Essay on this epic, prose genre with a pronounced organizing role of the author’s “I”. It is located at the intersection of fiction and journalism. The boundaries separating the Essay from other epic genres are very conditional and fluid. The essay retains the features of a figurative reflection of life, using the means of artistic representation, and in this regard approaches the story. From the story and the story, which are distinguished by the sequence of events arising from one another and caused by conflict situations between the characters, the Essay is distinguished by a free composition organized by the “storyteller” or an ideological “task”. " The essay genre has its own specific, difficult and only partially overcome weaknesses - fragmentation, small coverage of reality, inevitable conciseness, locality. But the essay has advantages that many other types of verbal art do not have. It can combine a plot story, a skit, a statistical calculation, a journalistic attack, and a lesson."(Shcheglov).

The first Essays (moral descriptive and moralizing) appeared during the Enlightenment in England on the pages of the magazines “Chatterbox” (1707-11) and “Spectator” (1711-14) by R. Steele and J. Addison. Borrowings from English moralizing journalism predetermined the appearance of Essays describing everyday reality and the ordinary hero in Germany, Italy, and Russia (satirical magazines by N.I. Novikov “Drone”, 1769-70 and “Painter”, 1772-73). In the 18th century, not only various forms of essay literature were developed, but also the specific genre content of Essays was established - “characteristics” of types, carriers of common shortcomings and “vices” that were subjected to satirical sharpening and ridicule. In the essayistic works of Charles Dickens (“Sketches of Bose,” 1836, defined by the author as “small sketches of true life and morals”) and W. M. Thackeray (“The Book of Snobs,” 1847), the motives and themes of their future novels were outlined. A large series of Essays that identified the main types of " Human Comedy", published by O. Balzac. His story “Gobsek” (1830) grew out of the essays “The Moneylender” (1829). Unlike the enlighteners, in whose work the Essay was a characteristic of a certain “universal human” vice, the authors of “physiological essays” (and above all Balzac), who tried to apply new methods of the natural sciences (hence the name “physiology”) to understand the laws of social life, The essay turns into a description of social types, representatives of various walks of life. In the 20th century, the Russian "" polemically contrasted the literature of fact with artistic fiction, trying to substantiate leading value factographic Essay on the development of literature (similar views were expressed by representatives of the French “literature of fact” of the 1930s - R. Dorgeles, A. Londre, P. Ami). At the same time, an essay permeated with various lyrical and philosophical reflections was becoming widespread: “The Green Hills of Africa” (1936), “Death in the Afternoon” (1932) by E. Hemingway, “Planet of People” (1939) by A. de Saint-Exupery. In 1929, the magazine “Our Achievements”, founded by M. Gorky, who believed that the Essay occupies an intermediate place between research and story, began to be published - a kind of laboratory of Soviet essayists. The flow of essay literature was generated by the second world war(J. Laffitte, J. Aldridge, K. Simonov, V. Grossman, J. Ehrenburg, L. Leonov).

Types of Essay

There are literary and journalistic-documentary essays.. An artistic essay creatively typifies characters, conveying the “statics” of their existence, depicts stable relationships between people that have developed in their public and private lives. The object of “moral descriptive” analysis in an artistic essay is not only the environment as a whole or its typical representatives, but also an individual person, taken in its moral and psychological aspect. “Generalized”, “non-addressed” characters in the Essay are one of the signs of its artistry. Artistic Essays include “Notes of a Hunter” (1852) by I.S. Turgenev, “Essays on Bursa” (1862-63) by N.G. Pomyalovsky, essays by V.A. Gilyarovsky, K.G. Paustovsky. Artistic Essay is presented in various compositional varieties: Essay on memoirs, Essay on biography, lyrical-philosophical Essay. Travel Essay is the most “ancient” artistic variety of the genre: “An excerpt of a trip to *** I*** T***”, published in N.I. Novikov’s magazine “Painter” in 1772; “A Trip to Revel” (1821) by A.A. Bestuzhev, “Journey to Arzrum” (1835) by A.S. Pushkin, essay prose by I.A. Goncharov (“Frigate “Pallada”, 1855-57), A.P. .Chekhov (“From Siberia”, 1890, and “Sakhalin Island”, 1893-94), M. Koltsov, I. Ehrenburg, M. Shaginyan. The journalistic-documentary essay is usually considered as a genre of journalism.

How to write an essay

“A good essay makes readers remember
who they are at their core, what they want, what they dream of”

K. Paustovsky

Essay- one of the most interesting genres. It exists at the intersection of journalism and literature. Unfortunately, most schoolchildren and students write essays the same way they would write essays or articles for a school newspaper.

Sketch - one of the varieties of small form epic literature- a story that differs from its other form, the short story, in the absence of a single, acute and quickly resolved conflict and in the greater development of the descriptive image. Both differences depend on the specific issues of the essay. This is a semi-fictional, semi-documentary genre that describes real events and real people.

The essay is both a documentary-scientific understanding of reality and an aesthetic exploration of the world. It is no coincidence that the essay is compared with works of art and even with painting, emphasizing: if the story is scenic painting, That sketch - a graphic drawing or sketch for a painting. It seems to be on the verge between a document and a generalized artistic image.

The essay introduces the reader to new, emerging forms of life and its daily course, awakens public opinion and forms an understanding of the right to put forward and defend advanced thoughts, combining an objective assessment of reality with subjective opinion, comparisons and parallels between them.

The main feature of the essay- writing from life.

There are three main types of essays - portrait, problem and travel.

In the center portrait essay - a person’s personality, his life, his aspirations, joys and sorrows. In addition to interest in the hero (if this famous person), portrait sketches are needed by readers in order to compare their system moral values with the views of another person. A portrait essay is a compressed story about someone's life. The famous journalist Yuri Rost said about this: “I try to feel my interlocutor. I ask him what he regrets most in life, what he is proud of. My interest is sincere, and it helps me create, first within myself and then on paper, the image of my hero.”

IN problematic In the essay, the focus is on some problem; in the essay it can act as a conflict that its characters are trying to resolve. In a problem essay, parallels and deviations from the topic are appropriate; the problem is analyzed more using artistic means than statistical information.

Traveler An essay is a description of some events, incidents, meetings with people that occur during the author’s journey. This is a genre that allows the author to demonstrate his imagination and literary skill to the greatest extent. Main problem- this is always a selection of information, because there are usually a lot of impressions as a result of trips, and the task is to select the most interesting and important. A travel essay can have several goals - for example, to show how people live in other cities and countries.

Please note:

If the essay contains elements of dialogue, then the speech of the characters should bear the imprint of their social environment. (So, for example, a street child says the word “aunt” and does not say “woman”). The author has the right to correct speech if the characters communicate using invective.

Helpful Tips:

Brilliant publicist Mikhail Koltsov at one time he advised aspiring authors to pay attention to two things: composition and language.

The essay should address socially important topics. The author must rely on facts, draw logical conclusions, and clearly indicate his author’s position.

Before writing an essay, you need to sketch out its structure: outline social problem, analyze how it is solved, connect the author’s reasoning with the characters of the most bright characters. You can start an essay with an artistic sketch, with a description of the scene, with sociology and statistics. The essay is interesting because it almost does not limit the author’s imagination and curiosity.

It is necessary to avoid dry official phrases and speech cliches. And read Anton Chekhov and Vladimir Gilyarovsky. Gilyarovsky is one of the brilliant essayists and journalists of the 19th century.

When preparing an essay, artistic and visual means play a huge role. The strength of the essayist lies in the wide and skillful use of landscape, portrait, dialogue, description, speech characteristics etc.

But even the most colorful and sophisticated ones will not help you. artistic images, metaphors and comparisons, if your intention and structure of the text are not clear.

“Colorfulness” does not consist at all in adding fat to the “dish”, but in constructing an essay, in the ability to somehow arrange material in endlessly new ways, so that its individual pieces and particles electrify each other, so that they add up to an overall design and this design would not only rush forward, but would also stay in “place” by itself (M. Koltsov).

How is the outline of a text achieved?

Firstly, documentary. We must strive to present in detail what happened, without missing a single significant detail. But the fact in itself is not important. The main thing is how characteristic it is of the journalistic idea, the problem of the essay.

Secondly, the subject of the essay is a typical, classic case in the conditions of the present time. That is, a case that clearly characterizes and illustrates the stage of social development.

Thirdly, this typical case is a manifestation of an obvious or hidden conflict (contradiction). Drama - inherent trait essay.

Fourth, the image is of great importance in the essay. Emotional, dramatic and organically rich, it represents “a generalization of life and an assessment of life phenomena.”

Particular attention should be paid to the language.

Plan for working on an essay (example):

1. Problem

A portrait sketch is not just a description of a person, it is material written in connection with the awareness of some socially significant problem.

Formulate and describe in general outline the problem you will develop in the essay.

2. Collective image

If you simply describe your desk neighbor, you won’t get a portrait sketch. This could be called a description or sketch. Your task is to see the connection between the image of a particular person and collectively modern representative younger generation. Show the general on the particular, and the particular on the general.

Write down as many characteristics as possible of the collective image of a representative of the younger generation.

3. Controversy

The essence of the sketch's image is a contradiction. The essay will not work if you fail to see and show all the drama of the collision and coexistence of opposing qualities.

In two or three sentences, “draw” a positive and negative portrait of a hero of our time.

4. Accents

As a rule, “newspaper portraits” are schematic: 3-4 details plus a “leading” detail that characterizes the character. It is no coincidence that it is believed that the word “essay” comes from the word “to outline”, that is, literally to outline with strokes or features.

Write down 3-4 details that are most important, in your opinion, for characterizing the hero. Try to find a dominant, “leading” detail.

5. Character description

Describe your character’s face, clothes, movements, facial expressions, his manner of behavior and communication.

6. Personality Traits

Write down as many character traits of your hero as possible: what he is like at home, in the classroom, at work, in an informal setting.

7. Situation

This or that situation best characterizes a person. Remember a time when your hero behaved in a way that was unexpected to you.

8. Connections: hero - image - problem

Write a sentence or several sentences that will connect the image of your hero with the collective image and the identified problem.

Formulate your attitude towards the character. Your task is to unobtrusively and as if even imperceptibly for the reader to convey your assessment in a few words included in the text of the essay. What words could these be?

You need to be able to give an essay something like this
didactic character, which
awakens thought and forces the reader
contemplate the material with you,
push him internally.
Mikhail Koltsov

Essay evaluation criteria

1.Is there an attractive unique title that reflects main idea essay? (TITLE)

2. Is there any unique idea- the main paragraph containing the main idea (climax phrase) of the work? (IDEA)

3.Is the image of the hero/research object fully presented? (STUDY)

4. Is the sphere of the main interests of the hero shown, where he realizes the meaning of his life/the role and significance of the object in the sociocultural situation of our time? (COMPETENCE)

5. Is there any sensational, unique information about the hero and his activities? Doesn't the essay sound like a dry resume? (NON-STANDARD)

6.Is there a clear composition, a logical sequence of paragraphs? (LOGICS)

In the works of genre researchers there is no single definition of an essay. Etymologically, the origin of the word “essay” is related to the semantics of verbs "outline – outline."

You can use the following definition: “ Essay- a short narrative work whose main purpose is figurative illustration or figurative information" .

To the beginning

§1. Genre specifics

The main difference between the essay as an artistic and journalistic genre from the informational and analytical genres is the following: it absorbs certain features of two spheres - journalism and artistic speech. This means that both journalistic and artistic elements, focusing on the fact that at all stages of text creation (according to the rhetorical model), the dual nature of the essay will necessarily be taken into account. The stylistic features of the essay include:

1. Author's "I". The journalistic element is created by the author’s direct thoughts, the author’s direct intervention in the narrative, and often the author acts as character, one way or another connected with the depicted hero.

2. Intimization- this is a set of “stylistic techniques by which the author comes into contact with his reader, making him a participant in his message, his feelings, bringing him as close as possible to what he wants to have him as a participant in, straining his interest and in his own elegant way playing with this interest” ( L. Bulakhovsky).

3. Sketchiness(essay). Sketchiness, first of all, is expressed in a certain “sketchyness”, “freedom” of presentation, a certain deliberate roughness of form. In the very nature of the essay there is a tendency to highlight the most typical, the most important, the brightest, the desire to outline the main contours of the event, to sketch a portrait of the hero.

Due to the limited size of an essay, especially a newspaper essay, the essayist cannot carefully write out events and characters. The very nature of the essay contains the concept of some fluency, the need to grasp the type of person, to sketch out at least some dotted lines of his character, distinctive features.

4. Documentation. The publicist deals with different people, problems that can be expressed in specific data-calculations, specific terms, scientific formulas, specific names of names, localities, etc. As a rule, in 99 cases out of 100, a story in a newspaper is documentary. When creating an essay, the author relies on facts that allow him to fully disclose the topic.

5. Topicality. The essay appears in the newspaper almost every day. Hence its essential feature – topicality, “immediate” response to an important event, problem.

Closely related to this feature is another one – the relative conciseness of the text. Essay is a genre published on the pages of newspapers and magazines, i.e. genre limited in scope. Therefore, a large amount of accumulated material requires a concise, specific presentation.

6. Hero typification. This is, first of all, a selection of the most essential that exists in life, in reality. An essay is always based on specific life facts, but the fact in its singularity and uniqueness interests the essayist as a manifestation of the general, typical. A real life fact can be replenished in the depiction of an essayist with additional information and details - thus elements of artistic generalization appear.

Choosing to depict a person with all manifestations of human activity, a problem, a journey, a conflict, the author takes into account two levels of a newspaper essay: typical and unique, leading the narrative, preserving the individuality of the individual, his activities, his social relationships, he strives to reveal the typical, socially conditioned.

Another property of an essay is closely related to typification - imagery.

7. Imagery. Showing a hero or an event is possible only if the means of artistic depiction are used to create an image. The author of the essay creates a generalized collective image, reflecting typical features in it, but “the fact in the essay is important both in itself and as a starting point.” It, as in any work of art, is a material for creating images. The facts in the essay are interpreted through images.

So, since the essay has as its main subject human individuality with its deeds, connections, joys and anxieties, it is possible to show the hero under the condition of an artistic depiction, creating an image and using figurative means of language.

8. Associativity. When describing a phenomenon, an essayist often compares it with another that happened at a completely different time, in a different place. The connection of events is in the author's associations.

9. A certain amount of fiction. Factual reliability and targetedness of the essay form the basis of the fact, therefore the essayist’s right to fiction is limited to the factual basis of the essay. But still, there is a certain amount of fiction in the essay. The author enhances some forms of fiction, emphasizing some features of the hero in his portrait at the expense of others.

So, it is generally accepted that the essay combines the features of two styles: artistic and journalistic.

Thus, the essay can be defined as an artistic and journalistic genre in which the core organizing the material is the author’s “I”, the thematic center is the person and everything connected with him and his activities. This combination of two styles is reflected in the genre diversity of the essay.

It is customary to distinguish the following types of genre: sketch, portrait sketch, problematic and travel.

Almost all of them have the properties listed above. Their main difference is in the choice and development of the topic.

TRAVEL SKETCH

Travel essay- the most “ancient” variety of the essay genre. The title already reflects its purpose - to outline the path, the route traveled by the author. Its distinctive feature is a certain predetermination, predetermination of the plot. Road observations, meetings, events witnessed by the author, impressions of new countries, localities, cities, a wide panorama - this is the richest material that is revealed to the author of a travel essay.

Famous essayists who worked in the genre of travel essays are considered to be Y. Smuul, V. Peskov, A. Agranovsky, M. Sturua and others. Each of these authors, creating original, individual texts, nevertheless certainly took into account the main features of this genre.

One of the features of a travel essay is the gradual unfolding of the image: the author moves from village to village, from city to city, from country to country, gradually accumulating impressions and facts. These can be impressions from one city, from one route, familiarization with which occurs gradually.

Let's look at the features of a travel essay using the text as an example IN.Peskova"Breadwinner of the North" ( KP. 1999).

V. Peskov

Breadwinner of the NORTH

The tundra in winter is inhospitable and desolate. Frost and wind reign on the endless plain. No manifestation of life! It seems like an uninhabited planet. But what is that there near the horizon? A cloud of steam and something dark underneath it. Binoculars, burning your face with eyepieces, bring the picture closer - you suddenly see a low-growing dense forest moving in the wind. Bah! Yes, those are horns. It's a herd of deer! The moving brown mass is approaching.

Suddenly you see a shepherd with a little dog, preventing the herd from spreading across the white vastness. Up close, a cluster of animals looks like one organism. But you distinguish the details and suddenly see a deer next to you, completely different from those handsome and proud ones that roar through the forests in the fall. Squat, with a blunt head, which is adorned with horns, some enormously large, some skinny. And it turns out: those with horns are females. (In other deer, females do not have antlers.) The males shed their antlers after pre-winter wedding fights, but the females will wear them all winter. For what? The shepherd should have known. But he shrugs.

Having dispersed, the deer began to feed. God, how hard it was for them to get food here! They dug the snow with their hooves, plunged their hairy muzzles into holes and found something there on the slightly bare ground. The frost was below thirty with a biting wind. The helicopter pilot motioned for us to hurry up. Having given the shepherd a supply of cigarettes and some of the backpacks, we rose and saw the herd from above. Trying not to scare him, we made a circle. Still, it was visible: the sound and something moving above scared the deer. They tried to huddle together, apparently feeling that it was safer this way. A black scattering of poppies on the tablecloth remained in my memory and on the film.

Life is hard for everyone in the North. And in the summer, when the midge eats, and in the winter, when everything is covered in snow and when the wind and frost know no mercy. But life, when you look closely, still glimmers here even in winter. Looking around thievishly, the arctic fox ran. The raven, creaking its feather, flew low somewhere on urgent business. The partridges took off and immediately disappeared into the whitish camouflage. There are deer in sight. Although they are short, they look like a challenge to the cold, space, and obvious lack of food. It is in this region that they are adapted to live. If they had stayed south of the tundra for the summer, the deer would not have been able to endure the heat, unless the mountains replaced their saving North. Where he was born, he was good enough!

A fawn is born in cool weather. It’s scary to see: from the mother’s womb he falls straight into the snow. Of course, the mother deer is looking for thawed patches in the snow to give birth, but not everywhere in April there are thawed patches, and the frosts are still severe. Fate seems to immediately tell the baby: this is life, if you survive, you will become an adult deer, if you don’t survive, the arctic foxes will pick you up. The majority survive, otherwise the reindeer race would have dried up long ago, despite the fact that only one baby is brought by the important mother.

The deer is immediately adapted to survival. A very warm fur coat saves you from the cold. Very thick, nourishing milk from a caring mother. And almost immediately after birth, the fawn is ready to stand on its feet, walk, and soon run after the herd.

An adult deer is also perfect in confronting the North. The hairs in its fur have air channels. This increases thermal insulation. Deer have almost no sweat glands. And he doesn't suffer from the cold. Suffer from overheating - it can be hot in the tundra in summer. In such cases, the reindeer herd rushes to the sea for the cold, saving breeze or looks for remnants of snow, on which it lies, cooling off. Only now, having collected everything I know about deer, I unexpectedly found the answer to their strange behavior in Alaska, where oil is produced. There, for some reason, they gather near various iron buildings, barracks and towers.

Why are they attractive to them? We were unable to get an answer to this question from the oil workers. And now I suddenly realized: shadow! Saving shade, which, except near these buildings, cannot be found in the tundra. Fur that is reliable for winter becomes a nuisance in summer.

Winter snow is a small obstacle for deer. The hooves are cloven and spread wide. In addition, the rear “toes” of the hooves are level with the front ones. And hair also grows between the hooves, creating a supporting hard brush. The weight load on snow of a reindeer is four times less than that of a moose. In the snow, a deer feels about the same as people on skis.

Getting food is a hard task. We need to break up the snow. A deer can do this with its hooves. But you also have to put your face into the prickly, hard hole. The deer is also ready for this - the head, lips and space between the nostrils are covered with protective hair that protects from wounds. Half a meter of snow is not a hindrance to a deer. Now, if it’s deeper, then we should no longer be talking about life, but about survival. And a thaw is fatal for the herd, when the inevitable frost will seize the snow with an impenetrable, hard crust. But the deer leave the extreme oceanic tundra for winter.

With the first cold weather, the great deer begin their nomadic journeys, walking along the beaten thousand-year-old paths on which they meet mountains and rivers. In Alaska, an old river captain said: “There was a time when steamships were stopped for a day, or even more, to allow the Yukon deer to cross.” And now there are still places where herds of deer pass by in the thousands. In Alaska, at the exit to the tundra from the mountains, we hoped to photograph this spectacle. We're late! They only saw the ground stamped with their hooves, lost antlers, shreds of wool and ribs of deer killed by wolves.

In summer, the scourge of deer is gadflies and midges. From these bloodsuckers they rush to the saving wind near the ocean. The feeding midge makes them run almost continuously. And, despite the abundance of food, deer short summer they say goodbye skinny. They begin to quickly gain fat when the midge disappears and when mushrooms grow in the tundra - the biggest delicacy and the most nutritious food of the indigenous northerners. They give preference to the same mushrooms as people - boletus, boletus, boletus. Some of the deer become drug addicts, addicted to fly agaric mushrooms. Such an animal is constantly on the move, constantly excited. This is a hindrance to his wild relatives and a nuisance to the shepherds of economic herds.

And the main food for deer is unique - moss lichen, low-nutritive vegetation devoid of salts and protein. And only on it do deer stay, eating reindeer moss in winter and summer, refusing more nutritious food in captivity. Konstantin Simonov in his diaries gives a funny story from a colonel about reindeer transport in the war. “An unpretentious animal, deer! They are so unpretentious that they eat nothing but their own moss. Where can you get it, this moss?” In addition to skinny moss and mushrooms, deer in the tundra also eat bird eggs, as well as mice. The thirst for salt forces them to drink bitterly salty ocean water, and in winter they run to the shepherd if he goes to urinate - they grab the urine-soaked snow.

Having overwintered in the less windy forest-tundra, in the spring the reindeer begin their return journey to their beloved North. Following them are constantly moving wolves - the constant “shepherds” of wild reindeer herds. A wolf will not catch a healthy deer. But in a large herd there will always be someone who is sick or weak. These always have the same ending.

Bears and wolverines also attack deer. But there are few of these animals in the tundra, and their running speed is incomparable to saltines. But these animals are always ready to profit from the herd.

People also hunt wild deer. This hunt cannot be called easy. Deer are sensitive (they can detect danger a kilometer away) and trust their instincts. In Alaska, we observed a lost one-week-old fawn. He recklessly rushed towards us, but his innate instinct told him that it was not right! Scouring helplessly through the valley, he suddenly smelled his mother’s trail and rushed to her along the scent of the trail, as if along a rope.

Local hunters approach wild deer for a shot, hiding behind a group of domestic ones, or, moving against the wind, carrying antlers in front of them. And in recent years– motor! Motor sleigh and helicopter. The deer’s heart (mystery: it contains a bone) cannot compete with this strength. For this reason, as well as from disturbance (how many newcomers are in the tundra!) and the destruction of pastures by technology, the number of deer in this century has decreased by fifteen (!) times.

Wild deer are strikingly different from domestic ones in size, stature and vigor, although they live in approximately equal conditions. But the wild one is free, and his conquered brother serves people without receiving anything in return. Hence the frailty, short stature and quiet sadness in large almond-shaped eyes. But being different does not prevent deer from feeling a very close kinship. Wild male deer often lead female deer away from the domestic herd, and they very soon lose the desire to return to human control. Reindeer were "semi-domesticated" thousands of years ago.

Exceptionally adapted to live on the edge of the possible, he made life in the North and people possible. Without deer, many small nations of the North could not exist. Everything, literally everything, for these people’s life is provided by deer. Deer are food: meat and milk. Deer skins are used for clothing, shoes, blankets, bags, belts and shelter coverings. Reindeer is transport in the endless tundra. Deer blood is a remedy against scurvy. Reindeer veins are split into threads; antlers and bones were used on the farm when the tundra did not yet know iron. The life of the “reindeer peoples” is poor and primitive. But without deer it would be impossible in the North. Only the deer, specialized for life in very harsh conditions, pulled behind it the chain of also specialized human life in extremely harsh conditions.

In every zone of the Earth, man has adapted and placed animals at his service. In the middle zone it is a horse, in deserts - a camel, in the mountains - llamas and mules, in tropical zones - buffaloes and elephants. But none of these animals can compare with the reindeer in terms of benefits they bring to people. Deer in the North are life itself.

Genre characteristics

The travel essay intertwines the features of all the above-mentioned varieties of the genre: in it complex problems of life are posed and ways to solve them are outlined. For example: “the number of wild deer in this century has decreased by fifteen (!) times”; it includes a sketch (a picture from life), in which the author depicts what he saw from beginning to end, including a portrait sketch; it captures both the characters’ characters and the circumstances in which they act. For example: "Straightaway adapted deer to survival. A very warm fur coat saves you from the cold. Very thick, nourishing milk from a caring mother. And almost immediately after birth, the fawn is ready to stand on its feet, walk and soon run after the herd.”

In the essay, with particular strength and brightness appears author's identity. The author's position, reasoning and assessments not only help to understand what is depicted, but also connect disparate pictures into a single narrative, i.e. they are the main condition for the movement of the plot. Thus, in V. Peskov’s essay, his impressions and assessments allow him to imagine the pictures more clearly and move from one moment of the narrative to another: “They tried to huddle together, apparently they felt it was safer. A black scattering of poppies on the tablecloth remained in my memory and on the film.”

A travelogue has great potential. It perfectly combines the means of portrait and event sketches. For example, considering the life of wild deer, V. Peskov, selecting a succession of episodes from the life of animals, constantly gives descriptions of deer: “The midges at feeding time make them run almost continuously. And, despite the abundance of food, deer say goodbye to skinny people with a short summer.”

The author is one of the heroes of the story; he acts as a living witness, and in some cases, a discoverer. For example: “Only now, having collected everything I know about deer, I unexpectedly found a clue to their behavior in Alaska, where oil is produced... And now I suddenly realized: a shadow! Saving shade, which, except near these buildings, cannot be found in the tundra.”

They play a big role in the travel sketch details, details- those elements of the image, without which neither the image of a person, nor the setting, nor the picture of the action arises. Let us dwell in detail on those moments thanks to which the originality of the travel essay genre is created, illustrating them with examples from the same essay by V. Peskov “The Breadwinner of the North.”

This is, first of all, landscape fragments, helping to describe the situation. The landscape is used as a means of determining the timing of the action; as a way of depicting the conditions in which events take place; as an opportunity to convey the hero’s mood.

These are the main functions of microtexts-landscapes, which are an integral part of the travel sketch. Thus, in the essay “Breadwinner of the North”, V. Peskov uses several microtexts-landscapes to describe winter time, including the following: “But life, when you look closely, glimmers here even in winter. Looking around thievishly, the arctic fox ran. The raven, creaking its feather, flew low somewhere on urgent business. The partridges took off and immediately disappeared into the whitish camouflage mud.”

Living conditions are also repeatedly described by the author with the help of small microtexts or interspersed descriptions of details (V. Peskov is a master of detail): “But the deer leave the extreme oceanic tundra for winter. With the first cold weather, the great deer begin their nomadic journeys, following the beaten paths of thousands of years..."

Another function of landscape is to be one of the means of revealing the character of the hero. This possibility can be seen especially clearly in the travel essays of V. Peskov, in whose works the main role is given to animal heroes, and their description accompanies almost every semantic segment of the text, sometimes representing a whole microtext, sometimes being only separate inclusions in a segment with a different semantic purpose. . For example: “But you also have to put it in a prickly, hard hole. face. The deer is ready for this too – The head, lips and space between the nostrils are covered with protective hair that protects from wounds. Half a meter of snow is no problem for deer.”

So, please note that microtext-landscape is one of the elements that makes up the author’s handwriting.

In addition, the presence of such landscape sketches in a travelogue corresponds to the specifics of the genre. With the help of landscapes, the author depicts what he saw, and the details of what he saw form the outline of the essay. In a portrait essay, one description can become the main one; in a travel essay, a scattering of observations throughout the text helps to recreate a single picture.

One of these functions is a detailed description of the route and everything seen on it, that is, the description of a person is not an end in itself, but is subordinated to the general intention of the author.

There are no individual micro-portraits of a person in the analyzed text. But a portrait sketch can include a description of the deer: “But you distinguish the details and suddenly see a deer next to you, completely different from those handsome and proud ones that roar through the forests in the fall. Squat, with a blunt head, which is decorated with horns, excessively large, but somehow skinny, and it turns out: with horns – females."

Isn't it a wonderful portrait? A portrait that conveys both the author’s desire to describe his heroes and his feelings when he sees them. V. Peskov not only admires it himself, but also invites readers to do so.

Features of the introduction of certain microtexts are related with the individuality of the author, the manifestation of his author’s “I”, which is an essential stylistic feature of the genre.

Among all genres of journalism, the essay is the most personal genre. Its most general feature is the activity of the author’s “I”, its high degree of participation in the development, in the movement of the essay’s plot. The author’s “I” of V. Peskov is felt in almost every line of the text: “I unexpectedly found the answer to their strange behavior in Alaska”; “In Alaska, at the exit to the tundra from the mountains, we hoped to photograph this spectacle” etc.

The functions of the author's “I” are diverse. Let us recall information genres where the author is primarily a witness. In the essay, along with the function of the author-witness, one can also distinguish the functions of the author-researcher and the author - lyrical hero, which also affects the content (semantic, structural and linguistic) of the text. The functions of the author’s “I” are clearly demonstrated in the table.