Children's literature. Expressive reading
Chapter 3. PREPARATION FOR THE PERFORMANCE OF LITERARY WORKS
3.1. LITERARY ANALYSIS OF THE WORK
Execution literary work requires special training. Before voicing a literary text, you need to find answers to whole line very important questions.
1. Do I like the literary work I am going to read to the children? Why did it attract me? What's special about it?
The answers to these questions must be sought in the work itself. Reading it for the first time, you certainly experienced aesthetic pleasure caused by the author’s skill; you worried with the author about his heroes and empathized with the heroes themselves; you thought about their actions and assessed them. But until you ask yourself specific questions, your impressions will not be clear. Only by translating them into linguistic form, by formulating them in words, will you really begin to think, and therefore comprehend the subtext. Only feelings, assessments, and impressions formalized in speech become concrete and awaken imagination and thought.
The process of thinking about a work will lead you to the need for its literary analysis, i.e. a more detailed consideration of content and form, the various elements that make up the work in their unity. Remember: you cannot convey in reading what you yourself do not feel and do not understand.
Where to start analyzing literary work of art? With questions that can be divided into several groups. Some will seem easy and unnecessary at first glance: the answers to them are obvious. But the whole point is that the obvious very often slips past our consciousness, and only a clear answer activates attention to details and thereby reduces the likelihood of errors.
1. Is this a folklore or literary work in front of you? It is important to immediately understand whether the work is copyrighted.
If it belongs to folklore, then you need to work with it according to the laws of folklore. We will look at how to do this in more detail in the next chapter.
2. If the work is literary, then who is its author, where and when did he live and when was this work created?
Look carefully at the cover of the book, pronounce the writer's first and last name correctly (check yourself if you have doubts). Thus, the Polish teacher who created books about King Matt was called Janusz Kbrczak.
The time of creation of a work does not have to be established with an accuracy of a year, but the period of time - a century and its quarter - is important because literature always reflects a specific era, even if it is timeless. The country in which the writer lived or lives is also important. The life of a person is necessarily reflected in the work, and it, as we know, carries within itself national traits and at the same time changes over time. You should have a very good idea of the atmosphere of the time and country captured in the book, the social structure, the world around us, the people depicted, their costumes, their homes, even if they are not described in detail by the author. The time of creation of the work and the country will tell you a lot or indicate where you can find answers to your questions. In addition, you should be prepared for questions from your students.
3.1.2. Theoretical and literary issues
1. What literary type and genre does the work belong to?
Every literary genre has its own specifics that must be taken into account when analyzing the work. It is important to remember this precisely because each literary genre places the performer in different circumstances, determines the specifics of the performing task and presupposes specific means of performing expressiveness.
Genre– this is always the author’s specific point of view on the world. Each genre requires a special intonation: after all, the reader looks at the world through the eyes of the author. Children's play poetry puts the reader in the position of a child or an adult who has retained a child's view of the world and the spontaneity of experiences; fable - in the position of a sage; literary fairy tales, stories for children - in the position of an intelligent, kind adult who knows how to look at the world not only from the height of his experience, but also through the eyes of a child; an adult who knows children's secrets and problems, who has the art of leading a child and opening the world to him.
This means that each genre has its own own voice, their own special intonations, which the performer must know about. By paying attention to the genre, the reader will be able to accurately select the necessary means of expression.
Questions about the performance of works of different genres are discussed in more detail in Chapter 4.
2. Is the work written in verse or prose?
Depending on the answer to this question, further analysis of the work will proceed.
Each type of speech requires a special pronunciation - poetry cannot be read the way you read prose. Poetic speech is organized more complexly than prosaic speech, it is more figurative and therefore more difficult to comprehend. But at the same time, it is easier to remember, imprinted in the memory, and has a stronger impact on a person’s emotions due to its distinct rhythm, rhyme, and imagery. Poetic speech attracts the child: he imitates the rhythm, selects rhymes, but at the same time perceives the content very superficially, since he does not always understand the figurative meanings of words and allegory. Poems are easily learned by heart and recited with pleasure. And you need to read poetry in such a way as to preserve all the features of poetic speech, especially its rhythm and rhyme.
Let's consider both options.
3.1.3. Features of poetic works
Choice of funds speech expressiveness when reading a poetic work, as when reading prose, it is determined by its idea, subtext, which determine the performer’s ultimate task.
Poetic speech, despite obvious differences from prosaic speech, also has similarities with it traits: the speech stream is also divided into syntagmas - speech beats; Punctuation marks also help to structure the text intonationally; in sentences and syntagmas there are semantic centers to which thought strives, and rules for setting syntagmatic, phrasal and logical stress apply.
Stage speech teachers draw attention to the fact that one should “remove emphasis from words that only explain or complement the thought; remove logical stress from definitions expressed by pronouns, ordinal numbers, adjectives (unless, of course, they carry an obvious or hidden opposition, do not carry in this context new information)” (Stage speech. – P. 118).
However, the rhythmic organization of poetic speech, rhyme, frequently occurring features of the sound organization of speech (sound writing and alliteration), poetic vocabulary (tropes), poetic syntax (separation of the defined word from the definition, inversion, incomplete sentences, etc.) require special attention from the performer, because they play an important semantic role.
Let's call laws of verse, which must be followed.
1. Maintain a pause between verses. The poem contains special breaks, which are not in prose speech; they fix the end of the poetic line and set the rhythm. Such pauses are called interverse pauses. Sometimes these pauses coincide with logical ones or with the end of a phrase, then they are easy to observe. But there are cases when the interverse pause does not coincide with the logical one - when transferring a phrase. For example, let’s look at the beginning of Sasha Cherny’s poem “Crybaby”:
Squealing and tears. Along the path
Bare legs are racing...
The second sentence, starting in the first line (verse), is broken and transferred to the second line (verse). This transfer is justified by the fact that the words along the path And rushing included in different syntagmas. Thus, the logical pause coincides with the interverse pause, but, as we remember, the interverse pause should last slightly longer than the logical one. The difficulty is that an interverse pause cannot be designated formally without justifying it with meaning or feeling. In the above example, such a justification can be the psychological effect of surprise: the pause between verses will turn into a psychological one, making the listener tensely wait for what will follow the sounded circumstance of the place.
If the syntagmatic stress falls on a word moved to a new line, then before the interverse pause the vocal tone rises, if the semantic stress falls on the word before the break, then the tone decreases. In our example, we need to raise the tone on the word along the path and abruptly drop it at the word rushing, and then even deeper, lower “fall” on the stressed word of the phrase legs.
In place of the interverse pause, you can make an imaginary pause - an intonation pause, i.e. indicate the end of a line by a change in voice tone, change in voice strength, or rate of speech.
Exercise. Practice pronouncing the lines, observing the pause between verses.
- Chizhik, chizhik, where have you been?
- I drank coffee at Katyusha’s,
With bun, with butter, with milk
And smoked tongue.
(Sasha Cherny. “Chizhik”)
There is a river wave at the river.
The wave at the stream is tame.
By the forest path
We'll sit down by the stream,
And on the wet back
We will stroke the stream.
(S. Makhotin. “Stream”)
Yard, faithful dog
Who diligently carried out his lordly service,
I saw an old friend of mine,
I'm buzzing, curly lap dog...
(I.A. Krylov. “Two Dogs”)
And, plucking a green leaf,
The younger dwarf whispers:
“See? Red-haired schoolboy
Walks under the window.”
(Sasha Cherny. “Green Poems”)
Faster than the wind:
At one o'clock - four
Centimeters!
(V. Orlov. “Snail”)
2. Unity of the poetic line. All words in a poetic line are closely “fused” together, so the longest pauses can be between verses. If it is necessary to make a logical pause within a line, then it should be replaced with an intonation one. Let us turn again to the beginning of the poem “Crybaby” by Sasha Cherny. The first sentence ends in the middle of the first line. If this were prose, then we would make a full-fledged logical pause, but this is verse - and a long pause in the middle of a line will destroy its rhythmic unity. Therefore, let’s replace it with intonation, i.e. Let's lower the tone at the end of the sentence and speed up the pace of speech after the period.
Exercise. Read the lines, observing the unity of the poetic line and the necessary pauses.
I'm upset. daddy on me
Mom complained.
Of course I didn't listen
And he behaved stubbornly
But you could spank
And even shout...
She taught me:
Don't snitch!
(S. Makhotin. “I’m sad”)
“Wait, I found a secret! –
The donkey screams - we'll probably get along,
If we sit next to each other.”
(I.A. Krylov. “Quartet”)
Suddenly the cheese spirit stopped the Fox:
The fox sees the cheese, the fox is captivated by the cheese.
“...Sing, little light, don’t be ashamed! What if, sister,
With such beauty, you are a master at singing, -
After all, you would be our king bird!”
(I.A. Krylov. “The Crow and the Fox”)
And from Kukushkina Mountain
Lanes and courtyards
Everyone is visible. As if someone
Riga from a bird's eye view
I took it and redrew it.
The market and train station are visible.
Everything that is in Riga,
The spiers are visible. There are countless of them.
Even Old Gertrude
Easily visible from there.
Well, and most importantly, how to get to the port
A white steamer enters...
(L. Zhdanova. “About the poodle Ducky, the imagineer and the troublemaker”)
3. Compliance with author's accents. The rhythm of the poem tells the reader which syllable of each word is stressed. Sometimes the author’s accents do not coincide with the orthoepic norm, but you cannot replace them with the correct ones, since such replacements will destroy the rhythm and it will turn out, as the children say, “awkwardly.” For example, in the fable of I.A. Krylov “The Monkey and the Glasses” we read:
The monkey's eyes became weak in old age;
And she heard from people,
That this evil is not yet so big hands:
All you have to do is get glasses.
She got herself half a dozen glasses;
He turns his glasses this way and that:
Either he will press them to the crown, or he will string them onto his tail;
Sometimes he sniffs them, sometimes he licks them;
The glasses don't work at all.
Let's determine the rhythm of the poem. This is a free iambic (the number of feet in each line ranges from four to six), the stressed syllable alternates with the unstressed one, and in the foot the stressed one comes after the unstressed one. Pyrrhichium– omission of stress on a strong place – gives the verse a colloquial sound. The law of rhythm tells us that in the fifth line the word twirls must be pronounced with the stress not on the first, but on the second syllable - twirl. By the way, in this way we will not distort the ancient sound of the word: in many similar verbs until about the middle of the 19th century, the emphasis fell precisely on the ending (friends, loads and etc.).
Exercise. Read the stanzas, observing the necessary pauses and author's emphasis.
Somewhere God sent a piece of cheese to a crow;
Raven perched on the spruce tree,
I was just about ready to have breakfast,
Yes, I thought about it, but I held the cheese in my mouth.
(I.A. Krylov. “The Crow and the Fox”)
Lake Peipus is beautiful,
When a brilliant pillar
The night luminary sparkles
In his blue crystal...
(N.M. Yazykov. “Two Pictures”)
Know that the sun is tired:
It hides behind the mountains;
Beam extinguishes after ray
And, a scarlet thin cloud
Hiding your tired face,
Ready to retire.
(V.A. Zhukovsky. “Summer Evening”)
Not by human hands
Pearl colorful bridge
Of the waters built over the waters.
Wonderful view! Huge growth!
(V.A. Zhukovsky. “The Riddle”)
4. Maintain the number of syllables in a line. Each line of the poem has a certain number of feet with a certain alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables. This, in turn, affects the number of syllables in each word: the author, using full-vowel and half-vowel options, can slightly vary the form of the word, sometimes shortening it, sometimes lengthening it. For example: gold - gold (There is Tsar Koschey over gold withers), silvers - silvers (Silver frost withered field), shore - shore (On breg sandy and empty).
This law also requires clear articulation: you cannot swallow or add a syllable, or pronounce the end of a word unclearly - all this brings poetic speech closer to prosaic speech.
Exercise. Read the lines of poetry correctly, strictly observing syllable and phrasal stress, necessary pauses, and the number of syllables in each line.
“Have you seen a castle on the seashore?
The clouds are playing and shining above him;
The azure sea is beautiful all around.”
(V.A. Zhukovsky. “Castle on the seashore”)
Sweet light of the native sky,
Familiar streams
Golden games of the first years
And the first lessons
What will replace your beauty?
O holy homeland,
What heart does not tremble,
Blessing you?
(V.A. Zhukovsky. “Singer in the camp of Russian warriors”)
Bravely, brothers! Full of wind
I set my sail:
Will fly on the slippery waves
Swift-winged rook!
(N.M. Yazykov. “Swimmer”)
A sea of shine, roar, blows,
And the earth is shaken;
It's a glass wall
Shattered on the rocks,
Then they run through the steep mountains
Watery Niagara
Width and depth!
Here's a swimmer! Him from the shore
It was carried away by the rapids;
In the blue twilight of the water run
He pushes the oar...
In vain! Stormy rapids
He is not strong enough to push away;
Far into the abyss
Throw a stone's throw!
Peacefully obedient death,
He put away his oar,
He looked down indifferently
Hopeless brow;
He looks with a calm eye...
And to the abyss of waves and rocks
Fatal with its flow
The waterfall rushed him along.
A sea of shine, roar, blows,
And the earth is shaken;
It's a glass wall
Shattered on the rocks,
Then they run through the steep mountains
Watery Niagara
Width and depth!
(N.M. Yazykov. “Waterfall”)
The art of the reader of poetic works is to combine the word, feeling, thought of the author and the melody of the verse in reading.
Obviously, before you begin preparing to read a poetic work, you should determine its generic and genre nature: the author’s point of view and his intentions depend on the genre.
3.1.4. Features of prose works
The content of prose works is easier to perceive, but the prose is not so well remembered; often children’s perception of prose is not consistent. Prose does not make children want to imitate its form or create their own speech works by analogy. But at the same time, children love to play heroes of prose works, both by reproducing the events described by the author in the game and inventing new ones. Prose speech is smoother because it contains more long sentences; it is less accented, since speech syntagms consist of more words.
The features of prose speech are discussed in more detail in Chapter 2.
The teacher, knowing the specifics of poetic and prose speech and the specifics children's perception different types speech, through the performance of a work can help little listeners see the world created by the author more clearly and experience more strongly everything that happens in it.
Literary analysis is studying the parts and elements of a work, as well as the connections between them. There are many methods for analyzing a work, sometimes diametrically opposed (representatives of the “formal method” and most structuralists practically ignore the substantive aspects of the work, and scientists of the sociological and cultural schools, on the contrary, often neglect the analysis of form). Different literary scholars also structure literary texts differently, which directly leads to differences in the methodology and methods of analysis. The most theoretically substantiated and universal analysis seems to be that based on the category of “meaningful form” and identifying the functionality of the form in relation to the content. Such Analysis is aimed at understanding how a meaningful feature is expressed in certain features of the form, and vice versa - what content lies behind this or that formal device. This approach does not destroy artistic integrity a work, on the contrary, helps to comprehend the laws of its construction, the internal essential connections in it. An important question is the question of the composition and structure of a literary work, as well as the attribution of an element (plot, conflict, image of the author) to form or content. The following set of analysis elements can be proposed. Within the content: topics, issues that contain some conflict; emotional value orientations of the entire work (in the terminology of G.N. Pospelov and his followers - pathos) and individual characters (tragic, romantic, satire, irony, etc.). Within the form: the depicted world, including details of a landscape, portrait, objective world, features of the organization of artistic speech (monologue, polyphony, specifics of narration and the image of the narrator). A composition that includes a plot, extra-plot elements, the correlation of individual images, the organization of artistic time and space (in the terminology of M.M. Bakhtin and his followers - chronotope), techniques such as re-antithesis, gradation, etc. The composition organizes the entire artistic world and reveals its subordination to a single ideological and aesthetic principle.
Analysis of the elements of the work for all its relative importance still is to a certain extent auxiliary. We can conduct a detailed analysis of all the elements and end up with only a register, a faceless characteristic that does not bring us closer to understanding the whole. For a living and deep analysis, primary attention should be paid not so much to the elements as to the properties of the artistic whole, to the principles of organization of the artistic text. Especially it concerns artistic form, in which such properties (otherwise, style dominants) are easier to find and with which, as a rule, the analysis should begin. Typological properties of an artistic form include plot, descriptiveness, psychologism; fiction lifelikeness. Monologism and heteroglossia (polyphony), verse and prose, nominativity and rhetoric; simple and complex composition. The dominant properties of the content most often become the typological variety of problems and emotional value orientations. Depending on the specific case, they should be analyzed first. The synthesis is based on the results of the analysis, i.e. the most complete and correct understanding of both content and formal artistic originality and their unity. Literary synthesis in the field of content is described by the term “interpretation”, in the field of form - by the term “style”. Their interaction provides the greatest possible depth of understanding and experience of the work as an aesthetic phenomenon.
Literary criticism- the science of fiction, its essence and historical evolution.
In literary criticism, there are three main branches - literary theory, literary history and literary criticism, and the affiliation of literary criticism with literary criticism is debatable. All branches of literary criticism are interconnected. Included in the system literary disciplines poetics is also included. Auxiliary historical disciplines include literary archival studies, paleography, textual criticism, and text commentary. Literary studies has strong connections with other humanities: philosophy, aesthetics, folklore, art theory, psychology and sociology. The generality of the material, first of all, brings literary criticism closer to linguistics.
The emergence and development of literary criticism
The origins of literary criticism date back to antiquity. In the aesthetic views of philosophers of Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome one can discover the basics of scientific ideas about literature. The works of Aristotle and Plato, who laid the foundations of idealistic aesthetics, already contained the fundamental concepts of literary theory. Aristotle's work “On the Art of Poetry” was a systematic presentation of the foundations of poetics.
In the Middle Ages, the study of literature was carried out mainly in the bibliographical and commentary aspect. During the Renaissance, works of the ancient world returned from oblivion, special attention was paid to the problem of the popular language, which was addressed, in particular, by Dante (the treatise “On folk speech", 1304-1307), J. Du Bellay ("Defense and glorification of the French language", 1549).
Until the middle of the nineteenth century. Literary criticism developed primarily in line with philosophical and aesthetic concepts. The founder of literary criticism as a historical science is considered to be Johann Herder (1744-1803), who “for the first time began to consider the originality of the artistic literature of different peoples from the point of view of its conditionality by the circumstances of national historical life.”
In Russia in the 1820-1830s. “philosophical criticism” declared itself ( D.V. Venevitinov , N.I. Nadezhdin), influenced by German classical philosophy. In the 1840s. Belinsky combined philosophical and aesthetic ideas with the concepts of civic service of art and social history. The literary critic, explaining the phenomena of the past, developed theoretical problems of realism and the nationality of literature. By the middle of the nineteenth century. In European countries, a cultural approach to the study of literature of a particular ethnic group is developing (for example, the emergence of such a discipline as Slavic studies is connected with this). Domestic science shows interest in ancient Russian literature (in 1846 the book “The History of Russian Literature, Mainly Ancient” was published) S.P.Shevyreva).
Academic schools in literary criticism
By the nineteenth century. refers to the emergence of pan-European methodological schools, primarily the mythological school (its leading representatives are the brothers J. and W. Grimm). The mythological school arose in the wake of the interest in mythology and folklore awakened by romanticism and as a philosophical basis relied on the aesthetics of F. Schelling and the brothers A. and F. Schlegel. In Russia, they worked in line with the mythological school F.I. Buslaev And A.N.Afanasyev, who belonged to the “younger mythologists”.
Supporters of the biographical method, first used by the French critic S.O. Sainte-Beuve (author of “Literary Critical Portraits”, vols. 1-5, 1836-1839; in Russian translation - “ Literary portraits. Critical Essays”, 1970), considered the biography and personality of the writer as the defining moment of creativity. This method is also used to one degree or another in modern literary criticism.
In the middle of the nineteenth century. A cultural-historical school emerged, which was methodologically based on historicism and considered a work of art as an organic imprint of the so-called “spirit” of the people at various historical moments of its existence. The cultural-historical school was philosophically based on positivism (O. Comte, G. Spencer). The leading representative of the cultural-historical school in literary criticism is Hippolyte Taine (author of “History English literature", 1863-1864). De Sanctis, V. Scherer, M. Menendez y Pelayo also worked in line with this school, in Russia - N.S. Tikhonravov, A.N. Pypin, N.I. Storozhenko and others. The cultural-historical school made a contribution in creating histories of national literatures (in the context of the history of social psychology and material culture peoples).
Oral Research folk art and literature of antiquity contributed to the formation of comparative historical literary criticism. Comparativists explained the similarities literary facts similarities in the social history and cultural history of certain peoples, as well as cultural and literary contacts between them. In Russia since the 1880s. Almost all universities had departments of “general literature.” In St. Petersburg he headed this department A.N.Veselovsky- founder of the comparative historical method in Russian science, author of “Historical Poetics” (1870-1906, separate edition - 1940).
In the last third of the nineteenth century. a psychological school arose that reflected the general turn of humanitarian knowledge (primarily sociology, philosophy and aesthetics) towards psychologism and the main subject of study for which was the psychological side creative process, The attention of this school was directed to the mental life of the author, since art reflects both the external and internal impressions of the creator of a work of art. IN Western Europe The psychological school was represented primarily by the works of V. Wundt. In Russia, the ideas of the psychological direction were adhered to by A. Potebnya (“Thought and Language”, 1862), and subsequently by his students (D.N. Ovsyaniko-Kulikovsky, A.G. Gornfeldt, etc.).
On turn of the nineteenth- XX centuries the psychological school gave way to schools of psychoanalysis. The sphere of the unconscious has made it possible to explain many phenomena in art. A little later, C. Jung, who formulated the theory of the collective unconscious (archetypes), applied the principles of psychoanalysis to art in a new way. Under the influence of the ideas of C. Jung, as well as J. Fraser, the so-called ritual-mythological criticism developed, whose representatives are busy searching in works not only for mythological metaphors and similes, but also for the reproduction of certain ritual patterns. The most fruitful study of ritual-mythological criticism literary genres, associated by their origin with ritual, folklore and mythological traditions.
In the 1910s a formal school in Russian literary criticism arose. Its representatives contrasted the unity of form and content with the relationship between material (something presented to the artist) and form (the organization of material in the work). The “formal school,” the Russian variety of the formal method in literary criticism, included the Society for the Study of Poetic Language (OPOLYAZ), the Moscow Linguistic Circle (MLC), and scholars from the Leningrad State Institute art history (HII). Representatives and supporters of the formal school fruitfully explored some previously unstudied problems, including the relationship between semantics and verse construction ( Yu.Tynyanov), rhythm and meter (B. Tomashevsky), plotting (B. Shklovsky), etc. The formal school, through interaction with the Prague Linguistic Circle, influenced structuralism and “new criticism”, representing foreign philological schools.
From interaction with sociology in literary criticism in the 1910s. current has developed vulgar sociologism, which simplistically interpreted the historical literary process. It was represented primarily by the works of V.N. Friche, V.F. Pereverzev and, later, theorists of Proletkult. Pereverzev understood art only as a reflection of the artist’s class ideas. Representatives of the sociological movement sometimes replaced the analysis of a work of art with only an analysis of its themes, but this was the first attempt to build a new concept of the historical and literary process.
During the Soviet period, literary criticism was both a subject of scientific study and a university course, receiving a high degree of institutionalization. The histories of national literatures were scientifically developed, monographic studies of the creativity of domestic and foreign writers, released literary dictionaries and reference publications. However, the ideological attitude associated with the principle of partisanship in literature has very often been a methodological obstacle to objective analysis one or another literary phenomenon.
Modern literary criticism
Modern literary criticism actively interacts with related areas of humanities, trying to find a universal method in the field of humanities. One of these methods is traditionally hermeneutics. “Hermeneutic “understanding” is aimed at reconstructing meaning, deciphering a historical text in order to understand the continuity of spiritual and cultural experience humanity, to introduce a new generation and a new era to the past, to tradition." Hermeneutics, like existentialist, phenomenological, mythological criticism and receptive aesthetics and some other movements and schools of foreign literary criticism, is based on the anthropological type of constructing theoretical concepts. At the same time, modern literary criticism actively uses the conceptual apparatus of various academic schools of literary criticism, but from new methodological positions. An example is the use of the terms “archetype” and “archetypal image”.
Domestic literary criticism, liberated since the late 1980s. from ideological dogmas, is actively mastering a large layer of “returned names” and literary works of the so-called Russian Abroad, trying to recreate the literary process in all its completeness and complexity. In this regard, the creation of new university courses on the history of Russian literature, especially the twentieth century, has become an urgent task. Already described literary phenomena are rethought from new methodological positions. Modern domestic literary criticism is represented by a number of research institutions, including (IMLI) and the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House).
Literary text analysis
Literary analysis of a text involves a research reading of the text of a literary work, as opposed to interpretation, with its moments of subjective assessment. A scientific examination of a work of art is, first of all, an analysis of its structure: content and form, the theme of the work, problematics, the ideological world, the depicted world, composition, as well as artistic speech. Thus, analysis of the composition of a literary work implies analysis of the composition figurative system, plot and conflict, isolating plot and extra-plot elements of a literary work. The picture of the depicted world consists of individual artistic details: features of the portrait, landscape, everyday objects.
Types of auxiliary analysis include, for example, analysis of a work in terms of gender and genre. For example, to analyze the shape lyrical work the following questions need to be answered:
- To which genre variety refers to a lyrical work (elegy, epistle, stanzas, sonnet, madrigal, etc.)?
- What are the features compositional structure work (is it integral or consists of several parts)?
- What are the features of the stanza of a lyrical work?
- How does the lyrical mood develop in the poem?
- How can you characterize lyrical hero poems?
- What are the features of the poem's vocabulary?
Nikolaev P.A. and others. Academic schools in Russian literary studies
Nikolaev P.A. and others. History of Russian literary criticism
Esalnek A.Ya. Introduction to Literary Studies
Copyright Competition -K2
Table of contents:
1. Techniques for analyzing literary text
2. Criteria for the artistry of a work (general and specific)
3. Evaluation of the plot of the work
4. Evaluation of the composition of the work
5. Extra-plot elements
6. Narration, description, reasoning as methods of presentation
7. Evaluation of language and style. Speech errors.
8. Character Evaluation
9. Appreciation of artistic details
10. Features of the analysis of the story as a form of fiction
A literary text is the author’s way of perceiving and recreating the reality around him.
The author reflects the world in a special artistic and figurative system. Through images, literature reproduces life in time and space, gives new impressions to the reader, and allows one to understand the development human characters, connections and relationships.
A literary work must be considered as a systemic formation, regardless of whether there is an established system or not, whether this formation is perfect or imperfect.
When evaluating, the main thing is to grasp the originality of the structure of a particular work and show where the solution of images and situations does not correspond to the plan, the creative style of the writer, or the general structure of the work.
TECHNIQUES FOR ANALYSIS OF LITERARY TEXT
When analyzing a text, it is always necessary to correlate the whole with the particular - that is, how the general concept of the work, its theme, structure, genre are realized through the plot, composition, language, style, and images of characters.
The task is not easy.
To solve it, you need to know some techniques.
Let's talk about them.
The first technique is DRAFTING A PLAN for the work, at least mentally.
I refer you to the reviews of Alex Petrovsky, who always uses this technique. Alex retells the text. If we describe his actions in clever words, then Alex highlights the main semantic points in the text and reveals their subordination. This helps to see and correct factual and logical errors, contradictions, unsubstantiated judgments, etc.
“Translating” text into “your” language works very well. This is the criterion for understanding the text.
There is also a technique of ANTICIPATION - anticipation, anticipation of the subsequent presentation.
When the reader understands the text, he seems to assume. Anticipates the direction of development, anticipates the author’s thoughts.
We understand that everything is good in moderation. If the plot and actions of the characters are easily visible, reading such a work is not interesting. However, if the reader cannot follow the author’s thoughts at all and guess at least general direction her movements, then this is also a signal of trouble. The process of anticipation is disrupted when the logic of presentation is disrupted.
There is one more technique - this is posing PRELIMINARY QUESTIONS, which our dear Boa constrictor loves so much.
What happened to this minor character? Why did the other character do this? What is hidden behind the heroine’s mysterious phrase?
It is necessary that the required majority of these questions find answers in the text. All storylines must be completed, interconnected or logically terminated.
It is curious that the reader and the author seem to be moving in opposite directions. The author goes from concept to structure, and the reader, on the contrary, assessing the structure, must get to the bottom of the concept.
A successful work is one in which the efforts of the author and the reader are approximately equal, and they meet halfway. Remember the cartoon "A Kitten Named Woof"? When did a kitten and a puppy eat a sausage and meet exactly in the middle? You will laugh, but in literature everything is exactly the same.
What dangers await the authors = the most vulnerable link in the process. Reader - what? He snorted, closed the book and moved on, while the author suffered.
Oddly enough, there are two dangers. The first is that the reader did not understand the author’s intention at all. The second is that the reader contributed his own idea (instead of the author’s, which turned out to be on the side). In any case, there was no communication, no emotional transfer either.
What to do? Analyze the text! (back to the beginning of the article). Look where the miscoordination occurred, and the idea (theme\structure\genre) diverged from the implementation (plot\composition\style\character images).
CRITERIA FOR THE ARTISTICITY OF A WORK
They are divided into general and private.
GENERAL CRITERIA
1. Unity of content and form of the work.
An artistic image does not exist outside of a certain form. An unsuccessful form discredits the idea and may raise doubts about the fairness of what was said.
2. The criterion of artistic truth = undistorted recreation of reality.
The truth of art is not just the truth of fact. We often see how an author, defending his work (usually unsuccessful), puts forward an iron-clad (in his opinion) argument - I described everything as it actually happened.
But a work of art is not just a description of events. This is a certain aesthetics, a certain degree of artistic generalization and understanding of reality in images that convince with their aesthetic power. The critic does not evaluate the authenticity of realities - he evaluates whether the author was able to achieve the necessary emotional impact with the facts and images presented.
The author's handwriting is a synthesis of the objective and the subjective.
Objective reality is refracted in the individual perception of the author and reflected in the content, which the author reveals in an original form that is inherent to him. This is the author’s worldview, his special vision, which is expressed in special stylistic devices letters.
4. Emotional capacity, associative richness of the text.
The reader wants to empathize with the events along with the hero - to worry, rejoice, be indignant, etc. Empathy and co-creativity are the main purpose of the artistic image in literature.
The reader's emotions should be evoked by the image itself, and not imposed by the author's statements and exclamations.
5. Integrity of perception of the narrative.
The image appears in the mind not as a sum of individual elements, but as a whole, unified poetic picture. M. Gorky believed that the reader should perceive the author’s images immediately, like a blow, and not think about them. A.P. Chekhov added that fiction should be written in a second.
The criterion of integrity applies not only to elements designed for immediate perception - comparisons, metaphors - but also to those components that can be located in the text at a considerable distance from each other (for example, portrait strokes).
This matters when analyzing the characters' characters. There are often cases among beginning authors when descriptions of a character’s actions and thoughts do not create a picture of his spiritual world in the reader’s imagination. Facts dazzle in the eyes and imagination, but the whole picture does not emerge.
PARTICULAR CRITERIA
They concern individual components of the work - themes, plot, speech of characters, etc.
EVALUATION OF THE PLOT OF THE WORK
The plot is the main means of recreating the movement of events. The optimal option can be considered when the intensity of the action is determined not only by unexpected events and other external techniques, but also by internal complexity, a deep disclosure of human relationships, and the significance of the problems posed.
It is necessary to understand the relationship between the plot and the images of the characters, to determine the significance of the situations created by the author for revealing the characters.
One of the important requirements of artistry is the persuasiveness of the motivations for actions. Without this, the plot becomes schematic and far-fetched. The author freely constructs the narrative, but he must achieve persuasiveness so that the reader believes him, based on the logic of character development. As V. G. Korolenko wrote, the reader should recognize the former hero in the new adult.
The plot is a concept of reality (E.S. Dobin)
Plots arise, exist, are borrowed, translated from the language of one type of art to another (dramatization, film adaptation) - and thereby reflect the norms of human behavior characteristic of a particular type of culture. But this is only the first side of the relationship between life and art: plots not only reflect the cultural state of society, they form it: “By creating plot texts, a person has learned to distinguish plots in life and, thus, interpret this life for himself” (c)
Plot is an integral quality of a work of art; this is a chain of events that are inevitably present in this type of work. Events, in turn, consist of the actions and deeds of the heroes. The concept of an act includes both externally tangible actions (came, sat down, met, headed, etc.), and internal intentions, thoughts, experiences, sometimes resulting in internal monologues, and all kinds of meetings that take the form of a dialogue of one or more characters .
Evaluation of the plot is very subjective, however, there are certain criteria for it:
- integrity of the plot;
- complexity, tension of the plot (the ability to captivate the reader);
- the significance of the problems posed;
- originality and originality of the plot.
Types of plots
There are two types of plots - dynamic and adynamic.
Signs of a dynamic plot:
- the development of the action occurs intensely and rapidly,
- the events of the plot contain the main meaning and interest for the reader,
- plot elements are clearly expressed, and the denouement carries a huge meaningful load.
Signs of an adynamic plot:
The development of the action is slow and does not strive for resolution,
- the events of the plot do not contain any particular interest (the reader does not have a specific tense expectation: “What will happen next?”),
- elements of the plot are not clearly expressed or are completely absent (the conflict is embodied and moves not with the help of plot, but with the help of other compositional means),
- the outcome is either completely absent or purely formal,
- in the overall composition of the work there are many extra-plot elements that shift the center of gravity of the reader’s attention to themselves.
Examples of adynamic plots are “Dead Souls” by Gogol, “The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik” by Hasek, etc.
There is a fairly simple way to check what kind of plot you are dealing with: works with an adynamic plot can be re-read from any place, works with a dynamic plot - only from beginning to end.
Naturally, with an adynamic plot, analysis of plot elements is not required, and sometimes is completely impossible.
COMPOSITION EVALUATION
Composition is the construction of a work that unites all its elements into a single whole, it is a way of revealing content, a way of systematically organizing elements of content.
The composition must correspond to the specifics of the work and publication, the volume of the work, the laws of logic, and a certain type of text.
Rules for constructing the composition of a work:
- the sequence of parts must be motivated;
- the parts must be proportionate;
- composition techniques should be determined by the content and nature of the work.
Depending on the relationship between plot and plot in a particular work, they talk about different types and techniques of plot composition.
The simplest case is when the events of the plot are linearly arranged in direct chronological sequence without any changes. Such a composition is also called a DIRECT or FABUL SEQUENCE.
A more complex technique is in which we learn about an event that happened earlier than the others at the very end of the work - this technique is called DEFAULT.
This technique is very effective, since it allows you to keep the reader in the dark and in suspense until the very end, and at the end, surprise him with the surprise of the plot twist. Due to these properties, the technique of default is almost always used in works detective genre.
Another method of violating chronology or plot sequence is the so-called RETROSPECTIVENESS, when, as the plot develops, the author makes retreats into the past, as a rule, to the time preceding the plot and beginning of this work.
For example, in “Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev, during the course of the plot we are faced with two significant flashbacks - the background to the lives of Pavel Petrovich and Nikolai Petrovich Kirsanov. It was not Turgenev’s intention to begin the novel from their youth, because this would have cluttered the composition of the novel, and it seemed necessary to the author to give an idea of the past of these heroes - therefore, the method of retrospection was used.
The plot sequence can be disrupted in such a way that events at different times are given intermixed; the narrative constantly returns from the moment of the action to various previous time layers, then again turns to the present in order to immediately return to the past. This plot composition is often motivated by the memories of the characters. It's called FREE COMPOSITION.
When analyzing a literary text, one should consider the motivation for using each technique from the point of view of composition, which must be supported by the content and figurative structure of the text.
Many shortcomings of composition are explained by violation of the requirements of the basic laws of logic.
The most common disadvantages of the composition include:
- incorrect division of the work into the largest structural parts;
- going beyond the topic;
- incomplete disclosure of the topic;
- disproportionality of parts;
- crossing and mutual absorption of material;
- repetitions;
- unsystematic presentation;
- incorrect logical connections between parts;
- incorrect or inappropriate sequence of parts;
- unsuccessful division of text into paragraphs.
It must be remembered that in fiction, following a step-by-step logical plan is not at all necessary; sometimes a violation of the logic of plot development should be seen not as a compositional defect, but as a special method of compositional construction of the work, designed to increase its emotional impact. Therefore, when assessing the composition of a work of art, great care and caution is required. We must try to understand the author's intention and not violate it.
EXTRA-PLOT ELEMENTS
In addition to the plot, in the composition of the work there are also so-called extra-plot elements, which are often no less, or even more important, than the plot itself.
Non-plot elements are those that do not move the action forward, during which nothing happens, and the characters remain in their previous positions.
If the plot of a work is the dynamic side of its composition, then the extra-plot elements are the static side.
There are three main types of extra-plot elements:
- description,
- lyrical (or author’s) digressions,
- inserted episodes (otherwise they are called inserted novels or inserted plots).
DESCRIPTION is a literary depiction of the external world (landscape, portrait, world of things, etc.) or a stable way of life, that is, those events and actions that occur regularly, day after day and, therefore, are also not related to movement plot.
Descriptions are the most common type of extra-plot elements; they are present in almost every epic work.
LYRICAL (or AUTHOR'S) DISTRACTIONS are more or less detailed author's statements of philosophical, lyrical, autobiographical, etc. character; Moreover, these statements do not characterize individual characters or the relationships between them.
Author's digressions are an optional element in the composition of a work, but when they do appear there (“Eugene Onegin” by Pushkin, “Dead Souls” by Gogol, “The Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov, etc.), they usually play vital role and are subject to mandatory analysis.
INSERT EPISODES are relatively complete fragments of action in which other characters act, the action is transferred to another time and place, etc.
Sometimes inserted episodes begin to play in the work even big role than the main plot: for example, in " Dead souls"Gogol or "The Adventures of the Good Soldier Schweik" by Hasek.
ASSESSMENT OF SPEECH STRUCTURES
Fragments are distinguished in the work according to their belonging to any type of text - narrative, descriptive or explanatory (discourse texts).
Each type of text is characterized by its own type of presentation of the material, its internal logic, the sequence of arrangement of elements and composition as a whole.
When complex speech structures are encountered in a work, including narratives, descriptions, and reasoning in the interweaving of their elements, it is necessary to identify the predominant type.
It is necessary to analyze the fragments in terms of their compliance with the characteristics of the type, i.e., check whether the narrative, description or reasoning is constructed correctly.
NARRATION - a story about events in chronological (time) sequence.
Narration is about action. Comprises:
- key moments, that is, the main events in their duration;
- ideas about how these events changed (how the transition from one state to another took place).
In addition, almost every story has its own rhythm and intonation.
When evaluating, it is necessary to check how correctly the author has chosen the key points so that they correctly reflect the events; how consistent the author is in presenting them; whether the connection of these main points with each other has been thought out.
The syntactic structure of the narrative is a chain of verbs, so the center of gravity in the narrative is transferred from words related to quality to words that convey movements, actions, that is, to the verb.
There are two types of storytelling: epic and stage.
The epic method is a complete story about events and actions that have already taken place, and about the result of these actions. Most often found in a strict, scientific presentation of the material (for example, a narrative about the events of the Great Patriotic War in a history textbook).
The stage method, on the contrary, requires that events be presented visually, the meaning of what is happening before the eyes of the reader is revealed through gestures, movements, words characters. At the same time, the readers’ attention is drawn to details, particulars (for example, A.S. Pushkin’s story about a winter blizzard: “Clouds are rushing, clouds are curling... The invisible moon illuminates the flying snow...").
The most common flaw in the construction of a narrative is its overload with insignificant facts and details. It is important to remember that the significance of an event is determined not by its duration, but by its importance in meaning or for the sequence of presentation of events.
When analyzing descriptions in a work of art, there is no rigid scheme. It is in the descriptions that the author's individuality is most clearly manifested.
REASONING is a series of judgments that relate to a specific subject and follow each other in such a way that others follow from the previous judgment and as a result, an answer to the question posed is obtained.
The purpose of reasoning is to deepen our knowledge about an object, about the world around us, since judgment reveals the internal characteristics of objects, the relationship of signs with each other, proves certain provisions, and reveals reasons.
The peculiarity of the argument is that this is the most complex look text.
There are two ways of reasoning: deductive and inductive. Deductive is reasoning from the general to the particular, and inductive is reasoning from the particular to the general. The inductive or synthetic type of reasoning is considered simpler and more accessible to the general reader. There are also mixed types of reasoning.
Analysis of reasoning involves checking the logical correctness of the reasoning structure.
Characterizing various ways presentation, experts emphasize that the main part of the author’s monologue speech is narration. “Narrative, story is the essence, the soul of literature. A writer is, first of all, a storyteller, a person who knows how to tell an interesting, exciting story.”
The author’s use of other speech structures that enhance the tension of the storyline depends on the individual style, genre and subject of the image.
EVALUATION OF LANGUAGE AND STYLE
There are different styles of different types of literature: journalistic, scientific, fiction, official business, industrial, etc. At the same time, the boundaries between styles are quite fluid; the styles of the language themselves are constantly evolving. Within the same type of literature one can see some differences in the use linguistic means depending on the purpose of the text and its genre features.
Linguistic and stylistic errors come in many varieties. We list only the most common and most common of them.
1. MORPHOLOGICAL ERRORS:
Incorrect use of pronouns
For example. “You have to be truly lucky to win a large artistic canvas for a few rubles. It turned out to be technician Alexey Stroev.” In this case, the incorrect use of the pronoun “im” creates a second anecdotal meaning of the phrase, since it means that Alexey Stroev turned out to be an artistic canvas.
Use plural nouns instead of singular. For example. "They carry baskets on their heads."
Errors in endings.
For example. “A school, a bathhouse, and a kindergarten will be built here next year.
2. LEXICAL ERRORS:
Inaccurate choice of words, use of words that cause unwanted associations. For example. “Classes are held without warning, in a family atmosphere” - Instead of “uninvited”, “relaxed”.
Inept use of phraseological phrases.
For example. “Our troops have crossed the line” - Instead of: “Our troops have reached the line / Our troops have crossed the line.”
The use of expressions in relation to animals that usually characterize the actions of people or human relationships.
For example. “At the same time, the rest of the bulls gave excellent daughters.”
3. SYNTAX ERRORS:
Incorrect word order in a sentence.
For example. “Avdeev felt his heart beat faster with joy.”
Incorrect control and adjacency.
For example. “More attention needs to be paid to the safety of young people.”
The use of syntactically unformed sentences.
For example. “Her whole small FIGURE LOOKS more like a student than a teacher.”
Punctuation errors that distort the meaning of the text.
For example. “Sasha ran around the gardens with the children, played knucklebones while sitting at his desk, and listened to the teachers’ stories.”
4. STYLISTIC ERRORS:
- “office” style
For example. “As a result of the work of the commission, it was established that there are significant reserves for the further use of materials and, in connection with this, reducing their consumption per unit of production” - Instead of “The commission found that materials can be used better and, therefore, their consumption can be reduced.”
Speech cliches are a rather complex phenomenon that is widespread due to the stereotyped nature of thought and content. Speech stamps can be represented by:
- words with a universal meaning (worldview, question, task, moment),
- paired words or satellite words (initiation-response),
- stamps – style decorations (blue screen, black gold),
- stencil formations (keep an honor watch),
- stamps - compound words (giant stove, miracle tree).
The main feature of a stamp is its lack of content. A stamp must be distinguished from a linguistic cliche, which is a special type of linguistic means and is used in business, scientific and technical literature to more accurately convey the circumstances of an event or phenomenon.
EVALUATION OF ARTISTIC DETAILS
An artistic detail is a detail that the author has endowed with significant semantic and emotional load.
Artistic details include mainly subject details in a broad sense: details of everyday life, landscape, portrait, interior, as well as gesture, action and speech.
By means of a successfully found part you can convey character traits a person’s appearance, speech, behavior, etc.; to concisely and visibly describe the situation, the scene of action, an object, and finally, an entire phenomenon.
Artistic detailing may be necessary or, on the contrary, excessive. Excessive attention to detail, characteristic of beginning writers, can lead to a pile-up of details, which will interfere with the perception of the main thing and therefore tire the reader.
There are two characteristic miscalculations in the use of artistic detail:
It is necessary to distinguish artistic detail from simple details, which are also necessary in the work.
The writer must be able to select exactly those details that will give a complete, vivid, vivid picture. By creating a text that is “visible” and “audible” for the reader, the writer uses real details, which in the work can be considered as detail.
Excessive attention to detail makes the picture motley and deprives the story of integrity.
Black Stick
SOME THOUGHTS OF AN ORDINARY READER ABOUT ARTISTIC DETAILS
FEATURES OF ANALYSIS OF A STORY AS A FORM OF A WORK OF ART
A story is the most concise form fiction. The story is difficult precisely because of its small volume. “There is a lot in small things” - this is the main requirement for small forms.
The story requires especially serious, in-depth work on the content, plot, composition, language, because... in small forms the defects are more clearly visible than in large ones.
A story is not a simple description of an incident from life, not a sketch from life.
The story, like the novel, shows significant moral conflicts. The plot of a story is often as important as in other genres of fiction. Significant and author's position, significance of the topic.
A story is a one-dimensional work, it has one plot line. One incident from the life of the characters, one bright, significant scene can become the content of a story, or a comparison of several episodes covering a more or less long period of time.
Too slow plot development, prolonged exposition, and unnecessary details harm the perception of the story.
Although the opposite case also happens. Sometimes, when the presentation is too laconic, new shortcomings arise: the lack of psychological motivation for the actions of the heroes, unjustified failures in the development of action, the sketchiness of characters devoid of memorable features.
N. M. Sikorsky believes that there is thoughtful and unjustified brevity, that is, omissions in the presentation of events that are easily restored by the reader’s imagination, and unfilled voids that violate the integrity of the narrative. It is important to notice when figurative display is replaced by simply informational messages about events. That is, the story should not just be short, it should have truly artistic brevity. And here artistic detail plays a special role in the story.
A story usually doesn't have many characters or many subplots. Overload with characters, scenes, and dialogues are the most common shortcomings of stories by novice authors.
The evaluation of a work is carried out in order to determine the uniqueness of a particular work.
The analysis is carried out in several aspects:
1. Correlation between execution and design (image as an expression of the author’s thoughts and feelings);
2. Visual accuracy (image as a reflection of reality);
3. Emotional accuracy of the text’s impact on the reader’s imagination, emotions, and associations (image as a means of aesthetic empathy and co-creation).
The result of the assessment is the creation of certain recommendations that will improve the unsuccessful components of the text that do not correspond to the concept, the general structure of the work and the creative style of the author.
A skillfully carried out transformation should not disrupt the integrity of the text. On the contrary, freeing its structure from elements introduced by side influences will clarify the idea of the work.
During stylistic editing, inaccuracies, speech errors in the manuscript, and roughness in style are eliminated;
when shortening the text, all unnecessary things that do not correspond to the genre or functional affiliation of the work are removed;
during compositional editing, parts of the text are moved, sometimes missing links are inserted, which are necessary for coherence and logical sequence of presentation.
“You carefully remove the excess, as if you were removing film from a transfer, and gradually the bright drawing. The manuscript was not written by you. And yet you joyfully feel some involvement in its creation” (c)
Food for thought.
Here are two editions of the text of the beginning of L. Tolstoy’s story “Hadji Murad”.
FIRST OPTION
I was returning home through the fields. It was the very middle of summer. The meadows had been cleared and they were just about to mow the rye. There is a delightful selection of flowers this time of year: fragrant porridges, red, white, pink, love it or not, with their spicy sweet smell, yellow, honey and sharp-shaped - lilac, tulip-shaped peas, multi-colored scabioses, delicate with a slightly pink plantain fluff and, most importantly, lovely cornflowers, bright blue in the sun, blue and purple in the evening. I love these wildflowers with their subtlety of decoration and slightly noticeable, not for everyone, their delicate and healthy scent. I picked a large bouquet and already on the way back I noticed in the ditch a wonderful crimson burdock in full bloom, the variety that we call Tatar and which the mowers carefully mow down or throw out of the hay so as not to prick their hands on it. I decided to pick this burdock and put it in the middle of the bouquet. I got down into the ditch and chased away the bumblebee that had climbed into the flower and, since I didn’t have a knife, I began to tear off the flower. Not only did it prick from all sides, even through the scarf with which I wrapped my hand, its stem was so terribly strong that I fought with it for about 5 minutes, tearing the fibers one by one. When I tore it off, I crushed the flower, then it was clumsy and did not suit the delicate delicate flowers of the bouquet. I regretted that I had destroyed this beauty and threw the flower. “What energy and strength of life,” I thought, approaching him...
FINAL OPTION
I was returning home through the fields. It was the very middle of summer. The meadows had been cleared and they were just about to mow the rye. There is a lovely selection of flowers this time of year: red, white, pink, fragrant, fluffy porridges; cheeky daisies; milky white with a bright yellow center “love it or hate it” with its rotten spicy stench; yellow colza with its honey smell; tall purple and white tulip-shaped bells; creeping peas; yellow, red, pink, lilac, neat scabioses; with slightly pink fluff and a slightly audible pleasant smell of plantain; cornflowers, bright blue in the sun and in their youth, and blue and reddening in the evening and in old age; and tender, with an almond scent, immediately withering, dodder flowers. I picked a large bouquet of different flowers and was walking home when I noticed in a ditch a wonderful crimson, in full bloom, burdock of the variety that we call “Tatar” and which is carefully mowed, and when it is accidentally mowed down, they throw out the mows from the hay so as not to prick their hands on it. I decided to pick this burdock and put it in middle of the bouquet. I climbed down into the ditch and, having driven away the shaggy bumblebee that had dug into the middle of the flower and sweetly and sluggishly fallen asleep there, I began to pick the flower. But it was very difficult: not only did the stem prickle from all sides, even through the scarf with which I wrapped hand, - it was so terribly strong that I fought with it for about five minutes, tearing the fibers one by one. When I finally tore off the flower, the stem was already all in tatters, and the flower no longer seemed so fresh and beautiful. Moreover, due to its rudeness and clumsiness, it did not suit the delicate flowers of the bouquet. I regretted that I had in vain destroyed a flower that was good in its place, and threw it away. “What energy and strength of life, however,” I thought, Remembering the efforts with which I tore off the flower. “How he strenuously defended and sold his life dearly.”
© Copyright: Copyright Competition -K2, 2013
Certificate of publication No. 213052901211
reviews
Reviews
Analysis - Criticism third, positive
Quote - Evaluation of the plot is very subjective, however, there are certain criteria for it:
- the significance of the situation for revealing the characters’ characters;
...
Plot elements are the stages of development of a literary conflict (exposition, plot, development of action, climax and denouement). The identification of these elements is possible only in connection with the conflict.
The daily audience of the Proza.ru portal is about 100 thousand visitors, who in total view more than half a million pages according to the traffic counter, which is located to the right of this text. Each column contains two numbers: the number of views and the number of visitors.
The goal of education in the educational development program of the Sverdlovsk region for 2005-2010 considers social competence as a general ability based on knowledge, experience, values, which allows one to establish connections between knowledge and life situations, and find ways to solve a particular problem. Thus, a graduate of a modern school must have certain personality qualities:
Flexibly navigate changing life situations, be able to independently apply the knowledge he needs in practice to solve emerging problems; work competently with information; be sociable and contactable in various groups; independently work on the development of one’s own morality, intelligence, and cultural level; think independently critically, clearly understand where and how the knowledge he acquires can be applied, therefore, the Russian school needs to switch to a competency-based approach to education and upbringing. Considering the existing disagreements in the definition of the terms “competence” and “competence” in gymnasium No. 174 in Yekaterinburg, the experience of Samara teachers was taken as a basis, where the concept of transition to a competency-based approach was developed by the Laboratory for the Modernization of Educational Resources
Department of Education and Science of the Administration of the Samara Region.
Competence is the result of education, expressed in the subject’s readiness to effectively organize internal and external resources to achieve the set goal. In the process of mastering new technologies and roles, mastery occurs new activity. Thus, competence is manifested in the development of a subjectively new activity, when it is necessary to perform non-algorithmized (new for humans) actions. In this form, competence absorbs all other competencies identified at a lower level (competence).
Competence is a direct result of education, expressed in students’ mastery of a certain set of methods of activity. Since it is impossible to master an activity through imitation, the child begins to manage his activity using various educational results (knowledge, abilities, skills), forming his own resource package necessary for the formation of competence. Based on the analysis of theoretical literature (article “Technology for designing key and subject competencies” by A.V. Khutorskoy) and requests from employers, the following key competencies are identified:
1) communicative competence (written communication, public speaking, dialogue, productive group communication);
2) information competence (readiness for self-education, readiness to use information resources, perceive and process various information);
3) problem solving competence (self-management) (problem identification, goal setting and activity planning, application of various technologies, resource planning, performance assessment, performance outcome assessment, assessment of one’s own progress (reflection)).
Qualitatively new strategies and technologies of training are called upon to form and develop the listed competencies, in particular the competency-based approach, which, according to B. Golub and E.Ya. Kogan in the article “The Paradigm of Contemporary Education” includes several directions. One of the areas is monitoring the level of development of key competencies through various types of children’s activities in the classroom, questioning and assessment creative works teenagers according to specially developed criteria.
In our opinion, literary analysis of works of art, used in literature lessons, is a means of developing information and communication competencies.
We bring to your attention the experience of conducting a training session "Analysis of space and time in the subjective organization of A.P. Chekhov's prose 80 - 90 years on the example of the stories "Tosca" (1886) and "Jumping" (1892)
In the process of studying these stories, we explored the techniques of creating space-time relationships and subjective organization in the above-mentioned works of art.
How different consciousnesses interact: the hero and the narrator, how the meaning of the story is revealed through different organizations of the narrative, can be seen in the story of A.P. Chekhov's "Tosca", written in 1886.
At first glance, this is a story with a very obvious plot, from the very first words you are captivated by sympathy for Jonah Potapov and his misfortune. But this is only at first glance. And indeed, the hero of the story is a cab driver, not new to literature of the 19th century: we can find this image in the adventurous and anecdotal works of M. Pogodin, N. Polevoy; in line with the “natural school”, F. Bulgarin and I. Kokorev will write about the cab driver; N. Nekrasov takes a fresh look at this hero in the poem “The Cabbie.” And yet, having touched on a topic that has already been developed more than once, A.P. Chekhov gives his completely new understanding of it.
Reflecting on the fate of Jonah, on the grief of an ordinary little person, Chekhov repeats the situation of “failed communication” four times, thereby depicting the loneliness of an ordinary person among the crowd, the lack of response to someone else’s pain, the inattention to the soul thirsting to pour itself out. He elevates the melancholy and grief of a small person to truly universal melancholy.
Next, we invite students to analyze in more detail the subjective organization of this story by A.P. Chekhov and his space-time structure and reveal that already in the first lines of the story it is shown how a state of melancholy captures Jonah. Finding himself alone with his grief, he went into his melancholy and outwardly resembles a small dot that people rushing by do not notice. The space around Jonah closed into one point - in his grief, and even time at that moment seemed to have stopped: “The wet snow is lazily spinning,” “Jonah and his little horse have not moved from their place for a long time” (I, 134). “Point” space corresponds to “point” time. External action here is determined by internal action. But Jonah, in need of an interlocutor, sets out on a journey, space begins to unfold from a “point” into a line - a path whose purpose is uncertain - this is Jonah’s desire to pour out his grief to someone.
Describing Jonah's condition, A.P. Chekhov conveys the thoughts of his hero, but the attentive reader feels the presence of another, higher consciousness belonging to the narrator, which helps determine the presence of “alien speech” in Jonah’s internal monologue. This “alien speech” was highlighted by V.B. Kataev in his work "Chekhov's Literary Connections". He discovered three quotations in the text of Tosca, two of them hidden. One of the quotes, highlighted graphically and compositionally, with the epigraph: “To whom shall we tell my sorrow?”, taken, according to Kataev, from Joseph’s cry, sets the entire tone of the story, which expands the scope of the story, leading it to universality, to eternity. So this phrase not only indicates the dual subjectivity of the narrative, but also unfolds the “insignificant shell” of point space, takes it to another level: pan-human and historical space. The external objective sign of the “expansion” of space is precisely the movement of Jonah in order to pour out his melancholy to someone - to relieve the tension of grief, compressed inside and stubbornly demanding “unfolding”.
Thanks to the appearance of a second voice and quotes that make up “someone else’s speech,” it is possible to determine the distance between the hero and the narrator from the story “Tosca.” The simple consciousness of the hero is conveyed from the outside, from the position of a developed consciousness. And the narrator’s slight smile at the hero, who does not know how to correctly explain and tell his melancholy (“And the oats didn’t leave. That’s why there is melancholy”), does not separate, but, on the contrary, raises the hero to another level. The consciousness of the narrator complements the consciousness of the character, giving him the opportunity to step out of the framework of his narrow, everyday consciousness.
The ending of the story speaks about this - the longing is finally told, the soul is open. Jonah told his grief to the little horse. Communication took place, although not quite what was initially expected. The purpose of Jonah's journey in a certain sense achieved, although V.B. Kataev believes that “the communication took place in an extremely absurd form.”
When analyzing the story “Tosca,” students can conclude that the spatial organization of the text plays a significant role in identifying the author’s intention in Chekhov’s prose and, along with the subjective organization, determines the construction of the writer’s artistic world.
In the works of the 90s A.P. Chekhov seeks truth not in the monologue of the narrator or hero, but in their dialogue. In his stories, indirect speech is activated, when the narrator’s speech is saturated with individual words or entire expressions of the hero, “scattered” throughout it, which is a means of indirectly characterizing the heroes.
How these narrative features manifest themselves in a specific story and how the interaction of narrative types with the spatio-temporal organization of the text occurs, students are invited to consider using the example of the analysis of the story “The Jumper” (1892).
The narrative structure and language of this story were examined in detail by A.P. Chudakov, L.G. Barlas, A.V. Kubasov, whose works the students were invited to get acquainted with while collecting material for this story. All these scientists say that from the very first pages of the story, the heroine’s voice flows into the narrator’s speech, which immediately sharply contrasts Olga Ivanovna and her friends with Dymov, about whom all visitors to Olga Ivanovna’s salon say that he is “ordinary.” In the narrator’s words, Dymov is ironically contrasted with the heroine’s friends, who “were not entirely ordinary people. Each of them was remarkable in some way and a little famous:” (II, 178). The fact that the speech belongs to different characters, and not to the narrator, can be determined by vocabulary alien to the narrator: this is how a picture of “scattered heteroglossia” (M. M. Bakhtin’s term) arises, where the reader feels two opposite intonations: serious - the heroes and ironic, revealing - narrator.
Subsequently, the influence of the heroine’s voice on the narrative intensifies, because the narrative is increasingly saturated with her vocabulary, words that are not characteristic of the narrator. This influence is also reflected in the spatio-temporal organization of the text, which Kubasov A.V. called "the chronotope of the "team day".
From the first chapter, the reader learns about Dymov’s daily routine: “Every day from nine o’clock in the morning until noon, he received patients and studied in his room, and in the afternoon he rode a horse-drawn horse to another hospital, where he opened up dead patients. His private practice was insignificant, rubles five hundred a year" (II, 179). Outwardly, the day looks meager, it can be arranged in the following chain: home - work - home, and the work is not shown, it is only mentioned, revealing hidden meaning question: “What else can you say?” This question, according to A.V. Kubasova stands on the border of two consciousnesses: the impersonal narrator and the heroine, and two assessments of Dymov and his activities are hidden in him: Olga Ivanovna’s categorical assessment and the narrator’s assessment, hidden for the time being, opposing her.
The second chapter gives a description of Olga Ivanovna’s day. Unlike Dymov's day, it is extremely filled with activities and scheduled by the hour: music or painting classes, a visit to the dressmaker, lunch with her husband, trips to friends, theater or concerts: And so every day. Thanks to the external fullness of the day, the impression of time duration and significance of each moment is created. But the “gathering day” of Dymov and Olga Ivanovna embodies two different ways of life, running in parallel, touching only at certain points in the space-time system: during the spouses’ home dinner at 5 o’clock and on Wednesdays, when Olga Ivanovna hosted parties where Dymov played a role majordomo. So the chronotope of the “team day” of Dymov and his wife always follows in pairs, being compared either explicitly or in context. All this creates the impression of emptiness and artificiality in Olga Ivanovna’s life. Despite the fact that outwardly Olga Ivanovna is constantly on the move, constantly changing her “places: city - home - dressmaker - theater - guests - village - dacha - city, her time and space are fragmented into fragments, deprived of their completeness and integrity. the idea is also confirmed by the decoration of the house, which is overloaded with things from the external space, which once again emphasizes the spiritual emptiness of the heroine, the surface of her personality.
And if we see that Olga Ivanovna’s day is determined only by the number of things that do not give the heroine qualitative growth, her movement is expressed only by external signs: moving from one constant point in space to another, then changes in Dymov’s daily routine carry a qualitative shift - spiritual growth a hero who is distinguished by defending his dissertation.
Thus, if Olga Ivanovna’s time and space are closed: moving from point to point always returns her to the beginning, thereby reminiscent of a squirrel running in a circle in a wheel, then Dymov’s time moves progressively, his movements are ascension, movement forward and higher.
In the process of working on the stories of A.P. Chekhov's students come to the conclusion that the subtextual connection between the end and the beginning of the work forces them to rethink both the image of the hero and the way of his life, embodied in the seemingly sparse day of events. The capacity of Chekhov's artistic time is created by the addition of different systems of time reference, which represents a collision not only of different voices and opinions, but also a collision of temporal forms.
The teacher’s task in the process of preparing and conducting a lesson of this kind is not only to organize independent work of students both in class and outside of class, but also to determine the level of development of information and communicative competence of 9th grade students. For this purpose, the following criteria were developed based on the materials of the new standards, which are presented in table form (Appendix).
References:
- A.P. Chekhov Selected works in 3 volumes, M, 1964.
- Bakhtin M.M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. M., 1975.
- Corman B.O. Studying the text of a work of art. M., 1972.
- Barlas L.G. The language of Chekhov's narrative prose: problems of analysis. Rostov-on-Don, 1991.
- Kataev V.B. Chekhov's literary connections. M., 1989.
- Kubasov A.V. Stories by A.P. Chekhov: poetics of the genre. Sverdlovsk, 1990.
- Chudakov A.P. Chekhov's poetics. M., 1971.
