) - rhetorical contrast of text, a stylistic figure of contrast in artistic or oratory speech, consisting in a sharp opposition of concepts, positions, images, states, interconnected by a common design or inner meaning.
Antithesis in literature
The figure of antithesis can serve as a construction principle for entire poetic plays or individual parts works of art in poetry and prose. For example, F. Petrarch has a sonnet (translation by Yu. N. Verkhovsky), entirely built on an antithesis:
And there is no peace - and there are no enemies anywhere;
I'm afraid - I hope, I'm cold and burning;
I drag myself in the dust and soar in the skies;
Strange to everyone in the world - and ready to embrace the world.In her captivity I don’t know;
They don’t want to own me, but the oppression is harsh;
Cupid does not destroy and does not break bonds;
And there is no end to life and no end to torment.I am sighted - without eyes; silently - I emit screams;
And I thirst for destruction - I pray to save;
I hate myself - and I love everyone else;
Through suffering - alive; with laughter I cry;Both death and life are cursed with sadness;
And this is to blame, oh donna, you!
Descriptions and characteristics, especially the so-called comparative ones, are often constructed antithetically.
For example, the characterization of Peter the Great in “Stanzas” by A. S. Pushkin:
Sharply highlighting the contrasting features of the compared members, the antithesis, precisely because of its sharpness, is distinguished by its too persistent persuasiveness and brightness (for which this figure was so loved by the romantics). Many stylists therefore had a negative attitude towards the antithesis, but on the other hand, poets with rhetorical pathos, such as Hugo or Mayakovsky, have a noticeable predilection for it:
Our strength is truth
yours - laurels ringing.
Yours is incense smoke,
ours is factory smoke.
Your power is a chervonets,
ours is a red banner.
We will take,
let's borrow
and we will win.
The symmetry and analytical nature of the antithesis make it very appropriate in some strict forms, as, for example, in Alexandrian verse, with its clear division into two parts.
The sharp clarity of the antithesis also makes it very suitable for the style of works that strive for immediate persuasiveness, as, for example, in works that are declarative-political, with a social tendency, agitational or have a moralistic premise, etc. Examples include:
Antithetical composition is often observed in social novels and plays with a contrasting comparison of the lives of different classes (for example: “The Iron Heel” by J. London, “The Prince and the Pauper” by Mark Twain, etc.); antithesis can underlie works that depict a moral tragedy (for example: “The Idiot” by Dostoevsky), etc.
In this social key, the device of antithesis was used in a very original way by N. A. Nekrasov in the first poem from the “Songs” cycle:
People have a vat of cabbage soup with corned beef,
And in our cabbage soup there is a cockroach, a cockroach!
People have godfathers - they give children,
And our godfathers will eat our bread!
What people have on their minds is to chat with their godfather,
What's on our minds is, shouldn't we go with the bag?
As an example of the use of antithesis in modern poetry, let us give an eight-line poem by Aidyn Khanmagomedov:
Once again the feathered leader will miss summer
and, calling out, will raise her friends.
Like children of two separated parents,
sometimes they go north, sometimes they go south.
They probably like the nomadic life,
since he doesn’t sit there or here.
As if there is a native foreign land on earth,
and there is a foreign homeland.
Konstantin Kinchev (We are heading towards the forest):
Your symbol is the wind rose,
Mine is a rusty nail.
But for God's sake, let's not find out
Which one of us is the guest?
Notes
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See what “Antithesis” is in other dictionaries: Antithesis...
Spelling dictionary-reference book - (Greek αντιθεσις opposition) one of the stylistic techniques (see Figures), which consists in comparing specific ideas and concepts related to each other by a common design or internal meaning. For example: “He who was nothing will become everything”...
Literary encyclopedia Antithesis - ANTITHESIS (Greek Αντιθεσις, opposition) a figure (see) consisting of a comparison of logically opposite concepts or images. An essential condition for antithesis is the subordination of opposites to the one that unites them. general concept , or… … Dictionary
literary terms - (Greek antithesis, from anti against, and thesis position). 1) a rhetorical figure consisting of placing next to two opposing, but connected by a common point of view, thoughts to give them greater strength and liveliness, for example, in Peaceful time , or… … son… … Russian language
antithesis- y, w. antithèse f., lat. antithesis, gr. 1. A rhetorical figure consisting of a juxtaposition of contrasting thoughts or expressions. Sl. 18. If Cicero himself lived in our time, he would not amuse the Readers with antitheses on two or on... ... Historical Dictionary of Gallicisms of the Russian Language
Opposition, contrast, juxtaposition, contrast, juxtaposition. Ant. thesis Dictionary of Russian synonyms. antithesis see opposite 2 Dictionary of synonyms of the Russian language. Practical information... Synonym dictionary
- (from the Greek antithesis opposition), a stylistic figure, with or opposition of contrasting concepts, states, images (Beautiful, like a heavenly angel, Like a demon, insidious and evil, M.Yu. Lermontov) ... Modern encyclopedia
- (from the Greek antithesis opposition) stylistic figure, comparison or opposition of contrasting concepts, positions, images (I am a king, I am a slave, I am a worm, I am a god!, G. Derzhavin) ... Big encyclopedic Dictionary
- [te], antitheses, female. (Greek antithesis) (book). 1. Opposition, opposite. || Comparison of two opposing thoughts or images for greater strength and vividness of expression (lit.). 2. The same as antithesis (philosophy). Dictionary… … Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary
- [te], s, female. 1. A stylistic figure based on a sharp contrast, the opposition of images and concepts (special). Poetic a. "ice and fire" in "Eugene Onegin". 2. transfer Opposition, opposite (book). A.… … Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
Women or antithesis masculine, Greek, rhetorician. opposite, opposition, for example: there was a colonel and became a dead man. great person for small things. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. IN AND. Dahl. 1863 1866 … Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary
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Contrast, a stylistic figure of contrast in artistic or oratory speech, consisting in a sharp opposition of concepts, positions, images, states, interconnected by a common design or internal meaning.
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Antithesis in literature
The figure of antithesis can serve as a construction principle for entire poetic plays or individual parts of works of art in verse and prose. For example, Petrarch F. has a sonnet (translation by Yu. N. Verkhovsky), entirely built on an antithesis:
And there is no peace - and there are no enemies anywhere;
I'm afraid - I hope, I'm cold and burning;
I drag myself in the dust and soar in the skies;
Strange to everyone in the world - and ready to embrace the world.In her captivity I don’t know;
They don’t want to own me, but the oppression is harsh;
Cupid does not destroy and does not break bonds;
And there is no end to life and no end to torment.I am sighted - without eyes; silently - I emit screams;
And I thirst for destruction - I pray to save;
I hate myself - and I love everyone else;
Through suffering - alive; with laughter I cry;Both death and life are cursed with sadness;
And this is to blame, oh donna, you!
Descriptions and characteristics, especially the so-called comparative ones, are often constructed antithetically.
For example, the characterization of Peter the Great in “Stanzas” by A. S. Pushkin:
Now an academician, now a hero,
Either a sailor or a carpenter...
Sharply highlighting the contrasting features of the compared members, the antithesis, precisely because of its sharpness, is distinguished by its too persistent persuasiveness and brightness (for which this figure was so loved by the romantics). Many stylists therefore had a negative attitude towards the antithesis, but on the other hand, poets with rhetorical pathos, such as Hugo or Mayakovsky, have a noticeable predilection for it:
Our strength is truth
yours - laurels ringing.
Yours is incense smoke,
ours is factory smoke.
Your power is a chervonets,
ours is a red banner.
We will take,
let's borrow
and we will win.
The symmetry and analytical nature of the antithesis make it very appropriate in some strict forms, as, for example, in Alexandrian verse, with its clear division into two parts.
The sharp clarity of the antithesis also makes it very suitable for the style of works that strive for immediate persuasiveness, as, for example, in works that are declarative-political, with a social tendency, agitational or have a moralistic premise, etc. Examples include:
§ 6. Co- and oppositions
In the construction of works, comparisons of subject-speech units play an almost decisive role. L.N. Tolstoy said that “the essence of art” lies “in<…>an endless labyrinth of couplings."
At the origins of compositional analogies, similarities and contrasts (antitheses) - figurative parallelism, characteristic primarily of song poetry different countries and eras. This construction technique was carefully studied by A.N. Veselovsky. The scientist explored numerous comparisons between phenomena inner life man and nature in historically early poetry, especially folk poetry. According to his thought, the original and “simplest” form of “analogies” and “comparisons” in poetic creativity is binomial parallelism, which compares nature and human life. Example from Russian folk song: “The silk grass spreads and curls/Across the meadow/Kisses and favors/Mikhail his wife.” Binary parallelism can also have other functions, for example, bringing different natural phenomena. These are the words of the folk song “Height, height under heaven, / Depth, depth of the ocean-sea,” known from Sadko’s aria (opera by N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov).
Veselovsky associates two-term parallelism in its original form with the animism of historically early thinking, which connected natural phenomena with human reality. He also claims that it was from binary parallelism of this kind that symbols, metaphors, and allegorical imagery of fables about animals grew. Poetry's commitment to parallelism was, according to Veselovsky, predetermined by the manner of performing song texts in two voices: the second performer picked up and complemented the first.
Along with the parallelism of syntactic structures, comparisons (both in contrast and in similarity) of larger text units: events and, most importantly, characters are rooted in literary works. Fairy tale, as shown by V.Ya. Propp always correlates the images of the hero and his opponent (“pest”). As a rule, it is impossible to do without sharp and evaluatively clear character antitheses, without “polarization” of what is being recreated, without contrasting favorable and unfavorable circumstances and events for the heroes.
Incompatibilities and opposites prevail in the character organization and plot construction works and other genres. Let us remember the epic about Ilya Muromets and the filthy Idol, the fairy tale about Cinderella, the antipode of which is the Stepmother; or - from later artistic experience - Molière's opposition to Tartuffe of Cleante. The sane Chatsky in “Woe from Wit” is “opposite,” according to A. S. Griboedov, with twenty-five fools; To the dragon in the famous play by E.L. Schwartz is the antithesis of Lancelot.
The principle of opposition, however, does not reign supreme in literature. Over time, from era to era, along with antitheses (character and event), more dialectical, flexible comparisons of facts and phenomena as both different and similar became stronger. Thus, in Pushkin’s novel in verse, the three main characters - Onegin, Tatyana, Lensky - are opposed to each other and at the same time similar to one another in their sublime aspirations, “not fitting” into the surrounding reality, and dissatisfaction with it. And the events in the lives of the heroes (first of all, the two explanations of Onegin and Tatyana) with their inescapable drama are more similar to each other than contrasting.
Much is based on comparisons of similarities in “War and Peace”, and in “The Brothers Karamazov”, and in “The Master and Margarita”. This type is most clear artistic construction made itself felt in the plays of A.P. Chekhov, where the oppositions (of heroes and events) moved to the periphery, giving way to the disclosure of various manifestations of the same essentially the same, deepest life drama of the depicted environment, where there are neither completely right nor completely guilty. The writer recreates the world of people helpless in the face of life, in which, according to Olga from “Three Sisters,” “everything is not done our way.” “Every play says: it is not individual people who are to blame, but the entire existing structure of life as a whole,” wrote A.P. Skaftymov about Chekhov's plays. “And people’s only fault is that they are weak.” And the fates of the characters, and the events that make up Chekhov's dramatic stories, and stage episodes, and individual statements are linked in such a way that they appear as an endlessly stretching chain of confirmations that the discord between people and life and the destruction of their hopes are inevitable, that thoughts of happiness and the fullness of being are vain. The “components” of the artistic whole here do not so much contrast as complement each other. There is something similar in the so-called “theater of the absurd” (almost in most of the plays of E. Ionesco and S. Beckett), where events and characters are similar to each other in their incongruity, “puppet-likeness,” and absurdity.
The components of what is depicted in the work, as can be seen, are always correlated with each other. An artistic creation is the focus of mutual “roll calls”, sometimes very numerous, rich and varied. And, of course, meaningful in content, activating the reader, directing his reactions.
This text is an introductory fragment.Antithesis is a means of expression that is often used in the Russian language and in Russian literature because of its powerful expressive capabilities. So, antithesis definition is such a technique in artistic language when one phenomenon is contrasted with another. Those who want to read about the antithesis of Wikipedia will certainly find there different examples from poems.
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I would like to define the concept of “antithesis” and its meaning. She has great importance in language, because it is a technique that allows compare two opposites, for example, “black” and “white”, “good” and “evil”. Concept this technique defines it as a means of expressiveness that allows you to very vividly describe an object or phenomenon in poetry.
What is antithesis in literature
Antithesis is an artistic figurative and expressive means that allows you to compare one object with another based on oppositions. Usually she's like artistic medium, is very popular among many modern writers and poets. But in the classics you can also find great amount examples. Within the antithesis can be opposed in meaning or in their properties:
- Two characters. This most often happens in cases where positive character opposed to negative;
- Two phenomena or objects;
- Different qualities of the same object (looking at the object from several aspects);
- The qualities of one object are contrasted with the qualities of another object.
Lexical meaning of trope
The technique is very popular in literature because it allows you to most clearly express the essence of a particular subject through opposition. Typically, such oppositions always look lively and imaginative, so poetry and prose that use antithesis are quite interesting to read. She happens to be one of the most popular And known means artistic expression literary text, be it poetry or prose.
The technique was actively used by the classics of Russian literature, and modern poets and prose writers use it no less actively. Most often, the antithesis underlies contrast between two characters in a work of art, When positive hero is opposed to negative. At the same time, their qualities are deliberately demonstrated in an exaggerated, sometimes grotesque form.
Skillful use of this artistic technique allows you to create a living, imaginative description of characters, objects or phenomena found in a particular work of art(novel, story, story, poem or fairy tale). It is often used in folklore works(fairy tales, epics, songs and other genres of oral folk art). During runtime literary analysis text, you must definitely pay attention to the presence or absence of this technique in the work.
Where can you find examples of antithesis?
Antithesis examples from literature can be found almost everywhere, in the most different genres fiction starting from folk art (fairy tales, epics, legends, etc. oral folklore) and ending with works modern poets and writers of the twenty-first century. Due to its characteristics of artistic expression, the technique is most often found in the following genres of fiction:
- Poems;
- Stories:
- Fairy tales and legends (folk and author's);
- Novels and stories. In which there are lengthy descriptions of objects, phenomena or characters.
Antithesis as an artistic device
As a means of artistic expression, it is built on the opposition of one phenomenon to another. A writer who uses antithesis in his work chooses the most character traits two characters (objects, phenomena) and tries to reveal them as fully as possible by contrasting each other. The word itself, translated from ancient Greek, also means nothing more than “opposition.”
Active and appropriate use makes the literary text more expressive, lively, interesting, helps to most fully reveal the characters of the characters, the essence of specific phenomena or objects. This is what determines the popularity of the antithesis in the Russian language and in Russian literature. However, in others European languages this is a remedy artistic imagery is also used very actively, especially in classical literature.
In order to find examples of antithesis during the analysis of a literary text, you must first examine those fragments of the text where two characters (phenomena, objects) are not considered in isolation, but are opposed to each other with different points vision. And then finding a reception will be quite easy. Sometimes the whole meaning of a work is built on this artistic device. It should also be borne in mind that the antithesis can be explicit, but maybe hidden, veiled.
Finding a hidden antithesis in an artistic literary text is quite simple if you read and analyze the text thoughtfully and carefully. In order to teach how to correctly use a technique in your own literary text, you need to familiarize yourself with the most striking examples from Russian classical literature. However, it is not recommended to abuse it so that it does not lose its expressiveness.
Antithesis is one of the main means of artistic expression, widely used in the Russian language and in Russian literature. The technique can easily be found in many works of Russian classics. They actively use it and modern writers. Antithesis enjoys well-deserved popularity because it helps to most clearly express the essence of individual heroes, objects or phenomena by contrasting one hero (object, phenomenon) with another. Russian literature without this artistic device is practically unthinkable.