What is a prose work? Meaning of the word prose

Prose is all around us. She is in life and in books. Prose is our everyday language.

Fiction is something that has no size (a special form of organization) sounding speech), unrhymed narrative.

A prose work is one written without rhyme, which is its main difference from poetry. Prose works can be both fiction and non-fiction, sometimes they are intertwined, as, for example, in biographies or memoirs.

How did prose, or epic, work arise?

Prose came to the world of literature from Ancient Greece. It was there that poetry first appeared, and then prose as a term. The first prose works were myths, traditions, legends, and fairy tales. These genres were defined by the Greeks as non-artistic, mundane. These were religious, everyday or historical narratives, defined as “prosaic”.

In the first place was highly artistic poetry, prose was in second place, as a kind of opposition. The situation began to change only in the second half. Prose genres began to develop and expand. Novels, stories and short stories appeared.

In the 19th century, the prose writer pushed the poet into the background. The novel and short story became the main ones artistic forms in literature. Finally, prose work took its rightful place.

Prose is classified by size: small and large. Let's look at the main artistic genres.

Large prose work: types

A novel is a prose work that is distinguished by the length of the narrative and a complex plot, fully developed in the work, and a novel can also have side plot lines in addition to the main one.

Novelists included Honoré de Balzac, Daniel Defoe, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, Erich Maria Remarque and many others.

Examples of prose works by Russian novelists could form a separate book-list. These are works that have become classics. For example, such as “Crime and Punishment” and “The Idiot” by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, “The Gift” and “Lolita” by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, “Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, “Hero of Our Time” Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov and so on.

An epic is larger in volume than a novel, and describes major historical events or responds to national issues, more often than not, both.

The most significant and famous epics in Russian literature are “War and Peace” by Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy, “ Quiet Don"Mikhail Aleksandrovich Sholokhov and "Peter the First" by Alexei Nikolaevich Tolstoy.

Small prose work: types

Novella - short work, comparable to a story, but more eventful. The story of the novel begins in oral folklore, in parables and legends.

The novelists were Edgar Allan Poe, Herbert Wells; Guy de Maupassant and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin also wrote short stories.

A story is a short prose work characterized by a small number of characters, one plot line and detailed description details.

Rich in stories by Bunin and Paustovsky.

An essay is a prose work that can easily be confused with a story. But there are still significant differences: the description is only real events, lack of fiction, a combination of fiction and non-fiction literature, as a rule, touching social problems and the presence of greater descriptiveness than in the story.

Essays can be portrait and historical, problematic and travel. They can also mix with each other. For example, a historical essay may also contain a portrait or a problem essay.

An essay is some impressions or reasoning of the author in connection with a specific topic. It has a free composition. This type of prose combines the functions of a literary essay and a journalistic article. May also have something in common with a philosophical treatise.

Average prose genre - story

The story is on the border between a short story and a novel. In terms of volume, it cannot be classified as either a small or a large prose work.

IN Western literature The story is called a “short novel.” Unlike a novel, a story always has one plot line, but it also develops fully and fully, so it cannot be classified as a short story.

There are many examples of stories in Russian literature. Here are just a few: " Poor Lisa" Karamzin, "The Steppe" by Chekhov, "Netochka Nezvanova" by Dostoevsky, "District" by Zamyatin, "The Life of Arsenyev" by Bunin, " Stationmaster» Pushkin.

IN foreign literature one can name, for example, “René” by Chateaubriand, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Conan Doyle, “The Tale of Monsieur Sommer” by Suskind.

Having left the management of genres on the site to the authors themselves, I thought that creative people have at least the slightest idea about the area in which they create.

People's heads are a real mess. What genres haven’t they come up with in order to somehow stand out from total mass. Among the genres were “we went hiking”, and “nighties”, and “about humanism”, and “maniacs”...

This article is compiled based on materials from Wikipedia, literary sites and encyclopedias.

Let's start with the definition of prose given in literary encyclopedia(copied from Wikipedia):
Prose (lat. prosa) - oral or written speech without division into commensurate segments - poetry; in contrast to poetry, its rhythm is based on the approximate correlation of syntactic structures (periods, sentences, columns). Sometimes the term is used as a contrast fiction in general (poetry) scientific or journalistic literature, that is, not related to art.

And here is another definition (Dahl's dictionary):
Prose- ordinary speech, simple, unmeasured, without meter, the opposite of poetry. There is also measured prose, in which, however, there is no syllable size, but a type of tonic stress, almost like in Russian songs, but much more varied. Prose writer, prose writer, prose writer writing in prose.

IN different sources prose genres (their number) are different. I will dwell only on those regarding which there are no discrepancies.

NOVEL- large in volume narrative work with a complex and developed plot. A work of large form may have several storylines(Remember L.N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”).

STORY- a type of epic poetry, close to the novel, depicting some episode from life; It differs from the novel in less completeness and breadth of pictures of everyday life and morals. This definition of genre is characteristic exclusively of the Russian literary tradition. The ancient meaning of the term - “news about some event” - indicates that this genre has absorbed oral histories, events that the narrator personally saw or heard about. An important source of such “stories” are chronicles (“The Tale of Bygone Years”, etc.). IN ancient Russian literature“story” was any narration about any actual events. In Western literary studies, the definitions “novel” or “short novel” are used for prose works of this kind.

STORY- a small epic genre form of fiction - small in terms of the volume of life phenomena depicted, and hence in terms of the volume of its text.

NOVELLA(Italian novella - news) - a literary short narrative genre, comparable in volume to a story (which sometimes gives reason for their identification), but differing from it in genesis, history and structure. It's narrative prose genre, which is characterized by brevity, a sharp plot, a neutral style of presentation, lack of psychologism, and an unexpected ending.

ESSAY(from the French essai “attempt, trial, essay”, from the Latin exagium “weighing”) - a prose essay of small volume and free composition, expressing individual impressions and considerations on a specific occasion or issue and obviously not claiming to be a defining or exhaustive interpretation of the subject . In terms of volume and function, it borders, on the one hand, with scientific article and a literary essay (with which an essay is often confused), on the other, with a philosophical treatise.

BIOGRAPHY- an essay that sets out the history of the life and activities of a person.

EPIC- monumental in form epic work, characterized by national problems. A complex, long history of something, including a number of major events. (The same "War and Peace", which is both a novel and an epic) The roots of the epic are in mythology and folklore.

FAIRY TALE(literary) - epic genre: a fiction-oriented work closely related to folk tale, but, unlike it, it belonged to a specific author, did not exist in oral form before publication and had no variants.

FABLE- a poetic or prose literary work of a moralizing, satirical nature. At the end of the fable there is a short moralizing conclusion - the so-called morality. Characters Usually animals, plants, things appear. In the Bible we find, for example, the fable about how the trees chose a king for themselves (Judges 9.8ff.), or the story about the thorn and the cedar (2 Kings 14:9). These stories come very close to parables.

PARABLE-parable - a short moralizing story in an allegorical form. V. Dahl's dictionary interprets the word “parable” as “teaching by example.”
A parable generally exists and can only be properly understood in a specific context. For example, the gospel parable of the sower is the sermon of Christ, which he delivers to a crowd of people. Then it becomes clear that the “Sower” is Jesus Christ, the “seed” is the word of God, the “earth”, “soil” is the human heart.

MYTH(from the Greek mytos - legend) - in literature - a legend that conveys people’s ideas about the world, man’s place in it, the origin of all things, about Gods and heroes. These are legends about the first ancestors, gods, spirits and heroes. The mythological complex, which takes syncretic visual-verbal forms in rituals, acts as a specific way of systematizing knowledge about the world around us. Among the features of the myth: an arbitrary (illogical) connection of plots and the identity of the signifier and the signified, personification of natural phenomena, zoomorphism, an increase in zoomorphic elements in archaic layers of culture.

Prose - Prose! The world of prose. History of the emergence and development of prose. Prose genres.

Prose - Prose!

Prose!

Prose in its broadest sense, surrounds us everywhere.

Prose- this is a simple, ordinary dimensionless speech, exactly the one that we use every day.

With the help of prose, we can confess our love and express any of our feelings.

The more we read literary prose, the richer our experience will be and the more beautiful our speech will be.

Other articles in this section:

• Language communication systems! Languages ​​as the main factor in the system of knowledge development!
• Traditions. What is tradition? Tradition in the dialectical development of society.
• Space and time. Laws of space. Open space. Movement. Space of worlds.
• Evolution and coevolution. Evolution and co-evolution in the system of modern knowledge. Principles of evolution and coevolution. Biological evolution and coevolution of living nature.
• Synergetics and laws of nature. Synergetics as a science. Synergetics as a scientific approach and method. The universal theory of evolution is synergetics.
• It is possible or it is not! A kaleidoscope of events and actions through the prism is impossible and possible!
• World of religion! Religion as a form of human consciousness in awareness of the surrounding world!
• Art - Art! Art is a skill that can inspire admiration!
• Realism! Realism in art! Realistic art!
• Abstract art! Abstraction in art! Abstract painting! Abstractionism!
• Unofficial art! Unofficial art of the USSR!
• Thrash - Thrash! Trash in art! Trash in creativity! Trash in literature! Cinema trash! Cybertrash! Thrash metal! Teletrash!

Literature can influence a person’s worldview, character and spirituality. Prose works teach the reader to adapt to life in society, raise the morality of society and reveal problems modern world. Romance literature, stories, poems are built on the drama and realism of today, framed with exquisite epithets, metaphorical phrases and colorful allegories. IN modern stories and novels you can find reflections on the topic universal human values And life problems. The catalog of our portal contains various genres: historical novels, fairy tales, types of oral folk art (epics, true stories), adventure stories, detective stories and much more. The author puts his soul into each work, tries to reach the mind and heart of the reader, tries to change the usual stereotypes about literature in general.

Dystopia - original genre prose literature, which is a kind of author’s response to the pressure of the new order. As a rule, dystopia becomes popular at the time of a political or civil upheaval, during a war, revolution, rallies and other events that upend the usual life of the people. Here, a general idea of ​​the world is conveyed through the life of one person. The reader observes a conflict between the individual and the state. Usually, main character tries to break the usual stereotypes and goes against the laws.

Children's literature occupies a special place among modern creators. As a rule, children's works lead the reader into a mysterious Magic world and are enveloped in incredible fabulous events. Often, a simple work for children hides not only the problems of good and evil, but also current issues modern society. In this way, the author tries to prepare future teenagers for harsh reality. In addition to being entertaining, such a book also has an educational function. Writing children's works requires special responsibility, skill and talent.

Esotericism is popular among authors and readers - literature that can change perception real world. The main areas of esotericism are books about methods of fortune telling, numerology, astrology and much more. Fiction remains the most popular among readers. Such works touch on many philosophical issues and open the readers' eyes to various imperfections of the world. Sometimes, modern fiction is original selection entertaining stories that allow you to escape from the everyday hustle and bustle and plunge into the world of the unknown.

Prose(Latin prōsa) is speech without division into commensurate segments, the rhythm of which is based on the approximate correlation of syntactic structures. It is also non-poetic literature.

Unlike poetry, prose does not have significant restrictions on rhythm and rhyme. It provides authors, as M. M. Bakhtin noted, with wider “opportunities for linguistic diversity, the combination in the same text of different manners of thinking and speaking: in prosaic artistry (most fully manifested in the novel).” Prose, in particular, is many times superior to poetry in genre diversity.

A copywriter needs to be able to create both prose and poetic works. Knowledge of poetry enriches the language of a prose writer. As K. Paustovsky noted:

“Poetry has one amazing property. She returns the word to its original virgin freshness.”

Types and genres of literature

All literary works can be combined into three large groups, called literary genera and including both poetic and prose texts:

- epic,

– drama,

- lyrics.

Lyroepic is also distinguished as a separate genus and some intergeneric and extrageneric forms are distinguished.

Although there is a division into genders, there can be “generic intersection” in literary works. So, maybe an epic poem, lyrical story, dramatic story, etc.

In each of literary families includes works of a certain genre.

Literary genres– these are groups of works collected according to formal and substantive characteristics. We can also say that a genre is a historically emerging and developing type work of art, having a certain set of stable properties (size, speech structures, principles of construction, etc.). Genres provide continuity and stability in literary development.

Over time, some genres die out and are replaced by others. Also, “remaining” genres can become both more and less popular - both among authors and among readers. To form or change literary genres influences historical reality. For example, at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the detective novel, the police novel, the science fiction novel, and the ladies' (“pink”) novel developed powerfully.

Classification of genres is not an easy task, because different genres may have the same properties.

Historically, genres were divided into two groups: “high” and “low”. So, in the early literary times the lives of saints were classified as “high,” and works of entertainment as “low.” During the period of classicism, a strict hierarchy of genres was established: high ones are ode, tragedy, epic, low ones are comedy, satire, fable. Later, fairy tales and novels began to be classified as “high” ones.

Today they talk about high literature (strict, truly artistic, “literary top”), and about mass literature (“trivial”, “popular”, “consumer”, “paraliterature”, “contemporary literature”, “literary bottom”). The first is intended for people who are reflective, educated, and knowledgeable about art. The second is for the undemanding majority of readers, for a person “not familiar (or little familiar) with artistic culture“who does not have developed taste, who is unwilling or unable to think independently and appreciate works, who seeks mainly entertainment in printed materials.” Mass literature is characterized by schematism, the use of stereotypes, clichés, and “authorlessness.” But popular literature compensates for its shortcomings with dynamically developing action and an abundance of incredible incidents.

Classical literature and fiction are also distinguished. Classic literature- these are those works that are the pinnacles of creativity and which modern authors should be equal to.

As they say, a classic is something that is written with the tastes of future generations in mind.

Fiction (from the French belles lettres - belles lettres) is usually called non-classical narrative prose, which belongs to mass literature, but is not at the very “bottom”. In other words, fiction is the middle mass literature, located between the classics and pulp fiction.

A copywriter must have a good understanding of the specifics of genres and genres literary works. For example, mixing or substituting genres can easily “kill” a text for a reader who expects one thing and gets another (instead of “comedy” - “drama”, instead of “action” - “melodrama”, etc.). However, a thoughtful mixture of genres can also work effectively for a certain text. The final result will depend on the literacy and skill of the copywriter. He must know the “laws of the genre.”

More detailed information on this topic can be found in the books of A. Nazaikin