What is the main idea? What is the idea of ​​a work

When analyzing work of art It is always important not only what the author wanted to say in it, but also what he accomplished - “had an impact.” The writer’s plan may be realized to a greater or lesser extent, but it is the author’s point of view in assessing the characters, events, and problems raised that should be the ultimate truth in the analysis

Definition of the concept

Illustrative examples

Let us recall one of the masterpieces of Russian and world literature of the 19th century - L. N. Tolstoy’s novel “War and Peace”. What the author said about him: he loved “folk thought” in the book. What are the main ideas of the work? This is, first of all, a statement that the people are the main asset of the country, driving force history, creator of material and spiritual values. In the light of this understanding, the author develops the narrative of the epic. Tolstoy persistently leads the main characters of “War and Peace” through a series of tests, to “simplification”, to familiarization with the people’s worldview, worldview, and worldview. So, Natasha Rostova is much closer and more expensive for the writer and to us than Helen Kuragina or Julie Karagina. Natasha is far from being as beautiful as the first, and not as rich as the second. But it is in this “countess”, who hardly speaks Russian, that there is something primordial, national, natural that makes her similar to common people. And Tolstoy sincerely admires her during the dance (episode “Visiting Uncle”), and describes her in such a way that we too fall under the amazing charm of the image. The author's idea of ​​the work is remarkably revealed using examples from Pierre Bezukhov. Both aristocrats, who at the beginning of the novel live with their own personal problems, each go through their own paths of spiritual and moral quest. And they also begin to live in the interests of their country and the common people.

Cause-and-effect relationships

The idea of ​​a work of art is expressed by all its elements, the interaction and unity of all components. It can be considered a conclusion, a kind of “life lesson” that the reader makes and learns by becoming familiar with the literary text, getting acquainted with its content, and becoming imbued with the thoughts and feelings of the author. Here it is important to understand that parts of the writer’s soul exist not only in positive, but also negative heroes. In this regard, F. M. Dostoevsky said very well: in each of us, the “ideal of Sodom” is fighting with the “ideal of Madonna,” “God with the devil,” and the battlefield of this battle is human heart. Svidrigailov from Crime and Punishment is a very revealing personality. A libertine, a cynic, a scoundrel, in fact a murderer; sometimes pity, compassion and even some decency are not alien to him. And before committing suicide, the hero does several good deeds: he settles Katerina Ivanovna’s children, lets Dunya go... And Raskolnikov himself, the main character of the work, obsessed with the idea of ​​becoming a superman, is also torn by conflicting thoughts and feelings. Dostoevsky, a very difficult person in everyday life, reveals in his heroes different sides and your "I". From biographical sources about the writer we know that in different periods He played a lot in his life. Impressions of the destructive impact of this destructive passion are reflected in the novel “The Gambler.”

Theme and idea

There's one more thing left to figure out important question- about how the theme and idea of ​​the work relate. In a nutshell, this is explained as follows: the theme is what is described in the book, the idea is the author’s assessment and attitude towards it. Let's say Pushkin's story " Stationmaster" Life is revealed in it" little man“- powerless, oppressed by everyone, but having a heart, soul, dignity and awareness of himself as part of a society that looks down on him. This is the topic. And the idea is to reveal the moral superiority of a small person with a rich inner world in front of those who are above him on the social ladder, but are poor in soul.

When analyzing literary work traditionally use the concept of “idea,” which most often means the answer to a question supposedly posed by the author.

The idea of ​​a literary work is the main idea that summarizes the semantic, figurative, emotional content of a literary work.

The artistic idea of ​​a work is the content-semantic integrity of a work of art as a product of emotional experience and mastery of life by the author. This idea cannot be recreated by means of other arts and logical formulations; it is expressed throughout artistic structure work, the unity and interaction of all its formal components. Conventionally (and in a narrower sense), an idea stands out as the main thought, ideological conclusion and “ life lesson", naturally arising from a holistic comprehension of the work.

An idea in literature is a thought contained in a work. There are a great many ideas expressed in literature. There are logical ideas and abstract ideas. Logical ideas are concepts that are easily conveyed without figurative means; we are able to perceive them with our intellect. Logical ideas are characteristic of nonfiction literature. Fictional novels and stories are characterized by philosophical and social generalizations, ideas, analyzes of causes and consequences, that is, abstract elements.

But there is also a special type of very subtle, barely perceptible ideas in a literary work. An artistic idea is a thought embodied in figurative form. It lives only in figurative transformation and cannot be expressed in the form of sentences or concepts. The peculiarity of this thought depends on the disclosure of the topic, the author’s worldview, conveyed by the speech and actions of the characters, and on the depiction of pictures of life. It lies in the combination of logical thoughts, images, and all significant compositional elements. An artistic idea cannot be reduced to a rational idea that can be specified or illustrated. The idea of ​​this type is integral to the image, to the composition.

Forming an artistic idea is difficult creative process. In literature it is influenced personal experience, the writer’s worldview, understanding of life. An idea can be nurtured for years and decades, and the author, trying to realize it, suffers, rewrites the manuscript, and looks for suitable means of implementation. All themes, characters, all events selected by the author are necessary for a more complete expression of the main idea, its nuances and shades. However, it is necessary to understand that artistic idea not equal ideological plan, that plan that often appears not only in the writer’s head, but also on paper. Exploring extra-artistic reality, reading diaries, notebooks, manuscripts, archives, literary scholars restore the history of the idea, the history of creation, but often do not discover the artistic idea. Sometimes it happens that the author goes against himself, yielding to the original plan for the sake of artistic truth, an internal idea.

One thought is not enough to write a book. If you know in advance everything you would like to talk about, then you should not contact artistic creativity. Better - to criticism, journalism, journalism.

The idea of ​​a literary work cannot be contained in one phrase and one image. But writers, especially novelists, sometimes struggle to formulate the idea of ​​their work. Dostoevsky wrote about “The Idiot”: “ the main idea novel - portray positively wonderful person" For such a declarative ideology, Dostoevsky was scolded, for example, by Nabokov. Indeed, the phrase of the great novelist does not clarify why, why he did it, what is the artistic and vital basis of his image. But here it is hardly possible to take the side of Nabokov, a down-to-earth writer of the second rank, who, unlike Dostoevsky, never set himself creative super-tasks.

PLOT AND FABULA

The difference between “plot” and “fable” is defined in different ways; some literary scholars do not see a fundamental difference between these concepts, while for others, “plot” is the sequence of events as they occur, and “plot” is the sequence in which the author has them.

The plot is the factual side of the story, those events, incidents, actions, states in their causal and chronological sequence. The term “plot” refers to what is preserved as the “base”, “core” of the narrative.

The plot is a reflection of the dynamics of reality in the form of the action unfolding in the work, in the form of internally related (causal-temporal) actions of characters, events that form a unity, constituting some complete whole. The plot is a form of theme development - an artistically constructed distribution of events.

The driving force for the development of the plot, as a rule, is conflict (literally “clash”), conflict life situation, placed by the writer at the center of the work.

Along with the terms “theme” and “problem,” the concept of an artistic idea represents one of the facets of the content of a work of art. The concept of idea was put forward in antiquity. Plato interpreted ideas as entities that are beyond reality and constitute the ideal world, the true, in Plato’s understanding, reality. For Hegel, the idea is objective truth, the coincidence of subject and object, the highest point of development. I. Kant introduced the concept “ aesthetic idea", associated with the concept of beauty, which, according to Kant, is subjective.

In literary criticism, the term “idea” was used to designate the author’s thoughts and feelings figuratively expressed in works of art - this is the emotionally charged content center of a work of art. The author here is presented as a bearer of a certain ideological and artistic position, an exponent of a certain point of view, and not a passive “imitator” of nature. In this regard, along with the word “idea”, the concepts “concept of a work” and “author’s concept” were used.

An artistic idea is not an abstract concept, unlike scientific and philosophical categories. It cannot be expressed in a specific verbal formula, as happens, for example, in scientific texts. A figurative idea is always deeper than its schematic representation (a kind of verbal paraphrase).

However, it happens that ideas are expressed by the author directly, in fixed verbal formulas. This sometimes happens in lyrical poetic texts that strive for laconic expression. For example, M.Yu. Lermontov in the poem “Duma” puts the main idea in the first lines: “I look sadly at our generation! / Its future is either empty or dark, / Meanwhile, under the burden of knowledge and doubt, / It will grow old in inaction.”

In addition, some of the author’s ideas can be “delegated” to characters similar in worldview to the author. For example, Starodum in “Nedorosl” by D.I. Fonvizina becomes a “mouthpiece” of the author’s ideas, as “befits” a reasoner in classic comedies. In a realistic novel of the 19th century, a hero close to the author can express thoughts in tune with the author - such is Alyosha Karamazov in “The Brothers Karamazov” by F.M. Dostoevsky.

Some writers themselves formulate the idea of ​​their works in the prefaces to them (for example, M.Yu. Lermontov in the preface to the second edition of “A Hero of Our Time”).

It is thanks to its figurative expression that an artistic idea becomes deeper than even the author’s abstract explanations of his idea. As already mentioned, a specific feature of an artistic idea is that it is not reducible to an abstract position; imagery is expressed only in the artistic whole of the work. This leads to another feature of the artistic idea. A truly artistic idea is not initially given. It can change significantly from the conception stage to the completion of the work.

The idea of ​​the work includes the author’s assessment of selected facts and phenomena of life. But this assessment is also expressed in figurative form - through the artistic representation of the typical in the individual. The thought expressed in the work is not only figurative, but also emotionally charged. V.G. Belinsky wrote that the poet contemplates the idea “not with reason, not with reason, not with feeling and not with any one ability of his soul, but with all the fullness and integrity of his moral being - and therefore the idea appears, in his work, not abstract thought, not a dead form, but a living creature, in which the living beauty of the form testifies to the presence in it divine idea and in which... there is no boundary between idea and form, but both are a whole and single organic creation.”

A literary work is thoroughly imbued with the author’s personal attitude. This component within the ideological core in modern literary criticism is called differently: emotional-value orientation, mode of artistry, type of author's emotionality.

A literary text is full of meanings, they can be found in different relationships to each other. Ideological meaning the work represents the unity of several ideas (according to L. Tolstoy’s figurative definition - “an endless labyrinth of connections”), united by a main idea that permeates the entire structure of the work. For example, the multifaceted ideological meaning of “The Captain’s Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin is a combination of the ideas of nationality, mercy, and historical justice.

There is an inextricable logical connection.

What is the theme of the work?

If you raise the question of the theme of the work, then intuitively every person understands what it is. He just explains it from his point of view.

The theme of a work is what underlies a particular text. It is with this basis that the most difficulties arise, because it is impossible to define it unambiguously. Some people believe that the theme of the work - what is described there - is the so-called vital material. For example, topic love relationship, war or death.

The topic can also be called problems of human nature. That is, the problem of personality formation, moral principles or the conflict of good and bad actions.

Another topic could be verbal basis. Of course, it’s rare to come across works about words, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. There are texts in which wordplay comes to the fore. Suffice it to recall the work of V. Khlebnikov “Perverten”. His verse has one peculiarity - the words in a line are read the same in both directions. But if you ask the reader what the verse was actually about, he is unlikely to answer anything intelligible. Since the main highlight of this work is the lines that can be read both from left to right and from right to left.

The theme of the work is a multifaceted component, and scientists put forward one or another hypothesis regarding it. If we talk about something universal, then the theme of a literary work is the “foundation” of the text. That is, as Boris Tomashevsky once said: “The theme is a generalization of the main, significant elements.”

If the text has a theme, then there must be an idea. An idea is a writer’s plan that pursues a specific goal, that is, what the writer wants to present to the reader.

Figuratively speaking, the theme of the work is what made the creator create the work. So to speak, the technical component. In turn, the idea is the “soul” of the work; it answers the question of why this or that creation was created.

When the author is completely immersed in the topic of his text, truly feels it and is imbued with the problems of the characters, then an idea is born - spiritual content, without which the page of a book is just a collection of dashes and circles.

Learning to find

For example, we can cite a little story and try to find its main theme and idea:

• The autumn downpour did not bode well, especially late at night. All the residents knew about this small town, so the lights in the houses had long gone out. In all but one. It was an old mansion on a hill outside the city, which was used as Orphanage. During this terrible downpour, the teacher found a baby on the threshold of the building, so there was a terrible turmoil in the house: feeding, bathing, changing clothes and, of course, telling a fairy tale - after all, this is the main tradition of the old orphanage. And if any of the residents of the city knew how grateful the child would be who was found on the doorstep, they would have responded to the soft knock on the door that sounded in every house on that terrible rainy evening.

In this small passage, two themes can be distinguished: abandoned children and an orphanage. Essentially, these are the basic facts that forced the author to create the text. Then you can see that introductory elements appear: a foundling, tradition and a terrible thunderstorm, which forced all the residents of the city to lock themselves in their houses and turn out the lights. Why does the author talk about them specifically? These introductory descriptions will be the main idea of ​​the passage. They can be summarized by saying that the author is talking about the problem of mercy or selflessness. In one word, he tries to convey to every reader that, regardless of weather conditions you need to remain human.

How is a theme different from an idea?

The theme has two differences. Firstly, it determines the meaning (main content) of the text. Secondly, the theme can be revealed both in large works and in small short stories. The idea, in turn, shows the main goal and task of the writer. If you look at the presented passage, you can say that the idea is the main message from the author to the reader.

Determining the theme of a work is not always easy, but such a skill will be useful not only in literature lessons, but also in Everyday life. It is with its help that you can learn to understand people and enjoy pleasant communication.

Any analysis of a literary work begins with identifying its theme and idea. There is a close semantic and logical connection between them, thanks to which the literary text is perceived as an integral unity of form and content. Correct understanding of the meaning literary terms the theme and idea make it possible to establish how accurately the author was able to realize his creative concept and whether his book is worth the reader’s attention.

The theme of a literary work is a semantic definition of its content, reflecting the author’s vision of the depicted phenomenon, event, character or other artistic reality.

An idea is the plan of a writer who pursues a specific goal in creating artistic images, using the principles of plot construction and achieving the compositional integrity of a literary text.

What is the difference between a theme and an idea?

Figuratively speaking, a theme can be considered any reason that prompted the writer to take up the pen and transfer it to Blank sheet paper reflected in artistic images perception of the surrounding reality. You can write about anything; another question: for what purpose, what task should I set myself?

The goal and task determine the idea, the disclosure of which is the essence of an aesthetically valuable and socially significant literary work.

Among the diversity literary themes There are several main directions that serve as reference points for flight creative imagination writer. These are historical, social, everyday, adventure, detective, psychological, moral and ethical, lyrical, philosophical themes. The list goes on. It will include original author's notes, literary diaries, and stylistically refined extracts from archival documents.

The theme, felt by the writer, acquires spiritual content, an idea, without which book page will remain just coherent text. The idea can be reflected in historical analysis problems important to society, in the depiction of complex psychological moments on which human destiny, or simply in creating a lyrical sketch that awakens a sense of beauty in the reader.

The idea is the deep content of the work. Theme is a motive that allows you to realize a creative idea within a specific, precisely defined context.

The difference between a theme and an idea

The theme determines the actual and semantic content of the work.

The idea reflects the tasks and goals of the writer, which he strives to achieve while working on a literary text.

The theme has formative functions: it can be revealed in small literary genres or be developed into a major epic work.

The idea is the main content core literary text. She matches conceptual level organizing the work as an aesthetically significant whole.

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