Funny and sad, scary and funny, they are familiar to us from childhood. Our first ideas about the world, good and evil, and justice are associated with them.
Both children and adults love fairy tales. They inspire writers and poets, composers and artists. Based on fairy tales, plays and films are staged, operas and ballets are created. Fairy tales came to us from ancient times. They were told by poor wanderers, tailors, and retired soldiers.
A fairy tale is one of the main types of oral folk art. A fictional narrative of a fantastic, adventure or everyday nature.
Folk tales are divided into three groups:
Tales about animals - the most ancient look fairy tales They have their own circle of heroes. Animals talk and behave like people. The fox is always cunning, the wolf is stupid and greedy, the hare is cowardly.
Everyday fairy tales - the heroes of these fairy tales - a peasant, a soldier, a shoemaker - live in real world and they usually fight with a master, a priest, a general. They win thanks to resourcefulness, intelligence and courage.
Fairy tales - heroes fairy tales fight for life and death, defeat enemies, save friends when faced with evil spirits. Most of these tales involve the search for a bride or a kidnapped wife.
Tales about animals.
Young children, as a rule, are attracted to the animal world, so they really like fairy tales in which animals and birds act. In a fairy tale, animals acquire human traits - they think, speak, and act. Essentially, such images bring to the child knowledge about the world of people, not animals.
In this type of fairy tale, there is usually no clear division of characters into positive and negative. Each of them is endowed with one particular trait, an inherent character trait, which is played out in the plot. Yes, traditionally main feature foxes are cunning, wolves are greedy and stupid. The bear has a not so clear image; the bear can be evil, and sometimes kind, but at the same time it always remains a klutz. If a person appears in such a fairy tale, then he invariably turns out to be smarter than the fox, the wolf, and the bear. Animals in fairy tales observe the principle of hierarchy: everyone recognizes the strongest as the most important. It's a lion or a bear. They always find themselves at the top of the social ladder. This brings fairy tales about animals closer to fables, which is especially evident from the presence in both of them of similar moral conclusions - social and universal.
Among the tales about animals, there are some quite scary ones. A bear eats an old man and an old woman because they cut off his paw. An angry beast with a wooden leg, of course, seems terrible to kids, but in essence it is the bearer of fair retribution. The narration allows the child to figure out a difficult situation for himself.
Russian folk fairy tales, their features.
This is the most popular and most loved genre by children. Everything that happens in a fairy tale is fantastic and significant in its purpose: its hero, finding himself in one or another dangerous situation, saves friends, destroys enemies - fights for life and death. The danger seems especially strong and terrible because its main opponents are not ordinary people, but representatives of the supernatural. dark forces: Serpent Gorynych, Baba Yaga, Koschey the Immortal, etc. By winning victories over these evil spirits, the hero, as it were, confirms his high human beginning, his closeness to the bright forces of nature. In the struggle, he becomes even stronger and wiser, makes new friends and receives every right to happiness - to the satisfaction of his little listeners.
In the plot of a fairy tale, the main episode is the beginning of the hero’s journey for the sake of one or another important task. On his long journey, he encounters treacherous opponents and magical helpers. He has very effective means at his disposal: a flying carpet, a wonderful ball or mirror, or even a talking animal or bird, a swift horse or a wolf. All of them, with some conditions or without them at all, in the blink of an eye fulfill the requests and orders of the hero.
Russian folk social and everyday life fairy tales and their features.
The everyday (satirical) tale is closest to everyday life It doesn’t even necessarily include miracles. Approval or condemnation is always given openly, the assessment is clearly expressed: what is immoral, what is worthy of ridicule, etc. Even when it seems that the heroes are simply fooling around, amusing the listeners, their every word, every action is filled with significant meaning and is connected with important aspects of a person’s life.
The constant heroes of satirical fairy tales are “ordinary” poor people. However, they invariably prevail over a “difficult” person - a rich or noble person. Unlike the heroes of a fairy tale, here the poor achieve the triumph of justice without the help of miraculous helpers - only thanks to intelligence, dexterity, resourcefulness, and even fortunate circumstances.
For centuries, the everyday satirical tale has absorbed the characteristic features of the life of the people and their attitude towards those in power, in particular towards judges and officials.
Animal characters sometimes appear in everyday fairy tales, and perhaps the appearance of such abstract characters, like Truth and Falsehood, Woe and Misfortune. The main thing here is not the selection of characters, but the satirical condemnation of human vices and shortcomings.
Sometimes such a specific element is introduced into a fairy tale children's folklore, like a shapeshifter. In this case, a shift in real meaning occurs, encouraging the child to correctly arrange objects and phenomena. In a fairy tale, the shapeshifter becomes larger, grows into an episode, and already forms part of the content. Displacement and exaggeration, hyperbolization of phenomena give the child the opportunity to laugh and think.
Life of a fairy tale - continuous creative process. Every new era there is a partial or complete renewal of the fairy tale plot. When it concerns a rearrangement of ideological accents, a new fairy-tale version arises. This feature of the fairy tale requires careful study of each fairy tale text.
In a fairy tale, there are constant values that have developed as a result of its traditional nature, and variables that have arisen as a result of endless retellings.
The most important feature of a fairy tale is its special form of construction, its special poetics. Narrativeness and plot, an orientation towards fiction and edification, a special form of narration - these signs are found in various genres epic cycle.
A fairy tale as an artistic whole exists only as a combination of these features. Fairy tales in general were one of the most important areas of folk poetic art, which had not only ideological and artistic, but also enormous pedagogical and educational value. The divergence in views on a fairy tale is associated with what is regarded as the main thing in it: an orientation toward fiction or the desire to reflect reality through fiction.
However, as often happens in science, the lack classical definition is not reflected at all on the phenomenon itself and has very little effect on life in the public consciousness. The essence and vitality of a fairy tale, the secret of its magical existence is in the constant combination of two elements of meaning: fantasy and truth.
On this basis, a classification of types of fairy tales arises, although not entirely uniform.
Classification of fairy tales (according to T.D. Zinkevich-Evstigneeva):
· psychotherapeutic tales;
· meditative tales.
Classification of fairy tales (according to V.Ya. Propp):
· magical;
· adventurous;
· household;
· tales about animals;
· cumulative.
The most widespread classification of fairy tales is based on the problem-thematic approach, which distinguishes:
· fairy tales dedicated to animals;
· fairy tales;
· social and household;
· fairy tales of mixed type.
The groups of fairy tales do not have sharply defined boundaries, but, despite the fragility of the demarcation, such a classification allows you to start a substantive conversation with the child about fairy tales within the framework of a conventional “system” - which, of course, makes the work of parents, educators or teachers easier.
The following can be said about fairy tales included in the reading range of younger schoolchildren.
Tales about animals. Folk poetry embraced the whole world, its object was not only man, but also all living things on the planet. By depicting animals, the fairy tale gives them human traits, but at the same time it records and characterizes their habits, “way of life,” etc. Hence the lively, intense text of fairy tales. These are the fairy tales “The Gray Neck” by D. Mamin-Sibiryak, “The Frog Traveler” by V. M. Garshin, “The Three Bears” by L. Tolstoy, “The First Hunt” by V. Bianki, “Rikki Tikki Tavi” by Kipling, “The Fox the Lapotnitsa” » V.I.Dal.
Man has long felt a kinship with nature; he truly was a part of it, fighting with it, seeking its protection, sympathizing and understanding. The later introduced fable, parable meaning of many fairy tales about animals is also obvious.
Fairy tales. Fairy tales of the fairy type include magical, adventure, and heroic. At the heart of such fairy tales is a wonderful world. The wonderful world is an objective, fantastic, unlimited world. Thanks to unlimited fantasy and a wonderful principle of organizing material in fairy tales with a wonderful world of possible “transformation”, amazing in their speed (children grow by leaps and bounds, every day they become stronger or more beautiful). Not only the speed of the process is surreal, but also its very nature (from the fairy tale “The Snow Maiden”). “Look, the Snow Maiden’s lips turned pink, her eyes opened. Then she shook off the snow and a living girl came out of the snowdrift.” "Conversion" in fairy tales of the miraculous type usually occurs with the help of magical creatures or objects. So, in the fairy tale by A.S. Pushkin, Prince Guidon turns to his assistant for help and she turns him into a mosquito, a fly, or a bumblebee.
Basically, fairy tales are older than others; they bear traces of a person’s primary acquaintance with the world around him. Fairy tales with elements of magic include C. Perrault “The Little Thumb”, G. H. Andersen “Thumbelina”, P. P. Bazhov “The Jumping Fire Girl”, S. T. Aksakov “ Scarlet flower».
Everyday tales. A characteristic feature of everyday fairy tales is the reproduction of everyday life in them. The conflict of an everyday fairy tale often consists in the fact that decency, honesty, nobility under the guise of simplicity and naivety is opposed to those personality qualities that have always caused sharp rejection among the people (greed, anger, envy).
As a rule, in everyday fairy tales there is more irony and self-irony, since good triumphs, but the randomness or singularity of its victory is emphasized. These include “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda” by A.S. Pushkin, “Masha the Confused” by L. Voronkova, D. Mamin-Sibiryak “The Tale of the Brave Hare - Long Ears, Slanting Eyes, Short Tail.”
The diversity of “everyday” fairy tales is characteristic: social-everyday, satirical-everyday, novelistic and others. Unlike fairy tales, everyday fairy tales contain a more significant element of social and moral criticism, she is more definite in her social preferences. Praise and condemnation sound stronger in everyday fairy tales.
Fairy tales of mixed type. IN lately V methodological literature Information began to appear about a new type of fairy tales - fairy tales of a mixed type. Of course, fairy tales of this type have existed for a long time, but they have not been given of great importance, because they forgot how much they can help in achieving educational, educational and developmental goals. In general, fairy tales of a mixed type are fairy tales of a transitional type.
They combine features inherent in fairy tales with a wonderful world, everyday tales. Elements of the miraculous also appear in the form of magical objects, around which the main action is grouped.
Fairy tale in different forms and scale strives to realize the ideal human existence. For example, the Brothers Grimm fairy tale “A Pot of Porridge”.
The fairy tale's belief in the intrinsic value of nobles human qualities, an uncompromising preference for good are also based on a call for wisdom, activity, and true humanity. Fairy tales from our blue planet broaden our horizons, awaken interest in the life and creativity of other peoples, and foster a sense of trust in all the inhabitants of our Earth engaged in honest work. Often it is a literary fairy tale that belongs to this type.
In literary criticism there is still no single definition of the genre of a literary fairy tale, and no single classification has been created. Exists large number definitions of a literary fairy tale, which can be divided into two types. The first type of definition is a listing of individual characteristics that are usually inherent in a literary fairy tale, but in specific works these characteristics may be absent.
The second type of definition is an attempt at a generalized universal definition. Yu.F. Yarmysh noted that “A literary fairy tale is such a genre literary work“, in which moral, ethical or aesthetic problems are solved in a magical, fantastic or allegorical development of events and, as a rule, in original plots and images in prose, poetry and drama.”
A literary fairy tale intertwines elements of fairy tales about animals, everyday and fairy tales, adventure and detective stories, science fiction and parody literature.
In textbooks on literary reading Grades 1-4 included literary tales Russians and foreign writers. The task of teaching in each class is to deepen children’s knowledge about works of folk art, expand and enrich reading experience, and introduce literary ideas and concepts. From class to class, the range of reading expands and the level of erudition increases. Gradually, children form the concept of literary (author's) fairy tales, types of fairy tales (magical, everyday, about animals), and comparison of author's fairy tales by foreign and Russian writers makes it possible to highlight similarities and differences, the “similarity” of plots, and the peculiarities of their language.
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Fairy tales... this word makes the hearts of both children and adults flutter. The children are looking forward to their next meeting with magical world, adults - remember their childhood. Traditionally, it is believed that fairy tales should be told by a grandmother - gray-haired, wise and ancient, like the Universe itself - and kind, like Mother Earth. Or maybe my mother read fairy tales when she opened big book with bright pictures...
Whatever the introduction to a fairy tale, it becomes the necessary “school” that every child goes through. However, there are also fairy tales that are not for children at all - let’s remember “Donkey Skin” by Charles Perrault; after all, not every parent will decide to read to their child a fairy tale about a king who intends to marry his own daughter, and even O. Wilde’s cruelly sad fairy tale “The Birthday of the Infanta” a bit heavy for children.
Chronologically, tales about animals can be considered the most ancient. They go back to the era of totemism, when a person considered himself a descendant of an animal - and this allowed him to be on an equal footing with those whom we now call “our smaller brothers.” General feature Such tales are animals acting like people. A typical example is a fairy tale about a fox and a hare who built themselves a hut - an ice hut and a bast hut...
Animals in such tales correspond to certain human types: the fox is cunning, the wolf is angry and aggressive, but not very smart, the bear is also not very smart, but is kind, the hare is peaceful and defenseless... It is interesting that these types are international. Open J. W. Goethe’s poem “Reinicke the Fox”, based on the medieval “Roman of the Fox”, which in turn goes back to folk tales about animals - and you will see all the same “animal-human types” that are familiar to us based on Russian fairy tales.
A special category of fairy tales about animals are those in which humans are present. The relationship between humans and animals can be different. So, in famous fairy tale“Tops and Roots” - man triumphs over the bear - apparently, this plot was born already when man realized himself as an intelligent, thinking being, capable of dominating nature to a certain extent.
Another category is fairy tales. When talking about “fairy tales in general,” most often they mean them. Here there is everything that goes beyond everyday reality: “a certain kingdom, a certain state” (from the point of view ancient man – other world), wizards, fairies, people turning into animals, objects with miraculous powers, spells, otherworldly creatures like Western elves or our Baba Yaga... Often, such stories are based on the motive of initiation - a rite of passage: the hero must pass a series of tests in order to marry a princess, receive half a kingdom, etc. - in a word, to be reborn in a new quality. That is why the motif of “difficult tasks” is typical for magical initiation tales: build a palace in one night, etc.
And finally - everyday tales. There is nothing miraculous in them - in such stories we meet ordinary people, however, more interesting, smarter or remarkable in some other way. These include, for example, tales about an experienced soldier (the most famous is “Porridge from an Ax”). These fairy tales are very young - they were born after the era of Peter the Great... and in general, everyday fairy tales can be considered the youngest. Perhaps they began to be composed already when man’s worldview became less “mystical”?
Of course, such a division is somewhat arbitrary - for example, in fairy tales there may well be humanized animals (such as Gray Wolf, helping Ivan Tsarevich). And yet, this classification to a certain extent reflects the path traveled by humanity.
The most important ideas, main problems, plot cores and - most importantly - the balance of forces that bring about good and evil are essentially the same in fairy tales different nations. In this sense, any fairy tale knows no boundaries; it is for all humanity.
Folklore studies have devoted a lot of research to the fairy tale, but defining it as one of the genres of oral folk art still remains an open problem. The heterogeneity of fairy tales, the wide thematic range, the variety of motives and characters contained in them, the countless number of ways to resolve conflicts really make the task genre definition fairy tales are very complex.
And yet, the divergence in views on a fairy tale is associated with what is regarded as the main thing in it: an orientation toward fiction or the desire to reflect reality through fiction.
The essence and vitality of a fairy tale, the secret of its magical existence is in the constant combination of two elements of meaning: fantasy and truth.
On this basis, a classification of types of fairy tales arises, although not entirely uniform. Thus, with a problem-thematic approach, fairy tales dedicated to animals, tales about unusual and supernatural events, adventure tales, social and everyday tales, anecdote tales, upside-down tales and others are distinguished.
The groups of fairy tales do not have sharply defined boundaries, but despite the fragility of the demarcation, such a classification allows you to start a substantive conversation with the child about fairy tales within the framework of a conventional “system” - which, of course, makes the work of parents and educators easier.
Today the following classification of Russians is accepted: folk tales:
1. Tales about animals;
2. Fairy tales;
3. Everyday tales.
Let's take a closer look at each type.
Animal Tales
Folk poetry embraced the whole world; its object was not only man, but also all living things on the planet. By depicting animals, the fairy tale gives them human traits, but at the same time it records and characterizes their habits, “way of life,” etc. Hence the lively, intense text of fairy tales.
Man has long felt a kinship with nature; he truly was a part of it, fighting with it, seeking its protection, sympathizing and understanding. The later introduced fable, parable meaning of many fairy tales about animals is also obvious.
In fairy tales about animals, fish, animals, birds act, they talk to each other, declare war on each other, make peace. The basis of such tales is totemism (belief in a totem animal, the patron of the clan), which resulted in the cult of the animal. For example, the bear, which became the hero of fairy tales, according to the ideas of the ancient Slavs, could predict the future. He was often thought of as a terrible, vengeful beast, unforgiving of insults (the fairy tale “The Bear”). The further the belief in this goes, the more confident a person becomes in his abilities, the more possible is his power over the animal, the “victory” over him. This happens, for example, in the fairy tales “The Man and the Bear” and “The Bear, the Dog and the Cat.” Fairy tales differ significantly from beliefs about animals - in the latter, fiction associated with paganism plays a large role. The wolf is believed to be wise and cunning, the bear is terrible. The fairy tale loses its dependence on paganism and becomes a mockery of animals. Mythology in it turns into art. The fairy tale is transformed into a kind of artistic joke - a criticism of those creatures that are meant by animals. Hence the closeness of such tales to fables ("The Fox and the Crane", "Beasts in the Pit").
Tales about animals are allocated to a special group based on the nature of the characters. They are divided by type of animal. This also includes tales about plants, inanimate nature (frost, sun, wind), and objects (a bubble, a straw, a bast shoe).
In fairy tales about animals, man:
1) plays minor role(the old man from the fairy tale “The Fox Steals Fish from the Cart”);
2) occupies a position equivalent to an animal (the man from the fairy tale “The old bread and salt is forgotten”).
Possible classification of tales about animals.
First of all, a fairy tale about animals is classified according to the main character (thematic classification). This classification is given in the index fairy tales world folklore, compiled by Arne-Thomson and in the "Comparative Index of Plots. East Slavic Fairy Tale":
1. Wild animals.
- Fox.
- Other wild animals.
2. Wild and domestic animals
3. Man and wild animals.
4. Pets.
5. Birds and fish.
6. Other animals, objects, plants and natural phenomena.
The next possible classification of a fairy tale about animals is a structural-semantic classification, which classifies the fairy tale according to genre. There are several genres in a fairy tale about animals. V. Ya. Propp identified such genres as:
1. Cumulative tale about animals.
3. Fable (apologist)
4. Satirical tale
E. A. Kostyukhin identified genres about animals as:
1. Comic (everyday) tale about animals
2. A fairy tale about animals
3. Cumulative tale about animals
4. A short story about animals
5. Apologist (fable)
6. Anecdote.
7. A satirical tale about animals
8. Legends, traditions, everyday stories about animals
9. Tales
Propp, in the basis of his classification of animal tales by genre, tried to put a formal feature. Kostyukhin, on the other hand, partly based his classification on a formal feature, but basically the researcher divides the genres of fairy tales about animals according to content. This allows us to better understand the diverse material of fairy tales about animals, which demonstrates the variety of structural structures, diversity of styles, and richness of content.
The third possible classification of a fairy tale about animals is a classification based on the target audience. Tales about animals are divided into:
1. Children's fairy tales.
- Fairy tales told for children.
- Fairy tales told by children.
2. Adult fairy tales.
This or that genre of animal tales has its own target audience. Modern Russian fairy tales about animals mainly belong to a children's audience. Thus, fairy tales told for children have a simplified structure. But there is a genre of fairy tales about animals that will never be addressed to children - this is the so-called. A "naughty" ("cherished" or "pornographic") tale.
About twenty plots of fairy tales about animals are cumulative fairy tales. The principle of such a composition is the repeated repetition of a plot unit. Thompson, S., Bolte, J. and Polivka, I., Propp identified fairy tales with cumulative composition as a special group of fairy tales. The cumulative (chain-like) composition is distinguished:
1. With endless repetition:
- Boring fairy tales like “About the White Bull.”
- A unit of text is included in another text (“The priest had a dog”).
2. With End Repetition:
- “Turnip” - plot units grow into a chain until the chain breaks.
- “The cockerel choked” - the chain unravels until the chain breaks.
- “For a rolling duck” - the previous unit of text is negated in the next episode.
Another genre form of a fairy tale about animals is the structure of a fairy tale ("The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats", "The Cat, the Rooster and the Fox").
The leading place in fairy tales about animals is occupied by comic tales - about the pranks of animals ("The fox steals fish from a sleigh (from a cart"), "The wolf at the ice hole", "The fox coats its head with dough (sour cream), "The beaten one carries the unbeaten", "The fox midwife ", etc.), which influence other fairy-tale genres of animal epic, especially the apologist (fable). The plot core of a comic tale about animals is a chance meeting and a trick (deception, according to Propp). Sometimes they combine several meetings and pranks. The hero of a comic fairy tale is a trickster (one who commits tricks). The main trickster of the Russian fairy tale is the fox (in the world epic - the hare). Its victims are usually a wolf and a bear. It has been noticed that if a fox acts against the weak, it loses, if against the strong, it wins. This comes from archaic folklore. IN modern fairy tale In animals, the victory and defeat of the trickster often receives a moral assessment. The trickster in the fairy tale is contrasted with the simpleton. It can be a predator (wolf, bear), or a person, or a simple animal, like a hare.
A significant part of fairy tales about animals is occupied by an apologist (fable), in which it is not comic beginning, but moralizing, moralizing. Moreover, the apologist does not necessarily have to have a moral in the form of an ending. The moral comes from the story situations. Situations must be unambiguous in order to easily form moral conclusions. Typical examples apologists are fairy tales where there is a clash of contrasting characters (Who is more cowardly than a hare?; Old bread and salt is forgotten; A splinter in the paw of a bear (lion). An apologist can also be considered such plots that have been known in literary fables since ancient times (The Fox and the Sour Grapes ; The Crow and the Fox and many others). The apologist is a relatively late form of fairy tales about animals. It dates back to a time when moral standards had already been determined and were looking for a suitable form for themselves. In fairy tales of this type, only a few plots with the tricks of tricksters, some of the plots of the apologist, were transformed. not without the influence of literature) he developed himself. The third way of development of the apologist is the proliferation of proverbs (proverbs and sayings. But unlike paremia, in the apologist the allegory is not only rational, but also sensitive.
Next to the apologist stands the so-called short story tale about animals, highlighted by E. A. Kostyukhin. A short story in an animal fairy tale is a story about unusual events with a fairly developed intrigue, with sharp turns in the fate of the heroes. The tendency towards moralization determines the fate of the genre. It has a more definite moral than the apologist, the comic element is muted or completely removed. The mischief of a comic fairy tale about animals is replaced in the novella with a different content - entertaining. A classic example of a short story about animals is "Grateful Animals." Most of the plots of folklore short stories about animals develop in literature and then pass into folklore. The easy transition of these plots is due to the fact that they themselves literary subjects are formed on a folklore basis.
Speaking about satire in fairy tales about animals, it must be said that literature once gave impetus to the development of the satirical fairy tale. The conditions for the appearance of a satirical tale arose in the late Middle Ages. The satirical effect folk tale is achieved by putting social terminology into the mouths of animals (Fox the Confessor; Cat and Wild Animals). The plot of “Ruff Ershovich”, which is a fairy tale of book origin, stands apart. Having appeared late in a folk tale, satire did not take hold in it, since in a satirical tale one can easily remove social terminology.
So in the 19th century, the satirical fairy tale was unpopular. Satire within a fairy tale about animals is only an accent in an extremely small group of stories about animals. And on satirical tale influenced by the laws of animal fairy tales with trickster tricks. The satirical sound was preserved in fairy tales where there was a trickster in the center, and where there was complete absurdity of what was happening, the fairy tale became a fable.
Fairy tales
Fairy tales of the fairy type include magical, adventure, and heroic. At the heart of such fairy tales is a wonderful world. The wonderful world is an objective, fantastic, unlimited world. Thanks to unlimited fantasy and a wonderful principle of organizing material in fairy tales with a wonderful world of possible “transformation”, amazing in their speed (children grow by leaps and bounds, every day they become stronger or more beautiful). Not only the speed of the process is unreal, but also its very character (from the fairy tale “The Snow Maiden.” “Look, the Snow Maiden’s lips turned pink, her eyes opened. Then she shook off the snow and a living girl came out of the snowdrift.” “Conversion” in fairy tales of the wonderful type, usually occur with the help of magical creatures or objects.
Basically, fairy tales are older than others; they bear traces of a person’s primary acquaintance with the world around him.
A fairy tale is based on a complex composition, which has an exposition, a plot, plot development, a climax and a denouement.
The plot of a fairy tale is based on a story about overcoming a loss or shortage with the help of miraculous means or magical helpers. In the exhibition of the fairy tale there are consistently 2 generations - the older (the king and the queen, etc.) and the younger - Ivan and his brothers or sisters. Also included in the exhibition is the absence of the older generation. An intensified form of absence is the death of the parents. The plot of the tale is that main character either the heroine discovers a loss or shortage, or there are motives of prohibition, violation of the prohibition and subsequent disaster. Here is the beginning of counteraction, i.e. sending the hero from home.
Plot development is a search for what is lost or missing.
The climax of a fairy tale is that the protagonist or heroine fights an opposing force and always defeats it (the equivalent of fighting is solving difficult problems that are always solved).
Denouement is overcoming a loss or lack. Usually the hero (heroine) “reigns” at the end - that is, acquires a higher social status than he had at the beginning.
V.Ya. Propp reveals the monotony of a fairy tale at the plot level in a purely syntagmatic sense. It reveals the invariance of a set of functions (the actions of actors), the linear sequence of these functions, as well as a set of roles, in a known manner distributed among specific characters and correlated with functions. Functions are distributed among seven characters:
Antagonist (pest),
donor
assistant
princess or her father
sender
hero
false hero.
Meletinsky, identifying five groups of fairy tales, tries to resolve the issue of the historical development of the genre in general, and plots in particular. The tale contains some motifs characteristic of totemic myths. The mythological origin of the universally widespread fairy tale about a marriage with a wonderful “totemic” creature who has temporarily shed its animal shell and taken on human form is quite obvious (“A husband is looking for a missing or kidnapped wife (a wife is looking for a husband)”, “The Frog Princess”, “The Scarlet Flower” etc.). A tale about visiting other worlds to free the captives there (“Three Underground Kingdoms”, etc.). Popular fairy tales about a group of children who fall into the power of an evil spirit, a monster, an ogre and are saved thanks to the resourcefulness of one of them ("The Witch's Thumb Boy", etc.), or about the murder of a powerful serpent - a chthonic demon ("The Conqueror of the Serpent" etc.). In a fairy tale, we are actively developing family theme(“Cinderella”, etc.). For a fairy tale, a wedding becomes a symbol of compensation for the socially disadvantaged (“Sivko-Burko”). The socially disadvantaged hero (younger brother, stepdaughter, fool) at the beginning of the fairy tale, endowed with everything negative characteristics from his environment, is endowed with beauty and intelligence in the end (“The Little Humpbacked Horse”). The distinguished group of tales about wedding trials draws attention to the narrative of personal destinies. The novelistic theme in a fairy tale is no less interesting than the heroic one. Propp classifies the genre of fairy tales by the presence of “Battle - Victory” in the main test or by the presence of “Difficult task - Solution of a difficult problem.” The logical development of the fairy tale was the everyday fairy tale.
Everyday tales
A characteristic feature of everyday fairy tales is the reproduction of everyday life in them. The conflict of an everyday fairy tale often consists in the fact that decency, honesty, nobility under the guise of simplicity and naivety is opposed to those personality qualities that have always caused sharp rejection among the people (greed, anger, envy).
As a rule, in everyday fairy tales there is more irony and self-irony, since Good triumphs, but the randomness or singularity of his victory is emphasized.
The variety of everyday fairy tales is characteristic: social-everyday, satirical-everyday, novelistic and others. Unlike fairy tales, everyday fairy tales contain a more significant element of social and moral criticism; they are more definite in their social preferences. Praise and condemnation sound stronger in everyday fairy tales.
Recently, information about a new type of fairy tales has begun to appear in the methodological literature - fairy tales of a mixed type. Of course, fairy tales of this type have existed for a long time, but they were not given much importance, because they forgot how much they can help in achieving educational, educational and developmental goals. In general, fairy tales of a mixed type are fairy tales of a transitional type.
They combine features inherent in both fairy tales with a wonderful world and everyday fairy tales. Elements of the miraculous also appear in the form of magical objects, around which the main action is grouped.
Fairy tales in different forms and scales strive to embody the ideal of human existence.
The fairy tale's belief in the intrinsic value of noble human qualities, the uncompromising preference for the Good, are also based on a call to wisdom, activity, and true humanity.
Fairy tales broaden one's horizons, awaken interest in the life and creativity of peoples, and foster a sense of trust in all the inhabitants of our Earth engaged in honest work.
Classification of fairy tales. Characteristics each type
The most important ideas, main issues, plot cores and - most importantly - the alignment of forces that bring about good and evil, are essentially the same in fairy tales of different peoples. In this sense, any fairy tale knows no boundaries; it is for all humanity.
Folklore studies have devoted a lot of research to the fairy tale, but defining it as one of the genres of oral folk art still remains an open problem. The heterogeneity of fairy tales, the wide thematic range, the variety of motives and characters contained in them, and the countless number of ways to resolve conflicts really make the task of defining a fairy tale by genre very difficult.
And yet, the divergence in views on a fairy tale is associated with what is regarded as the main thing in it: an orientation toward fiction or the desire to reflect reality through fiction.
The essence and vitality of a fairy tale, the secret of its magical existence is in the constant combination of two elements of meaning: fantasy and truth.
On this basis, a classification of types of fairy tales arises, although not entirely uniform. Thus, with a problem-thematic approach, fairy tales dedicated to animals, tales about unusual and supernatural events, adventure tales, social and everyday tales, anecdote tales, upside-down tales and others are distinguished.
The groups of fairy tales do not have sharply defined boundaries, but despite the fragility of the demarcation, such a classification allows you to start a substantive conversation with the child about fairy tales within the framework of a conventional “system” - which, of course, makes the work of parents and educators easier.
To date, the following classification of Russian folk tales has been accepted:
1. Tales about animals;
2. Fairy tales;
3. Everyday tales.
Let's take a closer look at each type.
Animal Tales
Folk poetry embraced the whole world; its object was not only man, but also all living things on the planet. By depicting animals, the fairy tale gives them human traits, but at the same time it records and characterizes their habits, “way of life,” etc. Hence the lively, intense text of fairy tales.
Man has long felt a kinship with nature; he truly was a part of it, fighting with it, seeking its protection, sympathizing and understanding. The later introduced fable, parable meaning of many fairy tales about animals is also obvious.
In fairy tales about animals, fish, animals, birds act, they talk to each other, declare war on each other, make peace. The basis of such tales is totemism (belief in a totem animal, the patron of the clan), which resulted in the cult of the animal. For example, the bear, which became the hero of fairy tales, according to the ideas of the ancient Slavs, could predict the future. He was often thought of as a terrible, vengeful beast, unforgiving of insults (the fairy tale “The Bear”). The further the belief in this goes, the more confident a person becomes in his abilities, the more possible is his power over the animal, the “victory” over him. This happens, for example, in the fairy tales “The Man and the Bear” and “The Bear, the Dog and the Cat.” Fairy tales differ significantly from beliefs about animals - in the latter, fiction associated with paganism plays a large role. The wolf is believed to be wise and cunning, the bear is terrible. The fairy tale loses its dependence on paganism and becomes a mockery of animals. Mythology in it turns into art. The fairy tale is transformed into a kind of artistic joke - a criticism of those creatures that are meant by animals. Hence the closeness of such tales to fables ("The Fox and the Crane", "Beasts in the Pit").
Tales about animals are allocated to a special group based on the nature of the characters. They are divided by type of animal. This also includes tales about plants, inanimate nature (frost, sun, wind), and objects (a bubble, a straw, a bast shoe).
In fairy tales about animals, man:
1) plays a minor role (the old man from the fairy tale “The Fox Steals Fish from the Cart”);
2) occupies a position equivalent to an animal (the man from the fairy tale “The old bread and salt is forgotten”).
Possible classification of tales about animals.
First of all, a fairy tale about animals is classified according to the main character (thematic classification). This classification is given in the index of fairy-tale plots of world folklore compiled by Arne-Thomson and in the “Comparative Index of Plots. East Slavic Fairy Tale”:
1. Wild animals.
Other wild animals.
2. Wild and domestic animals
3. Man and wild animals.
4. Pets.
5. Birds and fish.
6. Other animals, objects, plants and natural phenomena.
The next possible classification of a fairy tale about animals is a structural-semantic classification, which classifies the fairy tale according to genre. There are several genres in a fairy tale about animals. V. Ya. Propp identified such genres as:
1. Cumulative tale about animals.
3. Fable (apologist)
4. Satirical tale
E. A. Kostyukhin identified genres about animals as:
1. Comic (everyday) tale about animals
2. A fairy tale about animals
3. Cumulative tale about animals
4. A short story about animals
5. Apologist (fable)
6. Anecdote.
7. A satirical tale about animals
8. Legends, traditions, everyday stories about animals
9. Tales
Propp, in the basis of his classification of animal tales by genre, tried to put a formal feature. Kostyukhin, on the other hand, partly based his classification on a formal feature, but basically the researcher divides the genres of fairy tales about animals according to content. This allows us to better understand the diverse material of fairy tales about animals, which demonstrates the variety of structural structures, diversity of styles, and richness of content.
The third possible classification of a fairy tale about animals is a classification based on the target audience. Tales about animals are divided into:
1. Children's fairy tales.
Fairy tales told for children.
Tales told by children.
2. Adult fairy tales.
This or that genre of animal tales has its own target audience. Modern Russian fairy tales about animals mainly belong to a children's audience. Thus, fairy tales told for children have a simplified structure. But there is a genre of fairy tales about animals that will never be addressed to children - this is the so-called. A "naughty" ("cherished" or "pornographic") tale.
About twenty plots of fairy tales about animals are cumulative fairy tales. The principle of such a composition is the repeated repetition of a plot unit. Thompson, S., Bolte, J. and Polivka, I., Propp identified fairy tales with cumulative composition as a special group of fairy tales. The cumulative (chain-like) composition is distinguished:
1. With endless repetition:
Boring tales like “About the White Bull.”
A unit of text is included in another text (“The priest had a dog”).
2. With End Repetition:
- “Turnip” - plot units grow into a chain until the chain breaks.
- “The cockerel choked” - the chain unravels until the chain breaks.
- “For a rolling duck” - the previous unit of text is negated in the next episode.
Another genre form of a fairy tale about animals is the structure of a fairy tale ("The Wolf and the Seven Little Goats", "The Cat, the Rooster and the Fox").
The leading place in fairy tales about animals is occupied by comic tales - about the pranks of animals ("The fox steals fish from a sleigh (from a cart"), "The wolf at the ice hole", "The fox coats its head with dough (sour cream), "The beaten one carries the unbeaten", "The fox midwife ", etc.), which influence other fairy-tale genres of animal epic, especially the apologist (fable). The plot core of a comic tale about animals is a chance meeting and a trick (deception, according to Propp). Sometimes they combine several meetings and pranks. The hero of a comic fairy tale is a trickster (one who commits tricks). The main trickster of the Russian fairy tale is the fox (in the world epic - the hare). Its victims are usually a wolf and a bear. It has been noticed that if a fox acts against the weak, it loses, if against the strong, it wins. This comes from archaic folklore. In the modern animal tale, the victory and defeat of the trickster often receives a moral assessment. The trickster in the fairy tale is contrasted with the simpleton. It can be a predator (wolf, bear), or a person, or a simple animal, like a hare.
A significant part of fairy tales about animals is occupied by an apologist (fable), in which there is not a comic principle, but a moralizing, moralizing one. Moreover, the apologist does not necessarily have to have a moral in the form of an ending. The moral comes from the story situations. Situations must be unambiguous in order to easily form moral conclusions. Typical examples of an apologist are fairy tales where there is a clash of contrasting characters (Who is more cowardly than a hare?; Old bread and salt is forgotten; A splinter in the paw of a bear (lion). An apologist can also be considered such plots that have been known in literary fables since ancient times (Fox and sour grapes; The Crow and the Fox and many others). The apologist is a relatively late form of fairy tales about animals, dating back to a time when moral standards had already been determined and were looking for a suitable form for themselves. In fairy tales of this type, only a few plots with the tricks of tricksters were transformed. the apologist (not without the influence of literature) developed himself. The third way of development of the apologist is the proliferation of proverbs (proverbs and sayings. But unlike the proverbs, in the apologist the allegory is not only rational, but also sensitive.
Next to the apologist stands the so-called short story tale about animals, highlighted by E. A. Kostyukhin. A short story in an animal fairy tale is a story about unusual events with a fairly developed intrigue, with sharp turns in the fate of the heroes. The tendency towards moralization determines the fate of the genre. It has a more definite moral than the apologist, the comic element is muted or completely removed. The mischief of a comic fairy tale about animals is replaced in the novella with a different content - entertaining. A classic example of a short story about animals is "Grateful Animals." Most of the plots of folklore short stories about animals develop in literature and then pass into folklore. The easy transition of these plots is due to the fact that the literary plots themselves are based on folklore.
Speaking about satire in fairy tales about animals, it must be said that literature once gave impetus to the development of the satirical fairy tale. The conditions for the appearance of a satirical tale arose in the late Middle Ages. The satirical effect in a folk tale is achieved by putting social terminology into the mouths of animals (Fox the Confessor; Cat and Wild Animals). The plot of “Ruff Ershovich”, which is a fairy tale of book origin, stands apart. Having appeared late in a folk tale, satire did not take hold in it, since in a satirical tale one can easily remove social terminology.
So in the 19th century, the satirical fairy tale was unpopular. Satire within a fairy tale about animals is only an accent in an extremely small group of stories about animals. And the satirical fairy tale was influenced by the laws of animal fairy tales with trickster tricks. The satirical sound was preserved in fairy tales where there was a trickster in the center, and where there was complete absurdity of what was happening, the fairy tale became a fable.
Fairy tales
Fairy tales of the fairy type include magical, adventure, and heroic. At the heart of such fairy tales is a wonderful world. The wonderful world is an objective, fantastic, unlimited world. Thanks to unlimited fantasy and a wonderful principle of organizing material in fairy tales with a wonderful world of possible “transformation”, amazing in their speed (children grow by leaps and bounds, every day they become stronger or more beautiful). Not only the speed of the process is unreal, but also its very character (from the fairy tale “The Snow Maiden.” “Look, the Snow Maiden’s lips turned pink, her eyes opened. Then she shook off the snow and a living girl came out of the snowdrift.” “Conversion” in fairy tales of the wonderful type, usually occur with the help of magical creatures or objects.
Basically, fairy tales are older than others; they bear traces of a person’s primary acquaintance with the world around him.
A fairy tale is based on a complex composition, which has an exposition, a plot, plot development, a climax and a denouement.
The plot of a fairy tale is based on a story about overcoming a loss or shortage with the help of miraculous means or magical helpers. In the exhibition of the fairy tale there are consistently 2 generations - the older (the king and the queen, etc.) and the younger - Ivan and his brothers or sisters. Also included in the exhibition is the absence of the older generation. An intensified form of absence is the death of the parents. The plot of the tale is that the main character or heroine discovers a loss or shortage, or there are motives of prohibition, violation of the prohibition and subsequent disaster. Here is the beginning of counteraction, i.e. sending the hero from home.
Plot development is a search for what is lost or missing.
The climax of a fairy tale is that the protagonist or heroine fights an opposing force and always defeats it (the equivalent of fighting is solving difficult problems that are always solved).
Denouement is overcoming a loss or lack. Usually the hero (heroine) “reigns” at the end - that is, acquires a higher social status than he had at the beginning.
V.Ya. Propp reveals the monotony of a fairy tale at the plot level in a purely syntagmatic sense. It reveals the invariance of a set of functions (the actions of characters), the linear sequence of these functions, as well as a set of roles distributed in a known way between specific characters and correlated with functions. Functions are distributed among seven characters:
Antagonist (pest),
Donor
Assistant
The princess or her father
Sender
False hero.
Meletinsky, identifying five groups of fairy tales, tries to resolve the issue of the historical development of the genre in general, and plots in particular. The tale contains some motifs characteristic of totemic myths. The mythological origin of the universally widespread fairy tale about a marriage with a wonderful “totemic” creature who has temporarily shed its animal shell and taken on human form is quite obvious (“A husband is looking for a missing or kidnapped wife (a wife is looking for a husband)”, “The Frog Princess”, “The Scarlet Flower” etc.). A tale about visiting other worlds to free the captives there (“Three Underground Kingdoms”, etc.). Popular fairy tales about a group of children who fall into the power of an evil spirit, a monster, an ogre and are saved thanks to the resourcefulness of one of them ("The Witch's Thumb Boy", etc.), or about the murder of a powerful serpent - a chthonic demon ("The Conqueror of the Serpent" etc.). In fairy tales, a family theme is actively developed (Cinderella, etc.). For a fairy tale, a wedding becomes a symbol of compensation for the socially disadvantaged (“Sivko-Burko”). The socially disadvantaged hero (younger brother, stepdaughter, fool) at the beginning of the fairy tale, endowed with all the negative characteristics from his environment, is endowed with beauty and intelligence at the end ("The Little Humpbacked Horse"). The distinguished group of tales about wedding trials draws attention to the narrative of personal destinies. The novelistic theme in a fairy tale is no less interesting than the heroic one. Propp classifies the genre of fairy tales by the presence of “Battle - Victory” in the main test or by the presence of “Difficult task - Solution of a difficult problem.” The logical development of the fairy tale was the everyday fairy tale.
Everyday tales
A characteristic feature of everyday fairy tales is the reproduction of everyday life in them. The conflict of an everyday fairy tale often consists in the fact that decency, honesty, nobility under the guise of simplicity and naivety is opposed to those personality qualities that have always caused sharp rejection among the people (greed, anger, envy).
As a rule, in everyday fairy tales there is more irony and self-irony, since Good triumphs, but the randomness or singularity of his victory is emphasized.
The variety of everyday fairy tales is characteristic: social-everyday, satirical-everyday, novelistic and others. Unlike fairy tales, everyday fairy tales contain a more significant element of social and moral criticism; they are more definite in their social preferences. Praise and condemnation sound stronger in everyday fairy tales.
Recently, information about a new type of fairy tales has begun to appear in the methodological literature - fairy tales of a mixed type. Of course, fairy tales of this type have existed for a long time, but they were not given much importance, because they forgot how much they can help in achieving educational, educational and developmental goals. In general, fairy tales of a mixed type are fairy tales of a transitional type.
They combine features inherent in both fairy tales with a wonderful world and everyday fairy tales. Elements of the miraculous also appear in the form of magical objects, around which the main action is grouped.
Fairy tales in different forms and scales strive to embody the ideal of human existence.
The fairy tale's belief in the intrinsic value of noble human qualities, the uncompromising preference for the Good, are also based on a call to wisdom, activity, and true humanity.
Fairy tales broaden one's horizons, awaken interest in the life and creativity of peoples, and foster a sense of trust in all the inhabitants of our Earth engaged in honest work.