the structure of the work, and in principle the construction of the image, plot, composition, language. The method is the understanding and reproduction of reality in accordance with the characteristics of artistic thinking and the aesthetic ideal.”
The problem of the method of depicting reality was first recognized in antiquity and was fully embodied in Aristotle’s work “Poetics” under the name “theory of imitation.”
Imitation, according to Aristotle, is the basis of poetry and its goal is to recreate the world similar to the real one, or, more precisely, how it could be. The authority of this theory remained until the end of the 18th century, when the romantics proposed a different approach (also having its roots in antiquity, more precisely in Hellenism) - the re-creation of reality in accordance with the will of the author, and not with the laws of the “universe”.
These two concepts, according to domestic literary criticism of the middle of the last century, underlie two “types of creativity” - “realistic” and “romantic”, within which the “methods” of classicism, romanticism, different types realism, modernism. It should be said that the concept of “method” was used by many literary theorists and writers: A. Watteau, D. Diderot, G. Lessing, I. V. Goethe, S. T. Coleridge, who wrote the treatise “On Method” (1818).
The theory of imitation served as the basis for the development of naturalism. “Working on Thérèse Raquin,” wrote E. Zola, “I forgot about everything in the world, I plunged into painstaking copying of life, devoting myself entirely to the study human body..."64 Often a feature of this method of reflecting reality is the complete dependence of the creator of the work on the subject of the image; artistic knowledge turns into copying.
Another model can lead to arbitrariness of subjectivity. For example, F. Schiller argued that the artist, re-creating reality (“material”), “... stops little before violence against him... The material that he processes, he respects as little as the mechanic; he will only try to deceive with the apparent compliance of the eye, which protects the freedom of this material.”
In a number of works, scientists propose to supplement the concept of method with the concept of a type of creativity, a type of artistic thinking. At the same time, two types of creativity - re-creating and recreating - cover the entire wealth of the principles of artistic reflection.
Regarding the problem of the relationship between method and direction, it is necessary to take into account that the method as general principle figurative reflection of life differs from direction as a historically specific phenomenon.
Consequently, if this or that direction is historically unique, then the same method, as a broad category of the literary process, can be repeated in the works of writers of different times and peoples, and therefore of different directions and trends.
For example, we encounter elements of the realistic principle of reflecting reality already in the directions of classicism and sentimentalism, that is, even before the emergence of the realistic method itself, just as established realism later penetrates into the works of modernism.
Introduction to literary criticism (N.L. Vershinina, E.V. Volkova, A.A. Ilyushin, etc.) / Ed. L.M. Krupchanov. - M, 2005
Artistic method
One should clearly understand the relationships and interrelations of such categories of the literary process as artistic method, literary direction and movement, art style .
The concept of the literary process is the most general, the initial one for defining all the categories that characterize different sides literature related to its various aspects.
Artistic method- this is a way of mastering and displaying the world, a set of basic creative principles for the figurative reflection of life. The method can be spoken of as the structure of the writer’s artistic thinking, which determines his approach to reality and its reconstruction in the light of a certain aesthetic ideal.
The method is embodied in the content literary work. Through the method, we comprehend those creative principles thanks to which the writer reproduces reality: selection, evaluation, typification (generalization), artistic embodiment of characters, life phenomena in historical refraction.
The method is manifested in the structure of thoughts and feelings of the heroes of a literary work, in the motivations for their behavior and actions, in the relationship of characters and events, in accordance life path, the fate of the characters and the socio-historical circumstances of the era.
Artistic method is a system of principles for selecting life material, its evaluation, principles and prevailing forms of artistic generalization and rethinking. It characterizes a complex of factors: holistic ideological, evaluative, individually unique, social attitude the artist to reality, to consciously or spontaneously reflected needs, ideological and artistic traditions. The artistic method largely determines the specificity of the artistic image.
The concept of “artistic style” is closely related to the concept of “artistic method”. The method is implemented in style, that is, the general properties of the method receive their national-historical specificity in the style of the writer.
The concept of “method” (from the gr. - path of research) denotes “the general principle of the artist’s creative attitude to knowable reality, that is, its re-creation.” These are a kind of ways of understanding life that changed in different historical and literary eras. According to some scientists, the method underlies trends and directions, and represents that method of aesthetic exploration of reality that is inherent in the works of a certain direction. Method is an aesthetic and deeply meaningful category.
The problem of the method of depicting reality was first recognized in antiquity and was fully embodied in Aristotle’s work “Poetics” under the name “theory of imitation.” Imitation, according to Aristotle, is the basis of poetry and its goal is to recreate the world similar to the real one, or, more precisely, how it could be. The authority of this theory remained until the end of the 18th century, when the romantics proposed a different approach (also having its roots in antiquity, more precisely in Hellenism) - the re-creation of reality in accordance with the will of the author, and not with the laws of the “universe”. These two concepts, according to domestic literary criticism of the middle of the last century, underlie two “types of creativity” - “realistic” and “romantic”, within which the “methods” of classicism, romanticism, different types of realism, and modernism fit. It should be said that the concept of “method” was used by many literary theorists and writers: A. Watteau, D. Diderot, G. Lessing, I. V. Goethe, S. T. Coleridge, who wrote the treatise “On Method” (1818).
In a number of works, scientists propose to supplement the concept of method with the concept of a type of creativity, a type of artistic thinking. At the same time, two types of creativity - re-creating and recreating - cover all the richness of the principles of artistic reflection.
Regarding the problem of the relationship between method and direction, it is necessary to take into account that method as a general principle of figurative reflection of life differs from direction as a historically specific phenomenon. Consequently, if this or that direction is historically unique, then the same method, as a broad category of the literary process, can be repeated in the works of writers of different times and peoples, and therefore of different directions and trends. For example, we encounter elements of the realistic principle of reflecting reality already in the directions of classicism and sentimentalism, that is, even before the emergence of the realistic method itself, just as established realism later penetrates into the works of modernism.
The artistic method (literally “methodos” from the Greek - the path of research) is a set of the most general principles of the aesthetic development of reality, which is consistently repeated in the work of one or another group of writers, forming a direction, movement or school. There are objective difficulties in isolating the method. “The artistic method is an aesthetic and deeply meaningful category. It cannot be reduced to formal ways construction of the image, nor to the ideology of the writer. It represents a set of ideological and artistic principles for depicting reality in the light of a certain aesthetic ideal. Worldview organically enters into the method when it merges with the artist’s talent, with his poetic thinking, and does not exist in the work only in the form of a socio-political tendency” (N.A. Gulyaev). The method is not just a system of some views, at least the most aesthetic ones. In a very conventional way, we can talk about a method as a view, but not an abstract, initial one, but one that has already found itself in a certain material of a given art. This is an artistic thought or artistic concept of these phenomena in connection with the general concept of life. The method is the category mainly artistic creativity, and therefore artistic consciousness. The method is a consistently implemented method of reflection, presupposing the unity of the artistic re-creation of the material of reality, realized on the unity of the imaginative vision of life, subordinated to the goals of revealing and understanding the leading trends of the writer’s contemporary life and the embodiment of his social ideals.
The category of method is connected with the category of type of creativity, on the one hand, and the category of style, on the other. Already in the 5th century BC. e. Sophocles aphoristically outlined two opposing types of artistic thinking: “He (Euripides) depicts people as they really are, and I as they should be.” Under style Usually it is understood as the individual uniqueness of creative handwriting, the set of preferred techniques, the unity of individual and typical features of creativity common to many individuals. The most active style-forming factors in the artistic structure of a work relate to the plane of expression. But at the same time, style is also “a directly perceived, complete unity of different aspects and elements of works, corresponding to the content expressed in it” (G.N. Pospelov). The difference between style and other categories of poetics, in particular from the artistic method, is in its immediate concrete implementation: stylistic features seem to appear on the surface of the work as a visible and tangible unity of all the main aspects of the artistic form.
Style “absorbs into itself the content and form of art without a trace, unites and guides everything in a work, from the word to the central thought” (Benedetto Croce). The linguistic approach to style assumes that the main object of study is language, language as the first and clearly distinguishable appearance and materiality of a literary work. This means that internal linguistic laws come to the fore. Style, artistic fabric are considered as a combination of different styles existing in addition to it in the language and pre-given ones - clerical-bureaucratic, epistolary, archaic, business, style of scientific presentation, etc. But this approach does not explain the change in literary styles. Moreover, the style of a work of art cannot be reduced to a mechanical combination. Style is a stable community of figurative system, means of artistic expression, characterizing the originality of a writer’s work, a separate work, a literary movement, or national literature. Style in a broad sense is a cross-cutting principle of constructing an artistic form, giving a work tangible integrity, a uniform tone and color.
What are the mechanisms of style formation? D.S. Likhachev proceeds from this (“Man in Literature Ancient Rus'"), that artistic style combines both the general perception of reality characteristic of the writer and the writer’s artistic method, determined by the tasks that he sets for himself. That is, style is not what the writer chose in his work, but how he expressed it, from what angle.
It is impossible to explain style without considering its connection with artistic method. The concept of artistic method expresses the fact that historical reality determines not only the content of art, but also its innermost aesthetic laws. The creative method aesthetically summarizes people's practical attitude to their historical tasks and their understanding of life, and creates that special relationship between ideals and reality that determines the structure of artistic images. Thus, the mythological view of nature and social relations underlay Greek fantasy and Greek art. The creative method of classical art required that the artist guess the perfect in the imperfect, so that he would show realized all the harmonious fullness of the possibilities of the human spirit. The creative method of classical art indicated to the artist a more or less constant angle of obligatory elevation of the image above reality, a more or less established direction in the artistic expression of a life phenomenon. Thus, he gave the beginning of the style. The relationship between ideal and reality inherent in classical art turned out to be the key to understanding the classical style with its clarity and transparency, normativity, beauty, strict order, with its inherent harmonious balance of parts and peace of internal completeness, the obvious connection of form and function, the paramount importance of rhythm, with his naive laconicism and amazing sense of proportion.
Style is a pattern in the construction, connection and similarity of forms, allowing these forms to express not only the particular content of a given work, but also to reproduce the most general signs man's relationship to nature and society. Style is the general character of expression various forms. Style is a connection of forms that reveals the unity of artistic content (Gothic style, Baroque style, false classical style, Rococo style, etc.). There are large styles, the so-called styles of the era (Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism), styles of various directions and movements, and individual styles of artists.
The style was a pointed writing stick with a ball at the other end, which was used to erase what was written. Hence the catchphrase: “Turn your style more often!”
“Style is a person” (J. Buffon).
“Style embalms a literary work” (A. Daudet).
“Style may be defined as follows: the appropriate words in the appropriate place” (J. Swift).
“Style is the face of the mind, less deceptive than the real face. Imitating someone else's style is like wearing a mask. The pomposity of style is like grimacing” (A. Schopenhauer).
The very relationship between method and style turns out to be different depending on the different stages artistic development. As a rule, in the early periods of the development of art, the style was unified, comprehensive, strictly subordinated to religious and dogmatic norms; with the development of aesthetic sensibility, the need for each era to have a singular style (the style of the era, the aesthetic code of culture) noticeably weakens.
In pre-realistic art we observe the predominance of a general style, and in realistic art we observe the predominance of individual styles. In the first case, the method seems to merge with a certain style, and in the second, the more abundant and dissimilar the styles that grow on its basis, the more fully it is implemented. In the first case, the method brings about uniformity, in the second, a variety of styles. The dominance of the general style corresponds to the relatively simple artistic content. IN ancient society relations between people are still clear and transparent. The same mythological motifs and subjects are repeated in all types of art. The scope of artistic content remains quite narrow. The difference of personal points of view fits within the boundaries of a single aesthetic tradition. All this leads to the unification of artistic content, which determined the formation of a common style.
The dominance of a general style is decisively connected with the predominance of idealization as a method of artistic generalization, and the dominance of individual styles with typification. Idealization more easily connects heterogeneous phenomena into a single style. In classical art the form is inevitably more coherent, rigid, and stable than in a realistic image. The general style subordinates the individuality of the artist. Only those personal talents that meet the requirements of the general style are given scope and can develop. Thus, discussing the general style of Old Russian literature, D.S. Likhachev writes that the features of folk collectivism are still alive in ancient Russian literature. This is literature in which the personal element is muted. Many works incorporate previous works and follow traditions of literary etiquette created by several authors, which were subsequently corrected and supplemented by correspondence. Thanks to this feature, the literature of Ancient Rus' contains a monumental epic principle. This monumentality is enhanced by the fact that works in Ancient Rus' are mainly devoted to historical topics. They contain less fictional, imaginary, designed for entertainment and entertainment. The seriousness of this literature is also due to the fact that its main works are civic in the highest sense of the word. The authors perceive their writing as service to the Motherland. The higher the ideals of ancient Russian authors, the more difficult it was for them to come to terms with the shortcomings of reality (historical monumentalism).
In the classicism of the 17th–18th centuries, the obligatory nature of the general style is supported by the established and indisputable authority of antiquity, the recognition of the decisive significance of its artistic images as objects of imitation. Religious-mythological authoritarianism is replaced by aesthetic authoritarianism (rules). It is necessary to consider whether a given work belongs to the general style and then to discover those modifications, enrichments, and innovations that depend on the individual style. The general style subjugates the artist and determines his aesthetic taste. Realism changes the very type of aesthetic taste and includes its ability to develop naturally. The realistic method is associated with a new era in which people's relationships take on an extremely confusing appearance.
In the capitalist era, a complex mechanism of social, political and ideological relations is developed, things are personified, people are reified. The cognitive capabilities of art are expanding. Analysis is deeply embedded in the description, the scope of artistic content becomes wider, and a huge area of life prose opens up. The artist no longer works with the life process, which was previously reworked by folk fantasy and included a collective assessment of the phenomena of reality. From now on, he must independently find an image of reality. Thanks to this, even a small change in the angle of view, the position of the observer, is enough for the artistic content to change dramatically and significantly. Previously, this change led to the formation of personal shades within the boundaries of a single style; now it has become the basis for the emergence of individual styles. The diversity of assessments, aspects, views, approaches, and degrees of historical activity among artists is of great importance. Individual attitude to reality and individual forms of expression.
– Selection
Art Direction – Grading
– Generalization
– Artistic embodiment
Classicism– artistic style and aesthetic direction in European literature in the art of the 17th – early. XVIII centuries, one of the important features of which was the appeal to the images and forms of ancient literature and art as an ideal aesthetic standard. As an integral artistic system, classicism was formed in France during the period of strengthening and flourishing of absolutism. Classicism receives a complete systematic expression in “The Poetic Art” (1674) by N. Boileau, who summarizes the artistic experience of French literature of the 17th century. The aesthetics of classicism are based on the principles of rationalism, corresponding to the philosophical ideas of Cartesianism. They affirm the view of a work of art as an artificial creation - consciously created, intelligently organized, logically constructed. Having put forward the principle of “imitation of nature,” the classicists consider its indispensable condition to be strict adherence to the unshakable rules, which are drawn from ancient poetics (Aristotle, Horace) of art and determine the laws of artistic form, transforming life material into a beautiful, logically harmonious and clear work of art.
The artistic transformation of nature, the transformation of nature into beautiful and ennobled is at the same time an act of its highest knowledge - art is called upon to reveal the ideal pattern of the universe, often hidden behind the external chaos and disorder of reality. The mind, comprehending the ideal pattern, acts as an “arrogant” principle in relation to individual characteristics and the living diversity of life. The classicist image gravitates towards the model, it is a special mirror, where the individual turns into the generic, the temporary into the eternal, the real into the ideal, history into myth, it is the triumph of reason and order over the chaos and fluid empirics of life. This also corresponded to the social and educational function of art, to which the aesthetics of classicism attached great importance.
The aesthetics of classicism establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into “high” (tragedy, epic, ode, their sphere is public life, historical events, myths, their heroes - monarchs, generals, mythological characters, religious devotees) and “low” (comedy , satire, fable), depicting the private everyday life of people of the middle classes. Each genre has strict boundaries and clear formal characteristics; no mixing of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the ordinary is allowed. The leading genre of classicism was tragedy, addressed to the most important social and moral problems of the century. Social conflicts appear in it reflected in the souls of the heroes, faced with the need to choose between moral duty and personal passions. In this collision, a polarization of human public and private existence emerged, which also determined the structure of the image.
Romanticism – one of the largest trends in European and American literature of the late 18th century half of the 19th century centuries, gaining worldwide significance and distribution. Romanticism was the highest point of the anti-Enlightenment movement. Its main socio-ideological prerequisites are disappointment in the results of the Great French Revolution and in bourgeois civilization in general. Rejection of the bourgeois way of life, protest against the vulgarity and prosaicness, lack of spirituality and selfishness of bourgeois relations, which found initial expression in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism, acquired particular poignancy among the romantics. The reality of history turned out to be beyond the control of “reason”, irrational, full of secrets and contingencies, and the modern world order is hostile to human nature and his personal freedom.
Disbelief in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, which brought new contrasts and antagonisms, as well as “fragmentation”, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual, disappointment in society, which was foreshadowed, justified and preached by the best minds (as the most “natural” and “reasonable”) of Europe, gradually grew to cosmic pessimism. Taking on a universal, universal character, it was accompanied by moods of hopelessness, despair, “world sorrow” (“the disease of the century”, inherent in the heroes of Chateaubriand, Musset, Byron). The theme of the “terrible world” “lying in evil” (with its blind power of material relations, the irrationality of destinies, the melancholy of the eternal monotony of everyday life) has passed through the entire history of romantic literature, embodied most clearly in the “drama of rock”, in the works of J. Byron, E. Hoffmann, E. Poe and others. At the same time, romanticism is characterized by a sense of belonging to a rapidly developing and renewing world, inclusion in the flow of life, in the world historical process, a feeling of hidden wealth and limitless possibilities of existence. “Enthusiasm”, based on faith in the omnipotence of the free human spirit, a passionate, all-encompassing thirst for renewal is one of the characteristic features of the romantic worldview (see the work of N.Ya. Berkovsky “Romanticism in Germany” about this, pp. 25–26).
The depth and universality of disappointment in reality, in the possibilities of civilization and progress is polar opposite to the romantic craving for the “infinite”, for absolute and universal ideals. The romantics dreamed not of a partial improvement of life, but of a holistic resolution of all its contradictions. The discord between ideal and reality, characteristic of previous movements, acquires extraordinary sharpness and intensity in romanticism, which is the essence of the so-called romantic two worlds. Rejecting the everyday life of modern civilized society as colorless and prosaic, the romantics strove for everything unusual. They were attracted to fantasy, folk legends, folk art, past historical eras, exotic pictures of nature, life, way of life and customs of distant countries and peoples. They contrasted base material practice with sublime passions (the romantic concept of love) and the life of the spirit, the highest manifestations of which for the romantics were art, religion, and philosophy.
The Romantics discovered the extraordinary complexity, depth and antinomy of the human spiritual world, the inner infinity of human individuality. For them, a person is a small universe, a microcosm. An intense interest in strong and vivid feelings, in the secret movements of the soul, in its “night” side, a craving for the intuitive and unconscious are the essential features of the romantic worldview. Equally characteristic of the romantics is the defense of freedom, sovereignty, the self-worth of the individual, increased attention to the individual, the unique in man, and the cult of the individual. An apology for the individual served, as it were, as self-defense against the merciless march of history and the growing leveling of man himself in bourgeois society.
The requirement for historicism and folk art (mainly in the sense of faithfully recreating the color of place and time) is one of the enduring achievements of the romantic theory of art. The endless variety of local, epochal, national, historical, individual characteristics had a certain philosophical meaning in the eyes of the romantics: it was a discovery of the wealth of a single world whole - the universe. In the field of aesthetics, romanticism contrasted the classicist “imitation of nature” with the creative activity of the artist with his right to transform the real world: the artist creates his own special world, more beautiful and true, and therefore more real than empirical reality, since art itself is the highest reality . The Romantics fiercely defended the creative freedom of artists and rejected normativity in aesthetics, which, however, did not exclude the creation of their own romantic canons.
From the point of view of the principles of artistic representation, the Romantics gravitated towards fantasy, satirical grotesque, demonstrative conventionality of form, fragmentation, fragmentation, peak composition; they boldly mixed the ordinary and the unusual, the tragic and the comic.
Realism, an artistic direction in art, following which the artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself and are created through the typification of facts of reality. Affirming the importance of realism as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism strives for a deep comprehension of life, for a broad coverage of reality with its inherent contradictions, and recognizes the artist’s right to illuminate all aspects of life without restrictions. The art of realism shows the interaction of man with the environment, the impact of social conditions on human destinies, the influence of social circumstances on the morals and spiritual world of people. In a broad sense, the category of realism serves to determine the relationship of literary works to reality, regardless of the writer’s affiliation with one movement or another. The origins of realism in Russia were I.A. Krylov, A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin (in Western literature, realism appeared somewhat later; its first representatives were Stendhal and Balzac).
Main features of realism. 1. The principle of life's truth, which guides the realist artist in his work, striving to give the most complete reflection of life in its typical properties. The fidelity of the depiction of reality, reproduced in the forms of life itself, is the main criterion of artistry. 2. Social analysis, historicism of thinking. It is realism that explains the phenomena of life, establishes their causes and consequences on a socio-historical basis. In other words, realism is unthinkable without historicism, which presupposes an understanding of a given phenomenon in its conditionality, development and connection with other phenomena. Historicism is the basis of the worldview and artistic method of a realist writer, a kind of key to understanding reality, allowing one to connect the past, present and future. In the past, the artist looks for answers to pressing questions of our time, and interprets modernity as the result of previous historical development. In realistic literature, the inner world and behavior of the characters, as a rule, bear the indelible stamp of time. The writer often shows the direct dependence of their social, moral, religious ideas on the conditions of existence in a given society, and pays great attention to the social and everyday background of the time. At the same time, in mature realistic art, circumstances are depicted only as a necessary prerequisite for revealing the spiritual world of people. 3. Critical portrayal of life. Writers deeply and truthfully show the negative phenomena of reality and focus on exposing them. But at the same time, realism is not devoid of life-affirming pathos, because it is based on positive ideals - sympathy for the masses, searches for positive hero in life, faith in the inexhaustible possibilities of man. 4. The depiction of typical characters in typical circumstances, that is, the characters are depicted in close connection with the social environment that raised them and formed them in certain socio-historical conditions. 5. The relationship between the individual and society is the leading problem posed by realistic literature. The drama of these relationships is important for realism. As a rule, the focus of realistic works is on extraordinary individuals, dissatisfied with life, breaking out from their environment, but this does not mean that realists are not interested in invisible people, merging with their environment, representatives of the masses (the type of little man in Gogol and Chekhov). 6. The versatility of the characters’ characters: their actions, deeds, speech, lifestyle and inner world, the “dialectics of the soul,” which is revealed in the psychological details of its emotional experiences. Thus, realism expands the possibilities of writers in the creative exploration of the world, in the creation of a contradictory and complex personality structure as a result of subtle penetration into the depths of the human psyche. 7. Expressiveness, brightness, imagery, accuracy of the Russian literary language, enriched with elements of colloquial speech that realist writers draw from the common language. 8. A variety of genres (epic, lyre-epic, dramatic, satirical). 9. Reflection of reality does not exclude fiction and fantasy, although these artistic means do not determine the main tone of the work.
Artistic method - this is the principle (method) of selecting the phenomena of reality, the features of their assessment and the originality of their artistic embodiment; that is, method is a category related to both content and artistic form. It is possible to determine the originality of one or another method only by considering the general historical trends in the development of art. In different periods of the development of literature, we can observe that different writers or poets are guided by the same principles of understanding and depicting reality. In other words, the method is universal and is not directly related to specific historical conditions: we are talking about the realistic method and in connection with the comedy of A.S. Griboyedov, and in connection with the work of F.M. Dostoevsky, and in connection with the prose of M.A. Sholokhov. And the features of the romantic method are revealed both in the poetry of V.A. Zhukovsky, and in the stories of A.S. Greena. However, there are periods in the history of literature when one or another method becomes dominant and acquires more specific features associated with the characteristics of the era and trends in culture. And in this case we are already talking about literary direction . Directions in a wide variety of forms and relationships can appear in any method. For example, L.N. Tolstoy and M. Gorky are realists. But only by determining to which direction the work of one or another writer belongs, we will be able to understand the differences and features of their artistic systems.
Literary movement - manifestation of ideological and thematic unity, homogeneity of plots, characters, language in the works of several writers of the same era. Often writers themselves are aware of this affinity and express it in so-called “literary manifestos”, declaring themselves a literary group or school and giving themselves a certain name.
Classicism (from Latin classicus - sample) - a movement that arose in European art and literature of the 17th century, based on the cult of reason and the idea of the absolute (independent of time and nationality) nature of the aesthetic ideal. Hence, the main task of art becomes the closest possible approximation to this ideal, which received its most complete expression in antiquity. Therefore, the principle of “working according to a model” is one of the fundamental principles in the aesthetics of classicism.
The aesthetics of classicism is normative; “disorganized and willful” inspiration was contrasted with discipline, strict adherence to once and for all established rules. For example, the rule of “three unities” in drama: unity of action, unity of time and unity of place. Or the rule of “purity of genre”: whether a work belongs to a “high” (tragedy, ode, etc.) or “low” (comedy, fable, etc.) genre determined its subject matter, the types of characters, and even the development of the plot and style. The opposition of duty to feeling, rational to emotional, the requirement to always sacrifice personal desires for the sake of the public good is largely explained by the enormous educational role that the classicists assigned to art.
Classicism received its most complete form in France (the comedies of Moliere, the fables of La Fontaine, the tragedies of Corneille and Racine).
Russian classicism arose in the 2nd quarter of the 18th century and was associated with educational ideology (for example, the idea of the value of a person beyond the class), characteristic of the successors of the reforms of Peter I. Russian classicism, already at its very beginning, was characterized by a satirical, accusatory orientation. For Russian classicists, a literary work is not an end in itself: it is only a path to the improvement of human nature. In addition, it was Russian classicism that paid more attention national characteristics And folk art, without focusing exclusively on foreign samples.
Poetic genres occupy a large place in the literature of Russian classicism: odes, fables, satires. Various aspects Russian classicism were reflected in the odes of M.V. Lomonosov (high civic pathos, scientific and philosophical themes, patriotic orientation), in the poetry of G.R. Derzhavin, in the fables of I.A. Krylov and in the comedies of D.I. Fonvizina.
Sentimentalism (from santimentas - feeling) - a literary movement in Western Europe and Russia at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th century, characterized by the elevation of feeling to the main aesthetic category. Sentimentalism became a kind of reaction to the rationality of classicism. The cult of feeling led to more full disclosure the inner world of a person, to the individualization of images of heroes. It also gave rise to a new attitude towards nature: the landscape became not just a backdrop for the development of action, it turned out to be in tune with the personal experiences of the author or characters. The emotional vision of the world required other poetic genres (elegy, pastoral, message), and other vocabulary - figurative words, colored with feeling. In this regard, the author-narrator begins to play a large role in the work, freely expressing his “sensitive” attitude towards the characters and their actions, as if inviting the reader to share these emotions (as a rule, the main one is “touchedness,” that is, pity, compassion ).
The aesthetic program of Russian sentimentalism is most fully reflected in the works of N.M. Karamzin (story " Poor Lisa"). The connection between Russian sentimentalism and educational ideas can be seen in the works of A.N. Radishchev (“Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”).
Romanticism - creative method and artistic direction in Russian and European (as well as American) literature of the late 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. The main subject of the image in romanticism is the person, the individual. A romantic hero is, first of all, a strong, extraordinary nature, a person overwhelmed by passions and capable of creatively perceiving (and sometimes transforming) the world. The romantic hero, due to his exclusivity and unusualness, is incompatible with society: he is lonely and most often in conflict with everyday life. From this conflict a kind of romantic dual world is born: the confrontation between the sublime world of dreams and dull, “wingless” reality. The romantic hero is located at the “intersection point” of these spaces. Such an exceptional character can only act in exceptional circumstances, therefore the events of romantic works unfold in an exotic, unusual setting: in countries unknown to readers, in distant historical eras, in other worlds...
Unlike classicism, romanticism turns to folk-poetic antiquity not only for ethnographic, but also for aesthetic purposes, finding a source of inspiration in national folklore. IN romantic work the historical and national coloring, historical details, and the background of the era are reproduced in detail, but all this becomes only a kind of decoration for recreating the inner world of a person, his experiences, and aspirations. In order to more accurately convey the experiences of an extraordinary personality, romantic writers depicted them against the backdrop of nature, which uniquely “refracted” and reflected the characteristics of the hero’s character. Stormy elements - the sea, a blizzard, a thunderstorm - were especially attractive to romantics. The hero has a complex relationship with nature: on the one hand, the natural elements are akin to his passionate character, on the other hand, the romantic hero struggles with the elements, not wanting to recognize any restrictions on his own freedom. The passionate desire for freedom as an end in itself becomes one of the main things for the romantic hero and often leads him to tragic death.
V.A. is traditionally considered the founder of Russian romanticism. Zhukovsky; Romanticism manifested itself most clearly in the poetry of M.Yu. Lermontov, in the works of A.A. Fet and A.K. Tolstoy; at a certain period of his work, A.S. paid tribute to romanticism. Pushkin, N.V. Gogol, F.I. Tyutchev.
Realism (from realis - material) - a creative method and literary direction in Russian and world literature of the 19th and 20th centuries. The word “realism” is often used to describe different concepts (critical realism, socialist realism; there is even the term “magical realism”). Let's try to highlight the main features of Russian realism of the 19th-20th centuries.
Realism is built on the principles of artistic historicism, i.e. he acknowledges the existence objective reasons, social and historical patterns that influence the personality of the hero and help explain his character and actions. This means that the hero may have different motivations for his actions and experiences. The pattern of actions and the cause-and-effect relationship between personality and circumstances is one of the principles of realistic psychologism. Instead of an exceptional, extraordinary romantic personality, realists place at the center of the narrative a typical character - a hero, whose features (for all the individual uniqueness of his character) reflect certain general characteristics of either a certain generation or a certain social group. Realist authors avoid an unambiguous assessment of heroes and do not divide them into positive and negative, as is often the case in classic works. The characters’ characters are given in development; under the influence of objective circumstances, the heroes’ views evolve (for example, the path of Andrei Bolkonsky’s quest in L.N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”). Instead of unusual exceptional circumstances, so beloved by romantics, realism chooses the setting for the development of events. work of art ordinary, everyday conditions life. Realistic works strive to most fully depict the causes of conflicts, the imperfection of man and society, and the dynamics of their development.
The most prominent representatives of realism in Russian literature: A.N. Ostrovsky, I.S. Turgenev, I.A. Goncharov, M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin, L.N. Tolstoy, F.M. Dostoevsky, A.P. Chekhov.
Realism and Romanticism- two different ways visions of reality, they are based on different concepts of the world and man. But these methods are not mutually exclusive: many achievements of realism became possible only through the creative development and rethinking of the romantic principles of depicting the individual and the Universe. In Russian literature, many works combine both methods of depiction, for example, the poem by N.V. Gogol " Dead Souls"or the novel by M.A. Bulgakov "The Master and Margarita".
Modernism (from the French moderne - newest, modern) - the general name of new (non-realistic) phenomena in the literature of the first half of the 20th century. The era of the emergence of modernism was a crisis, a turning point, marked by the events of the First World War, the rise of revolutionary sentiments in different countries Europe, In the conditions of the collapse of one world order and the emergence of another, during the period of intensifying ideological struggle, philosophy and literature acquired special significance. This historical and literary period (in particular, poetry created between 1890 and 1917) was called the Silver Age in the history of Russian literature.
Russian modernism, despite the diversity of aesthetic programs, was united common task: search for new artistic means images of the new reality. This desire was most consistently and definitely realized in four literary movements: symbolism, futurism, acmeism and imagism.
Symbolism - a literary movement that emerged in Russia in the early 90s of the 19th century. It is based on the philosophical ideas of Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, as well as the teachings of B.C. Solovyov about “The Soul of the World”. Traditional way Symbolists contrasted the knowledge of reality with the idea of creating worlds in the process of creativity. It is art, in their opinion, that is capable of recording the highest reality that appears to the artist at the moment of inspiration. Therefore, creativity in the understanding of the symbolists - the contemplation of “secret meanings” - is accessible only to the poet-creator. The value of poetic speech lies in understatement, in concealing the meaning of what is said. As can be seen from the very name of the direction, the main role in it is given to the symbol - the main means capable of conveying the seen, “caught” secret meaning of what is happening. The symbol becomes the central aesthetic category of the new literary movement.
Among Symbolists, it is traditional to distinguish between “senior” Symbolists and “junior” Symbolists. Among the “senior” symbolists, the most famous are K.D. Balmont, V.Ya. Bryusov, F.K. Sologub. These poets declared themselves and a new literary direction in the 90s of the 19th century. “Younger” Symbolists Vyach. Ivanov, A. Bely, A.A. Blok came to literature in the early 1900s. The “older” symbolists denied the surrounding reality, contrasted dream and creativity with reality (the word “decadence” is often used to define such an emotional and ideological position). The “younger” believed that in reality “ old world", the one who has outlived his usefulness will perish, and the one who is to come " new world"will be built on the basis of high spirituality and culture.
Acmeism (from the Greek akme - blooming power, the highest degree of something) - a literary movement in the poetry of Russian modernism, which contrasted the aesthetics of symbolism with a “clear view” of life. It is not without reason that other names for Acmeism are clarism (from the Latin clarus - clear) and “Adamism” after the biblical forefather of all people Adam, who gave names to everything around him. Supporters of Acmeism tried to reform the aesthetics and poetics of Russian symbolism; they abandoned excessive metaphoricality, complexity, one-sided passion for symbolism and called for a “return” to the exact meaning of the word, “to the earth.” Only material nature was recognized as real. But the “earthly” worldview of the Acmeists was exclusively aesthetic in nature. Acmeist poets tend to turn to a single everyday object or natural phenomenon, poeticize individual “things,” and abandon socio-political themes. “Longing for world culture” - this is how O.E. defined Acmeism. Mandelstam.
Representatives of Acmeism were N.S. Gumilev, A.A. Akhmatova, O.E. Mandelstam and others, who united in the “Workshop of Poets” circle and grouped themselves around the Apollo magazine.
Futurism (from Latin futurum - future) - a literary movement of an avant-garde nature. In the first manifesto of the Russian futurists (they often called themselves “Budetlyans”) there was a call to break with traditional culture and reconsider the significance of the classical artistic heritage: “Dump Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, etc. and so on. from the Steamboat of Modernity." The futurists declared themselves opponents of the existing bourgeois society and sought to recognize and anticipate in their art the coming world revolution. Futurists advocated the destruction of established literary genres, deliberately turned to “reduced, area” vocabulary, and called for the creation new language, which does not limit word creation. Futurist art put the improvement and renewal of the work's form in the foreground, while the content either faded into the background or was considered insignificant.
Russian futurism became a distinctive artistic movement and was associated with four main groups: “Gilea” (cubo-futurists V.V. Khlebnikov, V.V. Mayakovsky, D.D. Burlyuk, etc.), “Centrifuge” (N.N. Aseev , B.L. Pasternak and others), “Association of Ego-Futurists” (I. Severyanin and others), “Mezzanine of Poetry” (R. Ivnev, V.G. Shershenevich and others).
Imagism (from English or French image - image) - a literary movement that arose in Russian literature in the first years after October revolution. The most “left-wing” imagists proclaimed the main task of poetry to be “eating meaning by an image,” and followed the path of the intrinsic value of the image, weaving a chain of metaphors. “A poem is... a wave of images,” wrote one of the theorists of imagism. In practice, many imagists gravitated towards an organic image, fused in mood and thought with the holistic perception of the poem. Representatives of Russian imagism were A.B. Mariengof, V.G. Shershenevich. The most talented poet, who theoretically and practically went far beyond the scope of the manifestos of imagism, was S.A. Yesenin.
What creative method, based on the principles of artistic historicism, is leading in the work of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin?
Answer: realism.
Indicate the name of the literary movement that arose in Russia in the 2nd quarter of the 18th century, to which the work of M.V. is traditionally attributed. Lomonosov, D.I. Fonvizin and G.R. Derzhavina.
Answer: classicism.
Which of the named poetic genres is a genre of sentimentalist poetry?
2) ballad
3) elegy
4) fable
Answer: 3.
V.A. is called the founder of which literary movement in Russian literature? Zhukovsky?
Answer: romanticism.
Which literary movement, recognizing the existence of objective socio-historical patterns, is leading in the work of L.N. Tolstoy?
Answer: realism.
Indicate the name of the literary movement that arose in Russian literature in the 30-40s of the 19th century and sought to objectively depict the reasons for the imperfection of socio-political relations; direction to which the work of M.E. belongs. Saltykov-Shchedrin.
Answer: realism/critical realism.
In the manifesto of which literary movement at the beginning of the 20th century it was stated: “Only we are the face of our Time” and proposed to “throw Pushkin, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and others off the Steamboat of Modernity”?
1) symbolism
2) acmeism
3) futurism
4) imagism
At an early stage of his work, A.A. Akhmatova acted as one of the representatives of the literary movement
1) acmeism 2) symbolism 3) futurism 4) realism
The Silver Age in Russian literature is the period of development of literature, in particular poetry.
1) after 1917
2) from 1905 to 1917
3) late 19th century
4) between 1890 and 1917
Starting his poetic career, V.V. Mayakovsky acted as one of the active representatives
1) acmeism
2) symbolism
3) futurism
4) realism
At one of the stages creative path S.A. Yesenin joined the group of poets 1) Acmeists
2) symbolists
3) futurists
4) imagists
In Russian poetry K.D. Balmont acted as one of the representatives
1) acmeism
2) symbolism
Complex goal
know
- the concept of artistic method as a set of principles of artistic representation;
- the category of literary movement as the leading ideological and aesthetic tendency of creativity;
- literary movements and schools;
- information about artistic style as a set of stable elements of artistic form and the content of creativity, style-forming factors, stylistics of language and speech, historical development style theories;
be able to
Analyze literature both at the level of the writer’s work as a whole and individual works;
own
- terminology and conceptual apparatus of this issue;
- skills in determining the stylistic, figurative and methodological specifics of an individual author’s work.
Artistic method
One should clearly understand the relationships and interrelations of such categories of the literary process as artistic method, literary direction and movement, and artistic style.
The concept of the literary process is the most general, the starting point for defining all the categories that characterize different aspects of literature, relating to its different aspects.
Artistic method is a way of mastering and displaying the world, a set of basic creative principles for the figurative reflection of life. The method can be spoken of as the structure of the writer’s artistic thinking, which determines his approach to reality and its reconstruction in the light of a certain aesthetic ideal.
The method is embodied in the content of the literary work. Through the method, we comprehend those creative principles thanks to which the writer reproduces reality: selection, evaluation, typification (generalization), artistic embodiment of characters, life phenomena in historical refraction.
The method is manifested in the structure of thoughts and feelings of the heroes of a literary work, in the motivations for their behavior and actions, in the relationship of characters and events, in the correspondence of the life path and destinies of the characters to the socio-historical circumstances of the era.
Artistic method is a system of principles for selecting life material, its evaluation, principles and prevailing forms of artistic generalization and rethinking. It characterizes a complex of factors: a holistic ideological, evaluative, individually unique, social attitude of the artist to reality, to consciously or spontaneously reflected needs, ideological and artistic traditions. The artistic method largely determines the specificity of the artistic image.
The concept of “artistic style” is closely related to the concept of “artistic method”. The method is implemented in a style, i.e. the general properties of the method receive their national-historical specificity in the style of the writer.
The concept of “method” (from the Greek - path of research) denotes “the general principle of the artist’s creative attitude to knowable reality, i.e. its re-creation.” These are a kind of ways of understanding life that changed in different historical and literary eras. According to some scientists, the method underlies trends and directions, and represents that method of aesthetic exploration of reality that is inherent in the works of a certain direction. Method is an aesthetic and deeply meaningful category. “It is embodied both in the ideological structure of the work and in the principle of constructing an image, plot, composition, language. The method is the understanding and reproduction of reality in accordance with the characteristics of artistic thinking and the aesthetic ideal.”
The problem of the method of depicting reality was first recognized in antiquity and was fully embodied in Aristotle’s work “Poetics” under the name “theory of imitation.” Imitation, but of Aristotle, is the basis of poetry and its goal is to recreate the world as similar to the real one, or, more precisely, as it could be. The authority of this theory remained until the end of the 18th century, when the romantics proposed a different approach (also having its roots in antiquity, more precisely in Hellenism) - the re-creation of reality in accordance with the will of the author, and not with the laws of the “universe”. These two concepts, according to domestic literary criticism of the middle of the last century, underlie two “types of creativity” - “realistic” and “romantic”, within the framework of which the “methods” of classicism, romanticism, various types of realism, and modernism fit. It should be said that the concept of “method” was used by many literary theorists and writers: A. Watteau, D. Diderot, G. E. Lessing, I. V. Goethe, S. T. Coleridge, who wrote the treatise “On Method” (1818) .
The theory of imitation served as the basis for the development of naturalism. “Working on “Thérèse Raquin,” wrote E. Zola, “I forgot about everything in the world, I delved into the painstaking copying of life, devoting myself entirely to the study of the human body...”. Often, a feature of this method of reflecting reality is the complete dependence of the creator of the work on the subject of the image; artistic knowledge turns into copying. Another model can lead to arbitrariness of subjectivity. For example, F. Schiller argued that the artist, re-creating reality (“material”), “... stops little before violence against him... The material that he processes, he respects as little as the mechanic; he only will try to deceive with the apparent pliability of the eye, which protects the freedom of this material." In a number of works, scientists propose to supplement the concept of method with the concept of a type of creativity, a type of artistic thinking. At the same time, two types of creativity - re-creating and recreating - cover the entire wealth of the principles of artistic reflection.
Regarding the problem of the relationship between method and direction, it is necessary to take into account that method as a general principle of figurative reflection of life differs from direction as a historically specific phenomenon. Consequently, if this or that direction is historically unique, then the same method, as a broad category of the literary process, can be repeated in the works of writers of different times and peoples, and therefore of different directions and trends. For example, we find elements of the realistic principle of reflecting reality already in the directions of classicism, sentimentalism, i.e. even before the emergence of the realistic method itself, just as established realism later penetrates into the works of modernism.
- Gulyaev N. A. Theory of literature. M., 1985. P. 174.
- Literary manifestos of French realists. L., 1935. P. 98.
- Schiller F. Collected works: at 8 τ. T. 6. M.; L., 1950. P. 296.
