3 genres of literature. The origins of the appearance of genre varieties

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In Russia, literature has its own direction, different from any other. The Russian soul is mysterious and incomprehensible. The genre reflects both Europe and Asia, which is why the best classical Russian works are extraordinary, striking in their soulfulness and vitality.

The main character is the soul. For a person, his position in society, the amount of money is not important, it is important for him to find himself and his place in this life, to find the truth and peace of mind.

The books of Russian literature are united by the features of a writer who has the gift of the great Word, who has completely devoted himself to this art of literature. The best classics They saw life not flatly, but multifacetedly. They wrote about life not of random destinies, but of those expressing existence in its most unique manifestations.

Russian classics are so different, with different destinies, but what unites them is that literature is recognized as a school of life, a way of studying and developing Russia.

Russian classical literature was created the best writers from different parts of Russia. It is very important where the author was born, because this determines his formation as a person, his development, and it also affects writing skills. Pushkin, Lermontov, Dostoevsky were born in Moscow, Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Shchedrin in Tver. Poltava region in Ukraine is the birthplace of Gogol, Podolsk province - Nekrasov, Taganrog - Chekhov.

The three great classics, Tolstoy, Turgenev and Dostoevsky, were completely different people from each other, had different destinies, complex characters and great talents. They did huge contribution in the development of literature by writing his best works, which still excite the hearts and souls of readers. Everyone should read these books.

Another important difference between the books of Russian classics is that they ridicule the shortcomings of a person and his way of life. Satire and humor are the main features of the works. However, many critics said that this was all slander. And only true connoisseurs saw how the characters are both comical and tragic at the same time. Such books always touch the soul.

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We present to your attention 100 best books Russian classics. IN full list The books included the best and most memorable works of Russian writers. This literature known to everyone and recognized by critics from all over the world.

Of course, our list of top 100 books is just a small part that brings together best works great classics. It can be continued for a very long time.

A hundred books that everyone should read in order to understand not only how they used to live, what were the values, traditions, priorities in life, what they were striving for, but to find out in general how our world works, how bright and pure the soul can be and how valuable it is for a person, for the development of his personality.

The top 100 list includes the best and most famous works Russian classics. The plot of many of them has been known since school days. However, some books are difficult to understand at a young age, this requires wisdom, which is acquired over the years.

Of course, the list is far from complete; it can be continued endlessly. Reading such literature is a pleasure. She doesn’t just teach something, she radically changes lives, helps us understand simple things that we sometimes don’t even notice.

We hope you liked our list of classic books of Russian literature. You may have already read some of it, and some not. A great reason to make your own personal list books, your top that you would like to read.

At school, in literature classes, they study stories, novels, essays, and elegies. Cinemas show a variety of films - action films, comedies, melodramas. How can all these phenomena be combined into one term? For this purpose, the concept of “genre” was invented.

Let's figure out what a genre in literature is, what types exist, and how to determine which direction a particular work belongs to.

The division of works by gender has been known since antiquity. What is genre in ancient literature? This:

• tragedy;
• comedy.

Fiction was practically inseparable from the theater, and therefore the range was limited to what could be realized on stage.

In the Middle Ages, the list expanded: it now included a short story, a novel and a story. The emergence of romantic poems, epic novels, and ballads dates back to the New Age.

The 20th century, with its enormous changes that continually took place in the life of society and the individual, gave birth to new literary forms:

• thriller;
• action movie;
• fantastic;
• fantasy.

What is a genre in literature

A set of some features of groups literary forms(signs can be both formal and substantive) - these are the genres of literature.

According to Wikipedia they are divided into three large groups:

• by content;
• by form;
• by birth.

Wikipedia names at least 30 different directions. These include (the most famous):

• story;
• story;
• novel;
• elegy,

and others.

There are also less commonly used ones:

• sketch;
• opus;
• stanzas.

How to determine genre

How to determine the genre of a work? If we're talking about about a novel or ode, then we will not get confused, but something more complex - a sketch or stanzas - may cause difficulties.

So, before us open book. We can immediately correctly name well-known literary forms, the definition of which we do not even need. For example, we see a voluminous creation that describes a large period of time in which many characters appear.

There are several storylines - one main one and an unlimited number (at the author's discretion) of secondary ones. If all these requirements are met, then every high school student will say with confidence that this is a novel.

If this is a short narrative, limited to a description of an event, while the author’s attitude to what he is talking about is clearly visible, then it is a story.

It’s more difficult, for example, with an opus.

The interpretation of the concept is ambiguous: most often it means something that causes ridicule, that is, an essay, story or story whose merits are questionable.

In principle, many literary works can be classified as “opus” if they are not distinguished by clarity of style, richness of thought, or, in other words, mediocre.

What are stanzas? This is a kind of poem-memory, a poem-reflection. Remember, for example, Pushkin’s “Stanzas,” which he wrote on a long winter road.

Important! To correctly classify a particular literary form, be sure to take into account both external features and content.

Let's try to combine literary genres together, and for this we will collect the types of works known to us in a table. Of course, we will not be able to cover everything - literary trends are most fully represented in serious philological works. But a small list can be compiled.

The table will look like this:

Definition of genre (in the generally accepted sense)	Characteristic signs
Story	An accurate plot, a description of one striking event
Feature article	A type of story, the task of the essay is to reveal spiritual world heroes
Tale	A description of not so much an event as its consequences for the mental world of the characters. The story reveals the inner world of the characters
Sketch	A short play (most often consisting of one act). Characters minimal amount. Designed for stage performance
Essay	A short story in which considerable space is given to the author’s personal impressions
Oh yeah	A ceremonial poem dedicated to a person or event

Types of genres by content

Previously, we touched upon the question of the form of writing and divided the types of literature precisely on this basis. However, directions can be interpreted more broadly. The content and meaning of what is written is very important. In this case, the terms in both lists may overlap or intersect.

Let's say a story falls into two groups at once: stories can be distinguished by external features (short, with a clearly expressed attitude of the author), and by content (one bright event).

Among the areas divided by content, we note:

• comedies;
• tragedy;
• horror;
• dramas.

Comedy is perhaps one of the most ancient movements. The definition of comedy is multifaceted: it can be a sitcom, a comedy of characters. There are also comedies:

• household;
• romantic;
• heroic.

Tragedies were also known the ancient world. The definition of this genre of literature is a work whose outcome will certainly be sad and hopeless.

Genres of Literature and Their Definitions

List literary genres can be found in any textbook for philology students. For whom is it important to know in what directions literary forms are distinguished?

The following specialists need this information:

• writers;
• journalists;
• teachers;
• philologists.

When creating a work of art, the author subordinates his creation to certain canons, and their framework - conventional boundaries - allows him to classify what he has created into the group of “novels”, “essays” or “ode”.

This concept relates not only to works of literature, but also to other forms of art. Wikipedia explains: this term can also be used to refer to:

• painting;
• photos;
• movie;
• oratory;
• music.

Important! Even the game of chess is subject to its own genre standards.

However, these are very large separate topics. We are now interested in what genres there are in literature.

Examples

Any concept should be considered with examples, and types of literary forms are no exception. Let's look at examples in practice.

Let's start with the simplest thing - with a story. Surely everyone remembers Chekhov’s work “I Want to Sleep” from school.

This scary tale, written in a deliberately simple, everyday style, it is based on a crime committed by a thirteen-year-old girl in a state of passion, when her consciousness was clouded from fatigue and hopelessness.

We see that Chekhov complied with all the laws of the genre:

• the description practically does not go beyond one event;
• the author is “present”, we feel his attitude to what is happening;
• the story has one main character;
• The essay is short in length and can be read in a few minutes.

As an example of a story, we can take “Spring Waters” by Turgenev. The author here argues more, as if helping the reader to draw conclusions, unobtrusively pushing him to these conclusions. In the story, an important place is given to issues of morality, ethics, inner world heroes - all these problems come to the fore.

– is also a fairly specific thing. This is a kind of sketch where the author expresses his own thoughts on a specific issue.

The essay is characterized by vivid imagery, originality, and frankness. If you have ever read Andre Maurois and Bernard Shaw, you will understand what we are talking about.

Novels and their characteristic features - the length of events over time, multiple storylines, a chronological chain, the author's periodic deviations from a given topic - do not allow the genre to be confused with any other.

In the novel, the author touches on many problems: from personal to acute social ones. When thinking about novels, “War and Peace” by L. Tolstoy, “Fathers and Sons”, “ gone With the Wind" M. Mitchell, " Wuthering Heights» E. Bronte.

Species and groups

In addition to grouping by content and form, we can take advantage of the proposal of philologists and divide everything created by writers, poets and playwrights by gender. How to determine the genre of a work - what type of work can it belong to?

You can create the following list of varieties:

• epic;
• lyrical;
• dramatic.

The first ones are distinguished by a calm narrative and descriptiveness. A novel, essay, or poem can be epic. The second is everything connected with the personal experiences of the heroes, as well as with solemn events. These include ode, elegy, epigram.

Dramatic - comedy, tragedy, drama. For the most part, the theater expresses the “right” to them.

To summarize what has been said, we can apply the following classification: in literature there are three major directions, covering everything that has ever been created by prose writers, playwrights and poets. Works are divided by:

• form;
• content;
• to the birth of what is written.

Within one direction there can be many completely diverse essays. So, if we take the division by form, then here we will include stories, novels, essays, odes, sketches, and novellas.

We determine belonging to any direction by the “external structure” of the work: its size, the number of plot lines, the author’s attitude to what is happening.

The division by gender is lyrical, dramatic and epic works. A novel, a story, an essay can be lyrical. The epic category includes poems, fairy tales, and epics. Dramatic plays are plays: comedies, tragicomedies, tragedies.

Important! New times are making adjustments to the system of literary trends. IN last decades The detective genre, which originated in the 19th century, developed. In contrast to the utopian novel that emerged during the late Middle Ages, dystopia arose.

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Let's sum it up

Literature continues to evolve these days. The world is changing at enormous speed, and therefore the forms of expression of thoughts, feelings, and the speed of perception are undergoing changes. Perhaps in the future new genres will be formed - so unusual that for now it is difficult for us to imagine them.

It is possible that they will be at the intersection of several types of art at once, for example, cinema, music and literature. But this is in the future, but for now our task is to learn to understand literary heritage, which we already have.

The above types of classification are not mutually exclusive, but demonstrate different approaches to defining genres. Therefore, the same book can refer to several of them at once.

Classification of literary genres by type

When classifying literary genres by gender, they start from the author’s attitude to what is being presented. The basis for this classification was laid by Aristotle. According to this principle, there are four major genre: epic, lyrical, dramatic and lyric-epic. Each of them has its own “subgenres”.

IN epic genres it tells about events that have already happened, and the author writes them down according to his memories, while he distances himself as much as possible from assessing what was said. These include epic novels, short stories, myths, ballads, fables and epics.

The lyrical genre involves the transmission of feelings experienced by the author in the form of a literary work in poetic form. These include odes, epigrams, epistles and stanzas.

A classic example of stanzas is Byron's Childe Harold.

The lyric-epic genre combines the characteristics of the epic and lyrical genres. These include ballads and poems, in which there is both a plot and the author’s attitude to what is happening.

Dramatic genre exists at the intersection of literature and theater. Nominally it includes dramas, comedies and tragedies with a list of the characters involved at the beginning and author's notes in the main text. However, in fact, it can be any work written in the form of a dialogue.

Classification of literary genres by content

If we define works by content, they are combined into three large groups: comedies, tragedies and dramas. Tragedy and drama, telling, respectively, about tragic fate heroes and about the emergence and overcoming of conflict are quite homogeneous. Comedies are divided into several types, according to the action taking place: parody, farce, vaudeville, sitcom and character comedy, sketch and sideshow.

Classification of literary genres by form

When classifying genres by form, only formal features such as the structure and volume of the work are taken into account, regardless of their content.

Lyrical works are classified most clearly in this way; in prose, the boundaries are more blurred.

According to this principle, thirteen genres are distinguished: epic, epic, novel, short story, sketch, play, sketch, essay, opus, ode and visions.

Sources:

• “Theory of Literature”, V. V. Prozorov, 1987
• « Theoretical poetics: concepts and definitions”, N. D. Tamarchenko, 1999

Literary is a class of texts that have a similar structure, content, and limit of variability. There are many genre ov text, and you need to know their characteristics if you do not want to make a mistake in choosing the type.

Instructions

In order to correctly characterize the text and attribute it to a specific genre oh, please read the work carefully. Think about whether it amuses you or upsets you, conveys the author’s feelings towards his characters or simply tells about some events, struggles with insurmountable circumstances or with himself? If you can understand the text, you will easily find its literary genre.

There are three ways to classify literary genre ov. They are grouped by form, resulting in such types as essay, story, ode. A play is a writer’s creation intended to be performed on stage, a story is a short narrative work in prose. What distinguishes a novel from a short story is its scale. It tells about life and development

Genre is a type of meaningful form that determines the integrity of a literary work, which is determined by the unity of theme, composition and style; historical group literary works, united by a set of features of content and form.

Genre in literature

IN artistic structure genre category is a modification literary type; a species, in turn, is a variety literary kind. There is another approach to the generic connection: – genre – genre variety, modification or form; in some cases it is proposed to distinguish only gender and genre.
Genres belonging to traditional literary families(epic, lyric, drama, lyric-epic) determines their content and thematic focus.

Genre in ancient literature

In ancient literature, the genre was an ideal artistic norm. Antique performances about the genre norm were addressed primarily to poetic forms, prose was not taken into account, since it was considered trivial reading. Poets often followed the artistic models of their predecessors, trying to surpass the pioneers of the genre. Ancient Roman literature relied on the poetic experience of ancient Greek authors. Virgil (1st century BC) continued the epic tradition of Homer (8th century BC), since the Aeneid is focused on the Odyssey and the Iliad. Horace (1st century BC) owns odes written in the manner of the ancient Greek poets Arion (VII–VI centuries BC) and Pindar (VI–V centuries BC). Seneca (1st century BC) developed dramatic art, reviving the work of Aeschylus (6th–5th centuries BC) and Euripides (5th century BC).

The origins of the systematization of genres go back to the treatises of Aristotle “Poetics” and Horace “The Science of Poetry”, in which a genre denoted a set of artistic norms, their natural and fixed system, and the author’s goal was considered to correspond to the properties of the chosen genre. The understanding of genre as a constructed model of a work led to the subsequent emergence of a number of normative poetics, including dogmas and laws of poetry.

Renewal of the European genre system in the 11th–17th centuries

The European genre system began its renewal in the Middle Ages. In the 11th century New lyrical genres of troubadour poets arose (serenades, albums), and later the genre of the medieval novel arose (knightly novels about King Arthur, Lancelot, Tristan and Isolde). In the XIV century. Italian poets had a significant influence on the development of new genres: Dante Alighieri wrote the poem “ The Divine Comedy"(1307–1321), connecting narrative and the genre of vision, Francesco Petrarch approved the genre of the sonnet (“Book of Songs,” 1327–1374), Giovanni Boccaccio canonized the genre of the short story (“Decameron,” 1350–1353). At the turn of the 16th–17th centuries. genre varieties of drama expanded English poet and playwright W. Shakespeare, whose famous plays - “Hamlet” (1600–1601), “King Lear” (1608), “Macbeth” (1603–1606) - contain signs of tragedy and comedy and belong to tragicomedies.

Code and hierarchy of genres in classicism

The most complete, systematic and significant set of genre norms was formed in the 17th century. with the appearance of the poem-treatise of the French poet Nicolas Boileau-Depreo “The Poetic Art” (1674). The essay defines the genre system of classicism, regulated by reason, a generally understandable style, with the division of literary genres into epic, dramatic, and lyrical genres. The structure of the canonical genres of classicism goes back to ancient forms and images.

The literature of classicism was characterized by a strict hierarchy of genres, dividing them into high (ode, epic, tragedy) and low (fable, satire, comedy). Mixing genre characteristics was not allowed.

Genres of literary aesthetics of romanticism

Literature of the Romantic era in the 18th century. did not obey the canons of classicism, as a result of which the traditional genre system lost its advantage. In the context of a change in literary trends, deviations from the rules of normative poetics, a rethinking of classical genres occurs, as a result of which some of them ceased to exist, while others, on the contrary, became entrenched.

At the turn of the 18th–19th centuries. at the center of the literary aesthetics of romanticism were lyrical genres - ode (“Ode to the Capture of Khotin” by M. Lomonosov, 1742; “Felitsa” by G. R. Derzhavin, 1782, “Ode to Joy” by F. Schiller, 1785 .), romantic poem (“Gypsies” by A. S. Pushkin, 1824), ballad (“Lyudmila” (1808), “Svetlana” (1813) by V. A. Zhukovsky), elegy (“Rural cemetery" by V. A. Zhukovsky, 1808); Comedy prevailed in the drama (“Woe from Wit” by A. S. Griboyedov, 1825).

Prose genres flourished: the epic novel, the story, the short story. The most common type of epic literature of the 19th century V. was considered a novel that was called " eternal genre" The novels of Russian writers L. N. Tolstoy (“War and Peace,” 1865–1869; “Anna Karenina,” 1875–1877; “Resurrection,” 1899) and F. M. had a significant influence on the European epic. . Dostoevsky (“Crime and Punishment”, 1866; “The Idiot”, 1868; “Demons”, 1871–1872; “The Brothers Karamazov”, 1879–1880).

Formation of genres in literature of the twentieth century

The formation of mass literature in the twentieth century, its need for stable thematic, compositional and stylistic prescriptions led to the formation of a new system of genres, based primarily on the “absolute center of the genre system of literature” according to the Russian scientist M. M. Bakhtin - the novel.
Within popular literature new genres have emerged: love story, sentimental novel, crime novel (action, thriller), dystopian novel, anti-novel, Science fiction, fantasy, etc.

Modern literary genres are not part of a predetermined structure; they arise as a result of the embodiment of author's ideas in verbal and artistic works.

The origins of the appearance of genre varieties

Appearance genre varieties may be related to literary direction, movement, school - a romantic poem, a classicist ode, a symbolist drama, etc., and with the names of individual authors who introduced genre-stylistic forms of the artistic whole into literary circulation (Pindaric ode, Byron's poem, Balzac's novel, etc. .), forming traditions, and this means the possibility different types their assimilation (imitation, stylization, etc.).

The word genre comes from French genre, which means genus, species.

All books are divided into two categories - fiction and non-fiction. In common parlance, the first is called hoodlit, and the second is non-fiction (from the English nonfiction).

Fiction refers to all works that have a fictional plot and fictional characters. That is, novels, short stories, stories, plays and poetry (both for children and adults) are considered to be hoodlit.
The non-fiction category includes: textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, monographs, biographies, memoirs, journalism, etc.

In its turn works of art are divided into genre literature, mainstream and intellectual prose.

IN genre literature The development of the plot plays the first fiddle, while it fits into certain, pre-known frameworks. For example, any detective story develops according to the pattern of crime - investigation - exposure of the criminal; any romance novel - the characters meet - fall in love - fight for love - connect hearts. This does not mean that everything genre novels must have a predictable plot. The skill of a writer lies precisely in creating a unique world within a given framework.

Genre literature is all about action and quick changes of scenery. The main question that concerns the reader: “What next?”

Genres fiction

. Avant-garde literature. Characterized by violation of canons and language and plot experiments. As a rule, avant-garde works are published in very small editions. Closely intertwined with intellectual prose.

. Action. Targeted primarily at a male audience. The basis of the plot is fights, chases, saving beauties, etc.

. Detective. Main story line- solving a crime.

. Historical novel. The time of action is the past. The plot is usually tied to significant historical events.

. Love story. Heroes find love.

. Mystic. The plot is based on supernatural events.

. Adventures. The heroes get involved in an adventure and/or go on a risky journey.

. Thriller/horror. Heroes are in danger deadly danger which they are trying to get rid of.

. Fantastic. The plot takes place in a hypothetical future or parallel world. One of the types of fiction is alternative history.

. Fantasy/Fairy Tales. The main features of the genre are fairy worlds, magic, unseen creatures, talking animals, etc. Often based on folklore.

Mainstream
The mainstream is a completely different matter. Canons have no place in books of this type. Readers expect unexpected solutions from them. The most important thing in the mainstream is the moral development of heroes, philosophy and ideology. So the professional requirements for a mainstream author are much higher: he must not only be an excellent storyteller, but also a good psychologist and a serious thinker. One more important sign mainstream - books of this type are written at the intersection of genres. For example, it is impossible to say unequivocally that Gone with the Wind is only a romance novel or only a historical drama.

The term “mainstream” itself arose thanks to American writer and criticism to William Dean Howells (1866 - 1920). As the editor of one of the most popular and influential literary magazines of his time, The Atlantic Monthly, he gave a clear preference to works written in a realistic vein and focusing on moral and philosophical issues. Thanks to Howells realistic literature became fashionable, and for some time it was called “mainstream”. The term stuck in English language, and from there moved to Russia.

Intellectual prose
Unlike the mainstream, which should appeal to a wide readership, intellectual prose is aimed at a narrow circle of connoisseurs and claims to be elitist. The authors do not set themselves the goal of commercial success: they are primarily interested in art for art's sake. They pour out their souls and immerse the reader in the world of their subconscious. In the vast majority of cases, intellectual prose has a dark mood. Why do you need to understand genres?

Then to:

• learn mastery in your genre;


• know exactly which publisher to offer the manuscript to;


• study your target audience and offer the book not “to everyone”, but specifically to those people who may be interested in it.