most main question, associated with assessing the quality of the work, is the question of the completeness of the disclosure of the plan. Thus, having examined the plan of meaning of the work, the editor analyzes the plan of fact. Read more about the editor's assessment of the concept and genre originality fiction will be discussed below. Having answered the question of what the author said, the editor evaluates how he said it, i.e., analyzes the writer’s skill. At the same time, the editor focuses on the basic laws, patterns, and nature of art.

In art, an artistic image is a means of understanding the surrounding reality, a means of mastering the world, as well as a means of recreating reality in a work of art - in an artistic object.

Subsection Terminology

Plot Fable

Plot outline: completed, unfinished

Plot technique: recurrent, complicated, framing, linear

Exposition Commencement Development of action Climax Resolution Ending

Exposure: direct, delayed, diffuse, reverse

Prologue Epilogue

Inception: motivated, sudden

Peripeteia

Climax: eventual, psychological

Resolution: motivated, unmotivated, zero

Additional information; separated by spaces from the main one.

Plot and plot

As already mentioned, dramatic and epic works depict events in the lives of characters, their actions taking place in space and time. This side of artistic creativity (the course of events, usually consisting of the actions of the characters, i.e., the spatio-temporal dynamics of what is depicted) is designated by the term plot.

Plot (from French sujet) – a chain of events depicted in a literary work, i.e. the life of the characters in its spatio-temporal changes, in changing positions and circumstances.

Ø Plots are often taken from mythology, historical legend, from the literature of past eras, and are processed, changed, and supplemented.

Ø The plot, as a rule, comes to the fore in the test and determines its construction (composition). But sometimes the depiction of events gives way to impressions, thoughts, experiences of the characters, descriptions of the external world and nature.

Like the character system, the plot carries a number of meaningful functions.

1. Identifies and characterizes a person’s connections with his environment, i.e., his place in reality and destiny, creates a picture of the world.

2. Recreates life's contradictions (it is difficult to imagine a plot without conflict).

Plots are organized in different ways. There are plots with a predominance of purely temporary connections (chronicle) and plots with a predominance of cause-and-effect relationships (concentric).

Wed. The king died and the queen died- chronicle story.

The king died and the queen died of grief- concentric plot.

One way or another, plots are made up of the actions of the characters.

Action- the manifestation of a person’s emotions, thoughts and intentions in his actions, movements, spoken words, gestures, and facial expressions.

Known in literature different types actions. In the process of external action, the relationships between the characters, their fate, and public understanding change in one direction or another. Internal action presupposes the behavior of characters in which they show feelings in behavior, words, gestures, but do nothing to change their lives.

In traditional plots, where the action moves from beginning to end, twists and turns play a significant role - all kinds of turns from happiness to misfortune, from failure to success.

Ø Peripeteias were of great importance in the heroic tales of antiquity and in fairy tales, in comedies and tragedies of antiquity and the Renaissance, in early short stories and novels (love-knightly and adventure-punctual), later - in adventure and detective literature.

Plots with twists and turns embody the idea of the power of chance over people.

There are two types of sequence of events in a work: logical, also causal-temporal, (event A - event B - event C - event D) and constructed by the author (for example, event D - event A - event B - event C). For example, in L.N. Tolstoy’s story “The Death of Ivan Vasilyevich,” the reader first sees the hero’s corpse, and then gets acquainted with the story of his life. This is how two concepts arise in literary criticism: plot and plot.

According to B.V. Tomashevsky, plot– an artistically constructed distribution of events in the work, and plot– a set of events in their internal connection.

However, in literature, the concepts of plot and fable are often identified or not differentiated. Strictly speaking, such a distinction is necessary only in a number of cases: the author when working on a work, the reader for a competent retelling, a specialist when analyzing a work, especially if event sequence difficult.

As an example, consider the story by M. Yu. Lermontov “A Hero of Our Time.”

This arrangement serves as a special artistic tasks: in particular, Pechorin is first shown through the eyes of Maxim Maksimych, and only then we see him from the inside, according to entries from the diary.

Remember the plot of I. A. Bunin’s story “Easy Breathing” and restore its plot.