The concept of genre in modern literary criticism. Problems of literary criticism: literary theory

Fantasy is one of the most popular genres of our time. Its manifestations can be found in literature, music, painting, cinema, and drama. This genre is loved by representatives of all ages: children - for the fairy-tale, magical plot, adults - for the hidden meanings and ideas, the opportunity to escape from everyday life. In order to understand its significance in the modern world, one should first study its features and sources of formation.

The concept of genre in modern literary criticism

In modern literary criticism there is no single definition of the concept of “genre”, as well as a single classification. The problem is the focus of attention of scientists; to denote the science of literary types and genres, the term “genology” even (and without even) came into use (Paul Van Tieghem, 1920). Let us consider the dynamics of solving this problem in Russian literary criticism.

Belinsky was the first to raise this problem in the article “The Division of Poetry into Genera and Species.” There is no need to take notes on it, but if you are talking about the history of the issue, then start with Beklinsky and briefly in your own words what he wrote about.

Alexander Nikolaevich Veselovsky (1836-1906) studied the relationship “content - form”. In "Historical Poetics" the scientist asserts the commonality and continuity of the elements of form among different peoples in different historical periods. The content that fills these forms is different at each historical moment; it renews and brings to life certain forms. New forms are not created, innovation is manifested in combinations of new contents and existing elements of forms, the latter in turn being a product of the primitive collective psyche. According to Veselovsky’s teaching on syncretism, the prototypes of literary genres were in a mixed state within the framework of ritual actions connecting songs and dances. Genres at this moment are inseparable from each other; over time, one after another they separate from the ritual and develop independently. Veselovsky writes about the criteria for distinguishing types of literature, but the criteria for distinguishing by content are related to genres. The researcher sees the content of genera as different stages of the relationship between man and society, identifying three stages correlated with three types of literature:

1) “commonality of mental and moral outlook, non-singleness of the individual in the conditions of a clan, tribe, squad” (epic);

2) “progress of the individual on the basis of group movement,” isolation within the class framework (ancient Greek and medieval lyric poetry, ancient Greek and chivalric romance);

3) “general recognition of man,” the fall of class and the establishment of personal principles (short story and novel of the Renaissance) [Veselovsky, 1913].

The indicated stages are stable, since they change only with the change of eras, and have the content of the relationship between man and society. According to V.M. Zhirmunsky, Veselovsky wrote “Historical Poetics” as “the history of the genre” [Zhirmunsky, 1978 - p. 224].

For the first time, speech genres became the object of research in the works of Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) in the 1930s-40s. “It was M.M. Bakhtin who helped to realize that genreology is a fundamental, basic area of ​​the science of literature” [Golovko, 2009]. In the article “The Problem of Speech Genres,” Bakhtin argues that a person uses language in the form of utterances, which, being specific and individual, are nevertheless combined into relatively stable types depending on the areas in which they are used. The sphere of communication determines the content, linguistic style and composition of the statement (depending on the purpose and conditions of the sphere of communication). Utterances are thus grouped into a set of types, which Bakhtin designates as “speech genres.” The researcher notes the heterogeneity and diversity of genres within each sphere and in connection with the multiplicity of spheres of communication; within oral and written language. Bakhtin distinguishes primary, or simple, and secondary, or complex, speech genres. Primary genres are formed within the framework of speech communication itself and then enter, transforming, into the structure of secondary ones, organized on the basis of a highly developed society (such as novels, dramas, scientific research, and so on).

The boundaries of the utterance are delineated by the change of subjects of speech, as well as integrity, which is determined by “subject-semantic exhaustion, speech intent or speech will of the speaker, as well as typical compositional and genre forms of completion” [Bakhtin, 1996]. The features of these characteristics, in turn, determine the style of expression. Statements of a certain speech genre are filled with certain lexical units characteristic of the genre.

Bakhtin spoke about the dialogical nature of genres; this applied to both primary genres, which actually exist in the process of communication, and secondary ones. On the one hand, the choice of literary (secondary) genres is dictated to the author by the characteristics of the era in which the work was created and the audience for which it is intended. On the other hand, “genre expectation” presupposes a set of reader requirements for works of different genres. Thus, genres are formed and exist within the framework of dialogue.

In opposition to Yu. Tynyanov, who asserted a change in the system of genres with a change in historical era in connection with the leading role of the author's individuality, Bakhtin considered the genre to be the most stable structure over time.

Boris Viktorovich Tomashevsky (1890-1957) defined the concept of genre as follows: “special classes<…>works characterized by the fact that in the techniques of each genre we observe a grouping of techniques specific to this genre around these tangible techniques, or signs of the genre." The subject matter, the motivation for the themes, as well as the form of speech - poetic or prosaic - determine whether a work belongs to a particular genre. Tomashevsky recognizes compositional techniques as dominant over all other techniques, together they give the definition of the genre, and are therefore called “dominant.” [Tomashevsky, 1999 - p. 136]. “These features of the genre are varied and can relate to any aspect of the work of art.” [Tomashevsky, 1999 - p. 146]. Such “diversity,” according to the scientist, does not allow genres to be classified on general grounds. At best, a division into dramatic, lyrical and narrative genres is possible. A genre can evolve and change quite significantly, growing with new works that move further and further from the original canon. A genre can break up into new ones. In general, there is a gradual transition between low genres and high genres.

E.S. Babkina notes that with a genetic approach - considering a genre as a dynamic developing system - it becomes impossible to completely correlate genres of different historical eras, since at a certain period the genre carries both “dying” features that cease to be significant, and new ones that are not yet significant become. However, different genres are at different stages of development. As V.E. writes Khalizev, the time of existence of genres is not the same: some, such as the fable, exist for many centuries, while others arise and cease to exist within one historical period [Khalizev, 1999].

Viktor Maksimovich Zhirmunsky (1891-1971) pointed out the equivalence of thematic (content) and compositional characteristics in distinguishing genres, as well as, in some cases, the importance of style components in this matter. Moreover, the connection between these characteristics is not constant and is historically determined. Recognizing that genres have typical features, Zhirmunsky proposed studying not the brightest creations of eras, but the most widespread ones, which should contain what is most typical for the genre in a particular period: “...it is the minor poets who create the literary “tradition.” They transform individual characteristics great literary work into genre characteristics..." [Zhirmunsky, 1978 - p. 226]. In each historical era, certain patterns are formed, characteristic of specific genres, and these patterns are created from minor authors from the most striking manifestations of outstanding authors. The scientist notes the possibility of mutual influence of genres, including new and half-forgotten ones, and as a result, the “rejuvenation” of the latter by enriching them with patterns of the former. Towards the end of the literary era, the boundaries of the accepted genre are “shaken”; borderline genres arise due to the exhaustion of templates and attempts to go beyond their limits.

According to Gennady Nikolaevich Pospelov (1899-1992), genres do not exist in isolation, but in a system. “Without comparing some genres with others, it is difficult to find out the uniqueness of each of them” [Pospelov, 1978 - p. 232]. D.S. was the first to draw attention to this circumstance. Likhachev, explaining systematicity by the mutual influence of genres and the commonality of reasons that provoke their emergence.

According to Pospelov, genres are repeated during different historical eras, and since the formal features of the same genre are different in different eras, attention should be paid to the content aspect. Agreeing with Veselovsky on the issue of the origin of genres from primitive folklore, Pospelov reproaches him for excluding the prose genre of the primitive fairy tale from his field of view. He also uses individual names of genres as names of genre forms - such as epic, fairy tale, story, story, song, poem, fable, ballad, plays and poems, since the content aspect in these forms can be completely different.

The division into literary genera and genres, according to Pospelov, is carried out on different grounds. He derives genre groups based on the content aspect, each of which includes genres of all three types of literature.

Moses Samoilovich Kagan (1921 - 2006) in his work “Morphology of Art” classified genres according to four parameters, arguing that the more grounds for classification, the more complete the description of genres is possible. He described genres in the following aspects:

1) thematic (plot-thematic) (for example, the genres of love or civil lyrics);

2) cognitive capacity (story, novel, novel);

3) axiological aspect (for example, tragedy or comedy);

4) the type of models created (documentary / artistic, etc.) [Kagan 1972].

Liliya Valentinovna Chernets (1940) points to the presence of typical genre expectations in the reader, which, due to differences in genre characteristics in different eras, are also different. Due to the specificity of reader expectations, a large volume of literary genres arises. Chernets sees the function of genre in classification and indication of literary tradition. Works belonging to different types of literature may, nevertheless, belong to the same genre. Such criteria as the pathos of the work and “repetitive features of the issue” allow them to be combined within one genre. However, belonging to a certain genus is also a criterion for distinguishing genres. Following G.N. Pospelov, L.V. Chernets adheres to the understanding of genre as primarily a structure of content.

The formal concept of the genre, as opposed to the substantive one, sees the genre as an established type of text structure (including composition and extra-plot elements). This position was adhered to by N. Stepanov, G. Gachev, and V. Kozhinov. The genre form is dictated by the tradition and idiostyle of the author. The debate about whether form or content is decisive in the concept of genre is still ongoing.

In addition to the fact that, as noted above, genres form a system, each genre itself is a system, where the core consists of essential features, and the periphery is variable.

Summarizing the considered features of the genre, it seems appropriate to propose a definition of the genre as a subtype of a type of literature, characterized by the presence of relatively stable typical formal and substantive properties that are different from those characteristic of other genres, determined by tradition, reader expectations and the author’s attitude.

Thus, despite all the diversity of approaches, the following understanding of the genre has developed in Russian literary criticism. A genre is a specific type of literary work. The main genres can be considered epic, lyrical and dramatic, but it would be more accurate to apply this term to their individual varieties, such as the adventure novel, buffoon comedy, etc. Every literary genre, possessing only its own inherent features, has passed and is passing through certain paths in its development, which is why one of the main tasks of both theoretical and historical poetics is, on the one hand, to understand these features, and on the other, to study their states in different eras due to their evolution

In modern literary criticism, given the presence of different concepts and approaches to defining genre, a general classification of literary genres has emerged:

1. in form (ode, story, play, novel, story, etc.);

2. by birth:

epic (fable, story, myth, etc.);

lyrical (ode, elegy, etc.);

lyric-epic (ballad and poem);

dramatic (comedy, tragedy, drama).

In popular literature, one can distinguish such genres as detective, action novel, fantasy, historical adventure novel, popular song, women's novel. The problem of genre is relevant here too. Let's take a closer look at the classification of fantasy genres.

Elena Afanasyeva in her article “The fantasy genre: the problem of classification” [Afanasyeva, 2007 - pp. 86-93] combines the classifications of other authors and creates her own, the most general and complete: epic fantasy, dark fantasy, mythological fantasy, mystical fantasy, romantic fantasy , historical fantasy, urban fantasy, heroic fantasy, humorous fantasy and parodies, science fantasy, techno-fantasy, Christian or sacred fantasy, philosophical action, children's and women's fantasy. This will be discussed in more detail in the next paragraph.

Literary genres are groups of works distinguished within types of literature. Each of them has a certain set of stable properties. Many literary genres have their origins and roots in folklore. Genres that have emerged again in literary experience proper are the fruit of the combined activities of the founders and successors. Genres are difficult to systematize and classify and stubbornly resist them.

First of all, because there are a lot of them: each artistic culture has specific genres. In addition, genres have different historical scope. Some exist throughout the history of verbal art; others are correlated with certain eras. The picture is further complicated by the fact that the same word often denotes deeply different genre phenomena. Existing genre designations capture various aspects of works. Thus, the word “tragedy” states the involvement of this group of dramatic works in a certain emotional and semantic mood. The word “story” indicates that the works belong to the epic genre of literature and the “average” volume of the text. It is not easy for literary theorists to navigate the processes of genre evolution and the endless “diversity” of genre designations. However, literary criticism of our century has repeatedly outlined, and to some extent carried out, the development of the concept of “literary genre” not only in the concrete, historical and literary aspect, but also in its own theoretical aspect. Experiences in systematizing genres from a supra-epochal and global perspective have been undertaken both in domestic and foreign literary studies. In epic genres, what is important is, first of all, the opposition of genres in terms of their volume. The established literary tradition distinguishes here the genres of large (novel, epic), medium (story) and small (short story), but in typology it is realistic to distinguish only two positions, since the story is not an independent genre, in practice it tends either to the story or to novel. But the distinction between large and small volume seems essential, and above all for the analysis of a small genre - a story. The major genres of epic - the novel and the epic - are different in their content, primarily in their problematics. The dominant content in the epic is the national one, and in the novel - the novelistic problematic. The fable genre is one of the few canonized genres that have preserved real historical existence in the 19th-20th centuries. The lyric-epic genre of the ballad is a canonized genre, but from the aesthetic system not of classicism, but of romanticism.

The conceptual pair content/form is an eternal debate. Particularly hot – 1/3 of the 20th century, the apogee of formalism in literary criticism. If there is no generalization in the work, it will not evoke the reader's empathy. This general meaning is content (idea, ideological content). The form is perceived directly. It has 3 sides: 1) objects - what we are talking about; 2) words - speech itself; 3) composition – arrangement of objects and words. This is the scheme of ancient “rhetoric”, which turns into “poetics”: 1) inventio - invention 2) elocutio - verbal decoration, presentation 3) disposotio - arrangement, composition. M. V. Lomonosov “A Brief Guide to Eloquence” - division: “On invention”, “On decoration”, “On arrangement”. Gives examples from fiction (Virgil, Ovid). 1/3 XX century – interest in the composition and structure of a work, that is, in theoretical poetics, sharply increases. 1925 – Tomashevsky: “Theory of Literature. Poetics". Literary phenomena are generalized and considered as the result of the application of general laws of construction of literary works. 1920-40: Tomashevsky, Timofeev, Pospelov offer schemes for the structure of the work. Similarity with the rhetorical tradition in highlighting the main aspects of the work: themes and stylistics - Tomashevsky (considers issues of composition); images-characters (“immediate content”), language, plot and composition (Timofeev), “objective representation”, verbal structure, composition (Pospelov). Timofeev and Pospelov highlight the figurative level, considering it as the completion of the artistic form. Timofeev distinguishes “character images” from the “ideological and thematic basis.” Pospelov: substantive visualization is determined by the unity of the main levels of content - theme, problematic, pathos. In the future, this concept of the “world of the work” (the legacy of antiquity - highlighting inventio as the task of the poet) will be developed and substantiated by Likhachev and Faryn.

Tomashevsky does not use the concept of image. He defines theme in linguistic traditions as “a certain construction united by a unity of thought or theme.”

1910-20s: formalism. Zhirmunsky, article “Tasks of Poetics” (1919): rejection of the concept of “image” as a tool of analysis due to its uncertainty - “Art requires precision.” Subjects of analysis: poetic phonetics, poetic syntax, themes (the totality of “verbal themes” - comes down to compiling a poetic dictionary; example: “Sentimentalist poets are characterized by such words as “sad”, “languid”, “twilight”, “tears”, “sadness”, “coffin urn”, etc.). Bakhtin called the theoretical poetics of the formalists “material aesthetics,” pointing out the inadequacy of the approach.

OPOYAZ - “Society for the Study of Poetic Language” (Shklovsky, Tynyanov, Eikhenbaum, Yakubinsky) - achieved accuracy by bypassing the category of image. The approach to character analysis, which is traditionally viewed as an “image-character,” is paradoxical. According to Tomashevsky, a character appears in a work only as a means of revealing a certain motive (the character’s function is the carrier of the motive). Shklovsky - the idea of ​​“defamiliarization” - explained the appearance of new techniques in literature by the “automation” of our perception (“Kholstomer”, “V. and M.” Tolstoy). Shklovsky almost did not touch upon the writer’s ideological tasks. He declared art a “reception”. The conceptual pair “content/form” was replaced by “material/technique” (the material – verbal, plot – served as the motivation for the techniques). A literary work is a pure form, a “relationship of materials.” Titles of the articles: “How Don Quixote was made” (Shklovsky), “How the “Overcoat” was made (Eikhenbaum), etc. But not all formalists denied the content. The unity of “what” (content) and “how” (form) in the work was emphasized (Tynyanov, Zhirmunsky). Later, Lotman argues for the need for a “level” study of the structure of a poetic text: “The dualism of form and content must be replaced by the concept of idea. A poem is a complexly constructed meaning.” Ladder of levels: phonetics-grammar-vocabulary. Vocabulary: extra-textual connections – genre, general cultural, biographical contexts  enrichment. The category of content was introduced into philosophy and aesthetics by Hegel. It is associated with the dialectical concept of development as the unity and struggle of opposites. In a work of art they are reconciled. The content of art is the ideal, the form is the figurative embodiment. The task of art is to combine them into one whole. In the future, Hegel foresaw the death of art, because it ceased to be the highest need of the spirit.

Question: why is it often believed that in the work of various poets one thing prevails - form or content? How is a work born? The idea is the core, the proforma, from which the whole work is subsequently derived (Arnaudov). Recklessness, spontaneity, integrity of design. Belinsky distinguished between content (creative concept) and plot (events). Dostoevsky: plan and implementation. The idea is the first part of creation. Compares the act of creating a work from an idea to cutting a diamond.

Form and content: the problem of one lagging behind the other. Heated discussions about the gap between form and content - 1920s. Criticism of Fadeev’s “Destruction” by Polonsky (noting Tolstoy’s features in it). The biblical metaphor is “new wine into old wineskins.” Strict critics - LEF (Left Front of the Arts). Fadeev was also accused of imitating Chekhov. Original forms: accented verse by Mayakovsky, tale, colored with characteristic phraseology (Vs. Ivanov, I. Babel, M. Zoshchenko). The very possibility of “lag in form” reveals its relative independence. She explains the reason for the return to old forms: moralizing and pathos - drama of the 19th century; Iambic tetrameter plus lyrical digressions - “Onegin”; psychological analysis – Tolstoy, Dostoevsky. Features of the form became signs of literary phenomena, elements of codes. In new artistic contexts, however, they can take on new meaning.

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Of course, the author’s problem did not arise in the twentieth century, but much earlier. The statements of many writers of the past surprisingly turn out to be consonant - despite the complete dissimilarity of the same authors in many other ways. These are the sayings:

N.M. Karamzin: “The Creator is always depicted in creation and often against his will.”

M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin: “Every work of fiction, no worse than any scientific treatise, betrays its author with all his inner world.”

“The word “author” is used in literary studies in several meanings. First of all, it means a writer - a real person. In other cases, it denotes a certain concept, a certain view of reality, the expression of which is the entire work. Finally, this word is used to designate certain phenomena characteristic of individual genres and genders.”

Any text is a complex, structurally ordered, multi-level

education. There are various points of view regarding the nature of the text

vision. But the most successful approach to the text seems to be from a communicative position. Thus, narratologists emphasize the communicative nature of text levels. This approach is fully applicable to any type of text, including

including artistic ones. The communicative nature of the text suggests

the presence of a communication chain including the sender of the message (author),

the message itself and the recipient of the message (reader). The message in a literary text is artistic information. And the presentation (by the author) and perception (by the reader) of information of this particular type determines the specificity of the literary text.

Going back to Wolf Schmidt, who revised the ideas of M. Bakhtin and W. Booth

and L. Dolezela, “vertical section model of narrative structure”

involves 4 levels of communication:

4) character - character.

At each level, a message is transmitted from the sender to the recipient.

For every era, for every literary movement, for every

The literary genre is characterized by its own special concepts of the sender and recipient of artistic information. The implementation of the communication chain sender - recipient of artistic information in such a way is very interesting.

literary genre, like a short story.

However, artistic narration is the result of the transformation of a real author into an implicit author. Implicit author- the image of the author created by the reader in the course of his perception of the text. The author transfers responsibility for the speech acts he performs to his substitute in the text - the narrator. This is an abstract author addressing some abstract reader. Abstract

the author does not appear in the form of a certain Abstract reader is the image of the recipient of information, postulated by the entire work of art. When the text contains the appeal “Dear reader, looking ahead, I will say that...”, etc., then this is an appeal not to you, a specific reader, but to an abstract image of the reader.

She can be called an explicit reader - an (explicit, openly expressed) recipient, acting in the form of a character.

Thus, a literary text is one of the forms of “speech act”. In any literary text there is always a narrator and an addressee. Although in some cases they may have some degree of individuality, and in others they may be completely devoid of it. Artistic text -

the world of fiction is simultaneously both in relation to the world of reality and

Philological sciences / 1. Methods of teaching language and literature

Ph.D. Agibaeva S.S.

North Kazakhstan State University named after. M. Kozybaeva, Kazakhstan

On some approaches to studying the problem of genre in literary criticism

Literary genre, as defined by V.V. Kozhinov in the “Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary” (1987), - a historically developing type of literary work; The theoretical concept of genre generalizes the features characteristic of a more or less extensive group of works of a particular era, a given nation, or world literature in general. The principle of historicism regarding the category of genre was emphasized by V.M. Zhirmunsky: “... the concept of genre is always a historical concept and<..>The connection between elements of content (theme) and elements of composition, language and verse, which we find in one genre or another - be it a fable, be it a ballad - represents a typical, traditional unity that has developed historically, in certain historical conditions.<...>Genres in the narrow sense of the word are historically established types of works of art" [cit. from: 2, 318]. The concept of a literary genre is based on the fact of “historical stability of types of artistic structures”, as noted in the work of Yu.V. Stennik “Systems of genres in the historical and literary process”.

Genres are difficult to systematize and classify, largely due to the difficulties that arise in determining the criteria of the genre. Thus, B.V. Tomashevsky called genres specific “groupings of techniques” that are compatible with each other, are stable and depend “on the situation of origin, purpose and conditions of perception of works, on imitation of old works and the literary tradition that arises from here... Techniques of construction are grouped around some tangible techniques. Thus, special classes or genres of works are formed, characterized by the fact that in the techniques of each genre we observe a grouping of techniques specific to a given genre around these tangible techniques, or features of the genre.” The scientist characterizes the signs of a genre as dominant in a work and determining its organization: “These signs of a genre can be varied and can relate to any aspect of a work of art... The signs are diverse, they intersect and do not make it possible to logically classify genres on one basis.”

The same idea is heard in the works of V.M. Zhirmunsky: “It is characteristic that the signs of the genre cover all aspects of a poetic work. They include features of composition, construction of the work, but also features of the theme, i.e., unique content, certain properties of poetic language (stylistics), and sometimes features of the verse. This means that when we talk about genre as a type of literary work, we are not limited to composition, but we mean the type established by tradition of combining a certain theme with compositional form and features of poetic language" [cit. from: 2, 234].

These two features of the category of genre: historicism and structural complexity, determined the directions in the scientific approach to the problem of genre. Firstly, this is the study of a whole range of issues related to the evolution of genres (the development of genre systems, historical poetics, etc.); secondly, the formulation and commentary on various concepts of the genre.

In the context of the first direction, the works of Yu.N. Tynyanov and V.B. Shklovsky played a decisive role. According to Yu. N. Tynyanov, “it is impossible to give a static definition of a genre that would cover all phenomena of the genre: the genre is shifting...”. D. S. Likhachev wrote: “The category of literary genres is a historical category. Literary genres appear only at a certain stage in the development of the art of words and then constantly change and are replaced... the very principles of identifying individual genres change, the types and nature of genres, their functions in a given era change.” D. S. Likhachev pointed out the existence of a “balance” of genres within a certain system in the literature of each era. This balance is dialectical, the genres of one system support each other and at the same time compete with each other. V.B. wrote about the “canonization of younger genres.” Shklovsky in his work “On the Theory of Prose” (1929). His idea was developed and supplemented by Yu. N. Tynyanov: “In an era of decomposition of a genre, it turns from the center into the periphery, and in its place, from the little things of literature, from its backyards and lowlands, a new phenomenon floats into the center.”

B.V. Tomashevsky identified the following processes in the life and development of genres: the birth of a genre (according to Yu. N. Tynyanov - from the rudiments of other systems), the gradual evolution of a genre (example: a novel), the collapse of a genre (example: from a descriptive epic poem in 18 century, a romantic poem of the 19th century is born), the displacement of some genres by others (in two ways: a) the complete extinction of the genre - the ode and epic of the 18th century; b) penetration into the high genre of low genre techniques). At the level of the general historical and literary process, researchers talk about the canonization and decanonization of genre structures (canonical and non-canonical genre forms), about genre confrontations and traditions in great historical time. Genres appear as “cultural-historical individuals” (V. E. Khalizev), “heroes” of the literary process (M. M. Bakhtin).

In the context of another scientific approach - the formulation and commentary of various concepts of the genre - modern researchers rely on the works of M.M. Bakhtin. Based on the material of the novel genre, the scientist built the concept of a “three-dimensional constructive whole,” or three aspects of the genre structure of a work of art: stylistic three-dimensionality in the organization of speech material; violation of the absolute epic distance, i.e., change in temporal orientation; restructuring of the hero's image, disintegration of the epic integrity of man in the novel.

The authors of the textbook “Theory of Literary Genres” (Moscow, 2012) highlight several general concepts of the genre that have developed over time: 1) consideration of the genre in its inextricable connection with the life situation, in particular, with the ritual side of the life of society, “...emphasizing the focus on the audience, which determines the volume of the work, its stylistic tone, stable themes and compositional structure.” 2) Perception of the genre as a picture of the world, representing a traditionally general or individual author’s vision (works by O.M. Freidenberg, G.D. Gachev, G.N. Pospelov). 3) Formation, based on the theory of tragedy from Aristotle onwards, “an idea of ​​the boundary between aesthetic reality and extra-aesthetic reality of the reader-viewer and the specific interaction of these two worlds (the concept of catharsis).

Based on the teachings of M.M. Bakhtin on speech genres, the authors of the manual consider a literary genre as the implementation of a certain communicative strategy of aesthetic discourse.

As a result, the problem of genre structures, the functioning of genres and the evolution of genre systems is currently one of the most pressing in literary studies.

Literature:

1. Kozhinov V.V. Literary genre // Literary encyclopedic dictionary. – M., 1987. – P. 106-107.

2. Tamarchenko N.D. Theoretical poetics. Reader-workshop. – M., 2004. – P. 317-341.

3. Stennik Yu. V. Systems of genres in the historical and literary process // Historical and literary process - L., 1974. – P. 168-202.

4. Tomashevsky B.V. Theory of Literature. Poetics - M., 1999. – P. 206-210.

5. Tynyanov Yu.N. Poetics. History of literature. Movie. – M., 1977. – P. 255-270.

6. Theory of literary genres. Ed. N.D.Tamarchenko. – M., 2012. – P. 6-14.

literary criticism

T. I. Dronova

Saratov State University E-mail: [email protected]

The article examines the most authoritative concepts of the genre as a literary category, identifies alternative approaches to its understanding, and defines the methodological principles of genre identification of the historical and historiosophical novel.

Category of Genre in Contemporary Literary studies T. I. Dronova

The article considers well-established approaches to the genre as a category of literary studies; alternative approaches to its understanding are revealed, methodological principles of genre identity of historic and philosophy of history novels are defined.

Key words: genre convention, author/reader, statics/dynamics, universality/specificity, novel, historic novel, novel of the philosophy of history.

In literary studies of the last decade, devoted to the study of the historiosophical novel of the twentieth century, preference is given to the consideration of historiosophical concepts that determine the problems of the work1. The novelistic nature of the author's statement does not seem to modern scientists to deserve special attention. In dissertation research in the late 2000s - early 2010s. the idea was established that the historiosophical interests of writers at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. led to the weakening of the novel form, in contrast to the situation in the literature of the 19th century, in which the historical interests of the authors contributed to the strengthening of the novel genre2. This provision applies to the literary situation of the late 20th - early 20th centuries. Historical and historiosophical novels are contrasted with each other on the basis of canonicity/non-canonicity of the genre structure3 in terms of the function of history in the structure of works4. In our opinion, the approach declared by modern authors leads to a narrowing of ideas about the historical novel, identified with its classical model, and to insufficient clarity of the genre specificity of the historiosophical novel5.

It is obvious that the genre preferences of researchers are decisively influenced by their general aesthetic ideas (about the category of genre, the specifics of novelistic thinking, etc.). This circumstance, as well as the polysemy of the concepts “historical” and “historiosophical novel,” prompt us to turn to understanding the theoretical aspects of the problem: to clarify the structure of the genre category, and analyze the mechanisms of genre renewal.

In our field of vision are alternative approaches to the category of genre, due to the emphasis on one of the facets of the dialectical

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According to the figurative expression of G. Hegel, “any work of art is a dialogue with every person standing in front of it”6. Genre is one of the bridges connecting the writer and the reader, a mediator between them7. But the nature of this mediation, like the category of genre itself, turns out to be variable and multi-level quantities and, as a result, are interpreted differently in different eras and in the theoretical concepts of the same time.

The severity of the problem in modern literary criticism is due to the clash of different, moreover, alternative approaches to the literary text and thereby to the category of genre. Depending on which authority - the author or the reader - is positioned as the source of creativity, researchers emphasize the formal-content or functional aspects of the concept. At the same time, the determining tendency is to contrast them, to abandon the systematic approach inherent in Russian literary criticism in its peak achievements8.

From the point of view of M. Kagan, a researcher of the internal structure of the world of art, the creator of its “morphology,” the category of genre presupposes “selectivity of artistic creativity.” The process of “genre self-determination,” in his opinion, “depends to a great extent on the consciousness and will of the artist.” If “the choice of a generic structure that is most appropriate to the creative problem being solved<...>is carried out more intuitively and categorically than consciously and exploratoryly, since the generic characteristics of the emerging work must already be present in the concept”, then “genre specificity is sought by the artist most often in the process of implementing the concept, and the solution to this problem is more a function of skill than talent (emphasis added by the author. - T.D.)"9. It is significant that the scientist does not consider it productive to introduce a functional criterion for dividing genres as a defining one10.

The wealth of genre possibilities, the variety and variety of genre structures spread out before the artist and renewed by him11 poses serious difficulties for theorists of literature and art. In an effort to cover all planes of genre division of forms of artistic creativity, to reveal the relationship between different levels of classification of genres as “a system, not a chaotic conglomerate,” M. Kagan proposes to consider the genre in four aspects - cognitive, evaluative, transformative and symbolic (linguistic) (emphasized by the author. - Etc.)12.

A different, functional, approach to the problem is proposed by T. A. Kasatkina, the author of a discussion publication on the structure of the genre category. She made an attempt, very characteristic of modern theoretical thought, to clarify the specifics of this category by rejecting previous literary constructions13. Polemically sharpening the situation, T. A. Kasatkina contrasts the functional aspect with the traditional understanding of the genre in Russian literary studies as a formal-content unity14.

The researcher argues that “a genre is determined (and a genre is determined) not by the rules of constructing an artistic whole (this happens insofar as.), but by the rules of perception of an artistic whole<...>. That is, the reader’s attitude to the writer’s attitude to reality”15. At the same time, the author of the article believes that “a genre is as much a genre as it is identifiable, and not as unique as it is” and that a genre is “what is established before the analysis of an individual work begins, and not what is revealed as a result of this analysis (emphasized by us. - T. D.)"16. T. A. Kasatkina contrasts the literary characteristics of the genre, born as a result of scientific research, with the author’s characteristics, presupposed by the work by the artist, which, in her opinion, are the true substance of the genre.

Without sharing T. A. Kasatkina’s confidence in the saving simplicity of the proposed solutions17, while remaining on the traditional positions for Russian literary criticism of understanding the genre as a formal-substantive unity, which is precisely the channel through which communication with the reader is carried out, we note the significance of the study undertaken by the researcher of the functional aspect of genre nominations18 .

A work of art, as a form of dialogue between the author and the reader, indeed presupposes a certain “convention of the genre.” According to

V. Shklovsky, “genre is a convention, an agreement on the meaning and coordination of signals. The system should be clear to both the author and the reader. Therefore, the author often states at the beginning of a work that it is a novel, drama, comedy, elegy, or epistle. It seems to indicate a way of listening to a thing, a way of perceiving the structure of a work.”19

But in real artistic practice, the writer does not always offer the reader his own (traditional or original) genre designation, and if he does, it does not exhaust the “rules by which the work should be read” (T. A. Kasatkina).

It seems that a genre is not some situation simplified to its everyday understanding (novel, idyllic, tragic, etc.) placed in a subtitle, and not another, often shocking, naming practice designed to attract attention, having a playful character.

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a character, as T. A. Kasatkina believes, but a category characterizing the highest, final level of an artistic form (M. M. Bakhtin). The “convention of the genre,” established before the start of reading the text20, is adjusted, clarified, and deepened in the process of its perception. Thus, the “reading codes” that are “laid” by the author into the structure of the work are “programmed” as signs that accompany the reader from the genre subtitle to the ending.

T. A. Kasatkina, who absolutized the concept of “genre convention” proposed by V. Shklovsky, deprived it of the internal dynamics inherent in it in the author’s interpretation. Polemicizing with the ideas of the formalists - with the “pan-changeability” of the category of genre in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov - she gravitates towards its static understanding and, moreover, towards the interpretation of the concept as a kind of “abstract” form, which “can only serve as a label for recognition” , since, in her opinion, “genre features do not express the essence of the genre, but only determine its recognition”21.

Considering the issues of genre convention on the material of the novel, V. Shklovsky focuses on the dialectic of stable/changeable, using Hegelian terminology: “The structure is usually realized as not entirely foreseen, surprising, located in the studied area, but “different”<. >The novel, always crossing horizons, denies its past. New “harmony” is a new change in “one’s own”

< . >The story of the novel is continuous in negation.

“One’s other” is denied<.>What we call a genre is truly a unity of collision”22 of the expected and the new.

Since in the history of art, according to

V. Shklovsky, there are no disappearing forms and no pure repetitions (“the old returns new in order to express the new”), a novelist who opens “unexplored” paths concludes a “new convention” about the genre. This, of course, increases the requirements for the recipient, who often, not understanding or not recognizing the “laws” established by the author over himself and offered to him, the reader, perceives the new form “according to the old code.”

Such a conflict between the author and the reader is especially frequent, in our opinion, when perceiving works about the distant past, traditionally called historical novels. The genre specificity of this novel variety requires special consideration. Let us first make only one judgment: the term historical novel is neither a definition of the genre essence of a work, nor a characteristic of the author’s pathos. It only means that we are faced with a large epic form, the action of which takes place in the past. In different eras, due to the “borderline” nature of this genre variety, its essence is interpreted either as “novel” or as “historical”. Thus, the feature

literary existence and aesthetic understanding of the historical novel in different periods is the variable nature of its “essence”, the interpretation of which turns out to depend on the peculiarities of the relationship between literature and history in the actual practice and aesthetic consciousness of the era. Undoubtedly, its perception is influenced by the researcher’s characteristic understanding of the stability/changeability of genre categories in general and the novel in particular.

2. statics and dynamics

“Late” Shklovsky strives to remove, in a kind of dialectical synthesis, the contradictions between stability and variability in the category of genre and to overcome the characteristic of the first third of the twentieth century. perception of statics and dynamics in the genre sphere as antinomic principles. This approach defines one of the vectors of literary criticism of the genre in the 1980-1990s.

A productive attempt to overcome the stable/changeable dilemma in the category of genre is, in our opinion, an analysis of the structural nature of this concept, proposed by the Polish researcher N. F. Kopystyanskaya. She identifies four interconnected, interdependent spheres of its implementation: 1) genre as an abstract general theoretical concept, meaning the totality and interrelation of persistent genre characteristics that develop over the course of eras (for example, a novel); 2) genre as a historical concept, limited in time and in “social space” (not a novel in general, but, as in our case, a historical novel of the late 19th and early 20th centuries); 3) genre - a concept that takes into account the specifics of specific national literature (Russian symbolist historical novel); 4) genre as a manifestation of individual creativity (historiosophical novel by Merezhkovsky).

“Thus, the very concept of genre combines the stable and the changeable. Genre is stable as a theoretical concept (sphere 1)<...>The genre is variable in continuous historical development and national identity (sphere 2, sphere 3). A genre is uniquely individual (sphere 4) (the work of outstanding writers is distinguished by a special refraction of genre characteristics and often gives some new direction to the development of one or another genre or its branch, contributes to the transformation of the concept)23 (emphasis added by the author. - T. D.).” The last statement, in our opinion, is directly related to the historiosophical novel by D. S. Merezhkovsky, which stands at the origins of historiosophical prose of the 20th century.

Rich possibilities for understanding the problem are opened up by the reinterpretation 24 of the most representative genre theories of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhti, undertaken in Russian literary criticism.

at 25. For a long time, their concepts were perceived as alternative. The time distance separating us from the first third of the century - the period of the most fierce disputes between different scientific schools, allows us to detect a certain similarity in the positions of their creators.

At the level of authorial intentionality and inferential formulations, Tynianov’s and Bakhtin’s theories of genre evolution appear as negating each other. Thus, Yu. N. Tynyanov states: “<...>it becomes clear that giving a static definition of genre<...>impossible: genre shifts< . >26 (emphasis added.

Etc.). M. M. Bakhtin “objects” to his colleague: “A literary genre, by its very nature, reflects the most stable, “eternal” trends in the development of literature. The genre always preserves undying archaic elements<...>. Genre

Representative of creative memory in the process of literary development. That is why the genre is able to ensure the unity and continuity of this development”27 (emphasis added by the author - T.D.).

But as V. Eidinova rightly notes, Tynianov’s and Bakhtin’s concepts, when approached thoughtfully, also reveal points of intersection28. Rejecting the one-sided approach to the ideas of representatives of the formal and philosophical-aesthetic (Bakhtinian) schools, the researcher identifies in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhtin “a special energy of resistance to frozen, dogmatic literary views; the energy of fighting trends - of any kind - finality, finality, establishing “high-29”

greater limit”29, and in the concepts of each of them

In a collapsed form - the presence of a dialectically complex combination of “traditional” and “new”, “stable” and “changeable”.

Indeed, for Yu. N. Tynyanov, the mechanism of “shift”, “rotation” is a mechanism of “double action”, and the concept of “displacement” implies “inheritance”: “Derzhavin inherited Lomonosov, only by shifting his ode;<.. >Pushkin inherited the large form of the 18th century, making the Karamzinist trifle a large form;<.>All of them could have inherited their predecessors only because they shifted their style, shifted their genres.<...>Each such phenomenon of change is unusually complex in composition<.. >30 (emphasis added by us. - Etc.).”

Equally indicative are M. M. Bakhtin’s “reservations” about the role of “renewal” in the process of “reproduction” of traditional forms: “The genre always preserves undying elements of the archaic. True, this archaism is preserved in it only thanks to constant renewal, so to speak, modernization. The genre is always both this and that, always old and new at the same time. The genre is revived and renewed at each new stage in the development of literature and in each individual work of this genre<.. >Therefore, the archaic, preserved in the genre, is not dead, but forever living.

vaya, that is, capable of being updated”31 (emphasis added by us. - T. D.).

But scientists differ in their judgments about the genre identity of the historical novel and the ways of studying it. Yu. N. Tynyanov emphasizes the “novel” component of this type of genre and the need to see its inclusion in the contemporary artistic context: “Tolstoy’s historical novel is not correlated with Zagoskin’s historical novel, but is correlated with contemporary prose”32. M. M. Bakhtin - on the specificity determined by the presence of the “historical” principle in its structure, on the formal and meaningful commonality of the chronotopes of historical novels of different eras, ensured by the “two-nature” of this genre variety: “The subject of the image is the past< .>. But the starting point of the image is modernity<.>it is she who gives points of view and value guidelines”33. These reflections implicitly contain the idea of ​​duality as a constructive principle that determines the structure of artistic time in a historical novel.

A literary critic seeking a systematic analysis of the historical novel as a thematic variety of the genre needs to take into account the possibilities of both approaches. In our opinion, there is no fundamental contradiction between them, since in Tynianov’s and Bakhtin’s studies the category of genre is taken on different planes. Yu. N. Tynyanov considers the genre as a historical and literary category, dynamic by definition, which, in our opinion, determines the emphasis on its variability. M. M. Bakhtin proceeds from the “genre essence” of the novel and operates on the categories of genre in its general theoretical understanding, which encourages the identification of the most persistent genre features that have developed over a “long period of time.”

At the same time, both Yu. N. Tynyanov and M. M. Bakhtin refer to the historical novel as an artistic phenomenon, which owes its birth to the expansion of the cognitive capabilities of the novel genre, its transition through external and internal boundaries established by the literature of previous periods and normative aesthetics.

3. universality and specificity

The assessment of the aesthetic possibilities of the historical novel is determined by the general theoretical positions of the researcher: does he consider the thematic varieties of the novel genre (historical, philosophical, etc.) as full-blooded forms of novelistic thinking, or considers them specific modifications of the genre, obviously inferior to the “novel itself” in the completeness and diversity of its embodiment substantial content.

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A similar distinction, which exists in modern studies both in works of general

order34, and dedicated to the work of individual authors35, is determined by a certain system of ideas about the genre essence of the novel. Paradoxical as it may seem, we are faced with an approach to the category of genre that has very deep roots, genetically going back to traditions that developed in ancient aesthetics.

The works of S. S. Averintsev, devoted to the genre aspects of the study of ancient literature, contain deep reflections on the birth of aesthetic concepts and the ongoing impact on later literary consciousness of Aristotelian views on the essence of genres. “We must begin, according to Aristotle, with the definition of the genre, that is, with the establishment of the sum of its substantial features; then it is the definition that serves as a measure of practice, a starting point for the recommendations being developed”36. This idea of ​​genres as “identical to themselves and impenetrable entities”37 turned out to be amazingly tenacious in the European aesthetic consciousness.

Modern poetics retain Aristotle’s characteristic identification of the essence of genres with living beings: “And what, according to Aristotle, gives the most clear idea of ​​the essence? “Bodies and what consists of them - living beings and heavenly bodies”<...>. The existence of genres is conceived by analogy with the existence of bodies, in particular living bodies, which may be in “kinship relations”, but cannot be mutually permeable to each other”38.

In these judgments, according to the modern researcher, there is a not yet exhausted source of not always conscious metaphors for describing the existence of genres (their “birth”, “life”, “flourishing”, “withering”, etc.). Of particular interest to us are the problems of interpretation of “borderline” (historical novel, philosophical novel) and “hybrid” (historiosophical novel) genres that arise along this path.

Consideration of a genre as a literary species, according to S.S. Averintsev, inevitably gives rise to an analogy with a biological species: “If a living creature belongs to one species, it thereby cannot belong to another species. Crossings and hybrids are, of course, possible, but they do not remove, but rather emphasize, the line between species forms: in a hybrid, the characteristics of two species can coexist only due to the fact that neither one nor the other species appears in the fullness and purity of its “essence”39 .

In the light of these reflections, the origins (perhaps unconscious of the researchers themselves) of a wary attitude towards such “borderline” novel varieties as the historical novel, the philosophical novel and especially their interpenetration become clear.

into each other in the “hybrid” form of a historiosophical novel.

The famous maxim of O.-Yu. I. Senkovsky: “The historical novel, in my opinion, is a bastard son without clan, without tribe, the fruit of the seductive adultery of history with imagination<.>"40 - for all its shockingness, is in line with the metaphorization of genre concepts, going back to Aristotle's Poetics.

V. G. Belinsky, who has done a lot to understand the novel as the freest, broadest, most comprehensive kind of poetry,41 and who paid great attention to its historical and philosophical varieties, sees in the position of adherents of “purity of genres” an attempt to slow down the development of literature. Speaking about the wary attitude of contemporary critics towards the work of poet-thinkers, he ironically says:<^отят видеть в искусстве своего рода умственный Китай, резко отделенный точными границами от всего, что не искусство в строгом смысле слова. А между тем эти пограничные линии существуют больше предположительно, нежели действительно; по крайней мере их не укажешь пальцем, как на карте границы государств. Искусство по мере приближения к той или другой своей границе постепенно теряет нечто от своей сущности и принимает в себя то, с чем граничит, так что вместо разграничивающей черты является область, примиряющая обе стороны»42.

Extremely relevant for the 20th century, which received deep theoretical understanding in the works of Yu. N. Tynyanov, M. M. Bakhtin, D. S. Likhachev, Yu. M. Lotman, is the idea of ​​culture as a “borderline” phenomenon43 and of the “border” as “the birthplace of the new”44 was formulated, as we see, by V. G. Belinsky.

At the same time, for Belinsky himself, “hybrid” combinations of historical and philosophical novels, which, in his opinion, manifest different types of genre thinking, were unacceptable. The critic contrasts “painting” and “interpretation”, the talent of the “poet-artist” and the talent of the “poet-thinker”. And, as a consequence, the historical novel and the philosophical novel appear in his aesthetics as independent artistic and cognitive systems, alternative in their intentionality.

In one of his magazine reviews, speaking disapprovingly of a translated historical novel, Belinsky argued: “The historical novel is not a German thing. A philosophical, fantastic novel - this is their triumph. A German will not present to you, like an Englishman, a person in relation to the life of the people or, like a Frenchman, in relation to the life of society; he analyzes him in the highest moments of his existence, depicts his life in relation to the higher world life and remains faithful to this direction even in the historical novel.”45

Seeing the pinnacle achievements of the realistic historical novel in its “fidelity to reality,” Russian literary criticism of the 19th-20th centuries. with a greater or lesser degree of wariness towards attempts to “connect the incompatible” - history and philosophy, “painting” and “interpretation” in the structure of the novel whole. It seems that the genre initiative of D. S. Merezhkovsky, the creator of the historiosophical novel, can be adequately assessed only if the a priori rejection of such a synthesis is abandoned.

In Russian aesthetics from Belinsky to Bakhtin (including their modern interpreters), the emphasis is on the universality of the novel in comprehending reality, which distinguishes it from other genres. This approach is deeply rooted in the aesthetic thought of the New Age. An understanding of the special place of the novel among other genres developed in European aesthetics already in the 17th-18th centuries.

As A.V. Mikhailov convincingly showed, the aesthetic understanding of the novel (as it becomes an anti-rhetorical genre) is moving in the direction of awareness and increasingly clear formulation of its unique, in comparison with other genres, universality in comprehending reality46. Already in “An Essay on the Novel” (1774) by F. von Blankenburg, “the completeness of the novel is the completeness of the life seen, of reality. The basis of such completeness is not a given general semantic measure (in rhetorical genres, given by myth. - Etc.), but the measure of reality itself, its internal law”47.

The romantic theorist Friedrich Ast at the beginning of the 19th century draws a perspective for the development of the novel as a universal genre, “in which not only literature (literature), but all art in general, having described its historical circle, comes to itself. The novel, in Asta’s opinion, is the self-awareness of art. The individual expands in him to the universal, all genres and forms of art reach absoluteness in him. The novel is the totality, it is the “everything” of poetry.”48

The tradition of German philosophical thought through G. Hegel, V. G. Belinsky, D. Lukach, M. M. Bakhtin enters modern aesthetic consciousness, introducing into it a special attitude towards the novel as a genre, which is only conditionally introduced into the nomenclature, school system of literary genres. This situation leads to the emergence of a number of methodological and methodological problems in the field of genre studies, the solution of which poses significant difficulties for the researcher of individual thematic varieties of the genre.

The perception of the novel as having a certain essence implicitly contains the Aristotelian understanding of the formation of a genre as “coming to oneself; having reached self-

identity, genre naturally

stops, he has nowhere to go”49.

In the case of a novel, the “entelechy” (internal predetermination, the imperative of self-identity) which lies in the universality and totality of the recreation of reality, a situation arises in which the realistic novel is recognized as the “ultimate” novelistic authority. The further existence of the novel can only be considered in the categories of “preservation” or “crisis”. A natural consequence of this approach is the perception of the realistic novel as a “peak”, a “peak” from which only descent is possible: “The novel, thus, acts as the final genre of realistic literature. It acts as a universal genre of realistic literature - as one in which all the wealth of possible stylistic solutions unfolds50 (emphasis added by the author - T.D.).”

The orientation of literary scholars and critics to the realistic model of the genre as an “exemplary” one largely determined the nature of aesthetic reflection on the fate of the novel in the 20th century: 1) doubts about the possibilities of the genre in the new era and prophecies about the “end of the novel”; 2) the perception of the modernist novel as “damage”, “loss” of novelistic possibilities and, as a consequence, recognition of its achievements only with reservations; 3) a suspicious attitude towards specific varieties of the novel (historical and philosophical), which do not possess the fullness of its universality as a mimetic narrative.

Thus, the absolutization of the “genre essence” of the novel can become a hindrance for a researcher of literature of the 20th century, especially its first third, marked by exceptional dynamism, a change in aesthetic systems, and deliberate efforts to overcome the realistic novel tradition and/or its synthesis with the experience of modernism.

Let's summarize some results. Being a thematic variety of the novel genre, the historiosophical novel, due to its “borderline” nature, presents certain difficulties for literary research.

Firstly, in the historiosophical novel there is a violation of the “external” boundaries of the novel genre - between literature and philosophy, literature and history. The active invasion of non-fictional discourses into the novel structure leads to its ideologization and historicization. Qualification of these processes in line with genre thinking is one of the conditions for literary analysis.

Secondly, the “hybrid” nature of this genre variety, which ensures the meeting of historical and philosophical discourses in a single artistic space, leads to an acute conflict. In our opinion, overcoming this collision by aesthetic means is the main source of genre energy of the historiosophical novel.

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Thirdly, the specificity of historiosophical discourse determines the nature of the existential problems mastered by the novel. The religious and philosophical paradigm in which the search for the meaning of history is carried out requires its appropriate qualifications. There is a need to combine axiological and aesthetic approaches in the process of analysis, with the dominance of the latter.

Notes

1 See: Polonsky V. Mythopoetics and dynamics of the genre in Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. M., 2008; It's him. Mythopoetic aspects of genre evolution in Russian literature of the late XIX - early XX centuries: abstract. dis. ... Dr. Philol. Sci. M., 2008; Breeva T. Conceptualization of the national in the Russian historiosophical novel of the situation of foreignness: abstract. dis. Dr. Philol. Sci. Ekaterinburg, 2011; Sorokina T. Artistic historiosophy of the modern novel: abstract. dis. . Dr. Philol. Sci. Krasnodar, 2011.

2 See: Polonsky V. Mythopoetics and dynamics of the genre in Russian literature of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. pp. 50-51.

3 For the argumentation for refusing to consider the historical novel as a significant object of research, see: Sorokina T. Decree. op. P. 12.

4 According to T. N. Breeva, “in a historical novel, history acts as an object of expression, in this capacity it is arranged by its own novel beginning.<. >In contrast to this, in the historiosophical novel, history begins to be considered as a subject of utterance, which significantly contributes to the transformation of the relationship between the novel and the historical principle” (Breeva T. Op. op. p. 12).

5 On the lack of clarity of the term “historiosophical novel” in literary criticism at the end of the 20th century. see: Dronova T. Historiosophical novel of the 20th century: the problem of genre identity // Little-known pages and new concepts of the history of Russian literature of the 20th century: materials of the International. scientific conf. MGOU, June 27-28, 2005. Issue. 3. Part 1: Literature of Russian abroad. M., 2006.

6 Hegel G. Aesthetics: in 4 volumes. M., 1968. T. 1. P. 274.

7 See about this: Chernets L. Literary genres. M., 1982. P. 77.

8 See: Bakhtin M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. M., 1975; It's him. Aesthetics of verbal creativity. M., 1979, etc.

9 Kagan M. Morphology of art: a historical and theoretical study of the internal structure of the world of art. L., 1972. S. 410-411.

10 Considering the concept of Sokhor (Sokhor A. Aesthetic nature of the genre in music. M., 1968), who considered the functional criterion to be decisive, M. Kagan concludes that such a decision “led to the mixing of completely different classification planes and - what is especially significant - gave known fruits in relation to music, but it turned out

completely inapplicable to other arts” (Kagan M. Op. op. p. 411).

11 Let us note some mechanicalness in M. Kagan’s description of the situation of “genre choice,” apparently inevitable in the study of “morphology of art”: “... in the real creative process, the artist always faces the need for a more or less conscious choice of a certain genre structure that seems to him optimal for solving this creative problem. And even in the case when the artist is not satisfied with any of the existing genre structures of his time and he goes in search of a new one - either by modifying one of the existing ones, or by crossing two or three genres known to him, or by trying to construct something completely in in this regard, unprecedented - even in this case, he is forced to carry out a certain act of “genre self-determination”” (Kagan M. Op. op. p. 410).

12 Ibid. P. 411.

13 See: Kasatkina T. The structure of the genre category // Context-2003: literary and theoretical studies. M., 2003. It is significant that the same publication published materials from a discussion on topical problems of literary theory, the participants of which note with alarm the desire of the newest literary schools to abandon what their predecessors did. I. B. Rodnyanskaya sees the reason for attempts to “throw off the steamship of modernity” the results of predecessors on the new wave of ideologization of humanitarian knowledge in general: “Previously, we knew ideologization only in one form - the Marxist press

< .>It seemed that the heavy shackles would fall and the ideological injections would stop. In fact, ideologization has found a home in the newest schools of knowledge, and its first sign is the rejection of what their predecessors did. If literary criticism is a form of knowledge (science not in the sense of science, but in the sense of knowledge), then something established by it cannot be discarded by each new school, new generation in order to bring everything to the zero cycle. In humanitarian knowledge, if it is not subordinated to ideological goals extraneous to it, continuity cannot be rejected<...>. Unlike science, philosophy and other forms of spiritual activity, ideologies (as well as utopias inseparable from them) like to start everything from scratch” (Round table “Current problems of literary theory” in IMLI // Context-2003. pp. 12-13) .

14 See Bakhtin’s reflections on the interaction of form and content in aesthetic activity: “So, form is an expression of the active value relationship of the author-creator and the perceiver (co-creator of the form) to the content; all moments of a work in which we can feel ourselves, our value-related activity related to the content and which are overcome in their materiality by this activity, must be attributed to form” (Bakhtin M. M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. P. 59).

15 Kasatkina T. Decree. op. P. 70.

16 Ibid. P. 65.

17 “A genre is a certain program of behavior in a certain situation, a certain stereotype.<. >That's why

So, in essence, titles (often very intelligent works) like “Genre originality.” are absurd. Genre is what remains when the work (behavior) has already been stripped of all originality. Everything else is related to something else” (Kasatkina T. Op. op.

pp. 72-73). Of course, there is a certain sense in searching for life analogies with genre structures in literature. But this, as V. E. Khalizev rightly believes, is related to the sphere of the genesis of literary genres (see: V. Khalizev. Life analogue of artistic imagery (experience of substantiating a concept) // Principles of analysis of a literary work. M., 1984).

18 When incorporating the judgments of T. A. Kasatkina into the context of Bakhtin’s reflections on the nature of genre, it becomes obvious that the researcher updates the theory of genres more phraseologically than in essence, but the question of the addressee is sharpened correctly. At the same time, it simplifies the idea of ​​literary genres, identifying primary (simple) and secondary (complex, including artistic) genres, ignoring the speech nature of the genre and the variety of genre forms of expression.

19 Shklovsky V. Is the novel over? // Foreign literature. 1967. No. 8. P. 220.

21 Kasatkina T. Decree. op. P. 85.

22 Shklovsky V. Decree. op. pp. 220-221.

23 Kopystyanskaya N. The concept of “genre” in its stability and variability // Context-1986: literary and theoretical studies. M., 1987. P. 182. In actual literary practice, the interaction of different levels of the concept of genre is by no means conflict-free. The novel as an abstraction and the novel as a historical and literary category are in a relationship of attraction and repulsion, since the genre as an essence tends towards stability, and as a literary fact - towards variability to the point of denying the substantial principles established by aesthetic theory.

24 See: Eidinova V. “Anti-dialogism” as a stylistic principle of “Russian absurd literature” of the 20s - early 30s (to the problem of literary dynamics) // XX century. Literature. Style. Style patterns of Russian literature of the 20th century (1900-1930). Ekaterinburg, 1994.

25 As is known, in the theory of literary evolution by Yu. N. Tynyanov, the problem of genre is central. After all, it is the understanding of genre transformations in Russian literature of the 13th-19th centuries. gave the scientist the basis for determining the “basic laws” of literary evolution. In the works of M. M. Bakhtin, genres appear as the main characters of the “drama of literary development”: “Behind the superficial diversity and hype of the literary process, they do not see the great and significant destinies of literature and language, the leading heroes of which are genres, and trends and schools are the heroes of only the second and third order” (emphasis added by us. - T. D.) (Bakhtin M. M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. P. 451).

26 Tynyanov Yu. Poetics. History of literature. Movie. M., 1977. P. 256.

27 Bakhtin M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. M., 1979.

28 The position of G. S. Morson is indicative, emphasizing that formalism for M. M. Bakhtin is a “friendly other” (Makhlin V. - Morson G. Correspondence from two worlds // Bakhtin collection-2. M., 1991. P. 40.

29 Eidinova V. Decree. op. P. 9.

30 Tynyanov Yu. Decree. op. P. 258.

31 Bakhtin M. Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. pp. 121-122.

32 Tynyanov Yu. Decree. op. P. 276.

33 Bakhtin M. Questions of literature and aesthetics. P. 471.

34 See, for example: “You need to see and understand the core, essential properties of the figurative and direct speech form of the novel. References to transitional, dual types of the novel (satirical, romantic-historical, utopian, in which the features discussed above appear in a complex interweaving with other qualities), all these clarifying amendments, seemingly designed to protect against dogmatism and normativity, are in fact capable of only to obscure, to obscure the great artistic discovery made in the mainstream of the novel” (Kozhinov V.V. The Origin of the Novel. M., 1963.

35 See, for example: Miroshnikov V. Novels of Leonid Leonov: the formation and development of an artistic system of philosophical prose. Ryazan, 1992. Commenting on the definition of “philosophical novel” applied to works of a strictly philosophical nature that took the form of a figurative narrative (works by Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Unamuno, Musil, Camus, Sartre, Huxley, etc.), he writes : “...this is without any doubt a “synthetic form of culture”, which must be recognized only as such and, in order to avoid confusion, resolutely separated from fiction itself<. >In our country, without any theoretical justification, such works are often called “philosophical novels” only on the basis of their philosophicalness and fiction, which, however, is not enough to recognize their aesthetic “full value”” (p. 23).

36 Averintsev S. Genre as abstraction and genres as reality: dialectics of closedness and openness // Averintsev S. Rhetoric and the origins of the European literary tradition. M., 1996. P. 192.

37 Ibid. P. 194.

38 Ibid. pp. 192-193.

39 Ibid. pp. 197-198.

40 Library for reading. 1834. T. II. Dept. V. S. 14.

41 “The novel and story have now become the leaders of other types of poetry<. >The reasons for this lie in the very essence of the novel and story as a kind of poetry. In them, better, more conveniently than in any other kind of poetry, fiction merges with reality, artistic invention is mixed with a simple, as long as it is faithful, copying from nature<...>This is the broadest, most comprehensive kind of poetry; he feels talent

G. S. Prokhorov. Organization of the narrative in the work

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yourself infinitely free. It combines all other types of poetry - both lyricism as an outpouring of the author’s feelings about the event being described, and drama as a more vivid and prominent way to force these characters to speak out. Digressions, reasoning, didactics, intolerable in other types of poetry, can have a legitimate place in the novel and story. A novel and a story give full scope to the writer regarding the predominant properties of his talent, character, taste, direction, etc.” (Belinsky V.G. A look at Russian literature of 1947: second and last article // Belinsky V.G. Collected works: in 9 volumes. M., 1982. T. 8. P. 371).

42 Belinsky V. Decree. op. P. 374.

43 “A cultural region has no internal territory: it is all located on the borders, the borders pass everywhere, through every moment of its<.>Every cultural act essentially lives on boundaries: this is its

seriousness and significance; abstracted from boundaries, he loses ground, becomes empty, arrogant, degenerates and dies” (Bakhtin M. Questions of Literature and Aesthetics. P. 25).

44 On the border as a place of dialogue, cultural bilingualism, the area of ​​accelerated semiotic processes, see: Lotman Yu. About the semiosphere // Lotman Yu. Selected articles: in 3 volumes. Tallinn, 1992. Vol. 1; It's him. Culture and explosion. M., 1992; It's him. Inside thinking worlds. Man - Text - Semiosphere - History. M., 1996.

45 Belinsky V. G Decree. op. T. 1. P. 354.

46 See: Mikhailov A. Novel and style // Theory of literary styles: modern aspects of study. M., 1982.

47 Ibid. P. 155.

48 Ibid. P. 142.

49 Averintsev S. Decree. op. P. 191.

50 Mikhailov A. Decree. op. P. 141.

organization of narration in a literary work

G. S. Prokhorov

Moscow State Regional Social and Humanitarian Institute E-mail: [email protected]

The article is devoted to the problem of organizing narration in a literary and journalistic work. The author proves that, contrary to traditional views on the speech organization of artistic journalism, the narrator, hero and author-creator do not aesthetically coincide. The speech subject of artistic journalism is a special type of narrator, the specificity of which lies in the structurally manifested unfused but inseparable connection with the author-creator.

Key words: artistic and journalistic unity, author-creator, narration, type of narrator, M. M. Bakhtin.

The Narrative structure of Aesthetic Journalism Work G. s. Prokhorov

The article dwells on the problem of narrative structure in an aesthetic journalism work. The author proves that, contrary to the traditional views on the speech structure of aesthetic journalism, the narrator, the hero, and the author-creator of such works aesthetically do not correspond. The speech subject of aesthetic journalism is a special type of narrator, whose peculiarity is made up of the structurally manifested unmerging and inseparable bond with the author-creator.

Key words: aesthetic journalism, author-creator, narration, narrator, M. M. Bakhtin.

The concept of “artistic and journalistic work,” despite a significant number of references to it1, remains highly

blurry. We can talk about either a work of art containing a large number of prototypical or documentary references, or a skillfully executed text that is purely descriptive in nature.

While the status of the artistic-journalistic literary form is questionable, its inherent narrative model is even more problematic. In a work of art, the narrator is “not a person, but a function”2. Being a function, the narrator, like any of the characters, was created by the author, only not for life in the internal form of the work, but for organizing a story about events, situations and collisions of the inner world3. Therefore, the narrator is a fictional subject4, like any hero: “One of the main features of a narrative literary text is its fictionality, that is, the fact that the world depicted in the text is fictitious, imaginary”5.

The correlation of narration, narrator and fictionality leads to difficulties in using these concepts in relation to artistic journalism. After all, according to the existing basic ideas, an artistic and journalistic text, if not completely non-fictional (cf.: “In the method of typification, there is a fundamental difference between the creative method of an essayist and a prose writer. A prose writer synthesizes a type, creates it through an individual general idea of ​​​​the typical features of a particular

© Prokhorov G. S., 2012