The artistic method (literally “methodos” from the Greek - the path of research) is a set of the most general principles of the aesthetic development of reality, which is consistently repeated in the work of one or another group of writers, forming a direction, movement or school. There are objective difficulties in isolating the method. “The artistic method is an aesthetic and deeply meaningful category. It cannot be reduced either to formal methods of constructing an image, or to the ideology of the writer. It represents a set of ideological and artistic principles for depicting reality in the light of a certain aesthetic ideal. Worldview organically enters into the method when it merges with the artist’s talent, with his poetic thinking, and does not exist in the work only in the form of a socio-political tendency” (N.A. Gulyaev). The method is not just a system of some views, at least the most aesthetic ones. In a very conventional way, we can talk about a method as a view, but not an abstract, initial one, but one that has already found itself in a certain material of a given art. This is an artistic thought or artistic concept of these phenomena in connection with the general concept of life. Method is a category mainly of artistic creativity, and therefore of artistic consciousness. Method is a consistently implemented method of reflection, presupposing the unity of the artistic re-creation of the material of reality, realized on the unity of the imaginative vision of life, subordinated to the goals of revealing and understanding the leading trends of the writer’s contemporary life and the embodiment of his social ideals.

The category of method is connected with the category of type of creativity, on the one hand, and the category of style, on the other. Already in the 5th century BC. e. Sophocles aphoristically outlined two opposing types of artistic thinking: “He (Euripides) depicts people as they really are, and I as they should be.” Under style Usually it is understood as the individual uniqueness of creative handwriting, the set of preferred techniques, the unity of individual and typical features of creativity common to many individuals. The most active style-forming factors in the artistic structure of a work relate to the plane of expression. But at the same time, style is also “a directly perceived, complete unity of different aspects and elements of works, corresponding to the content expressed in it” (G.N. Pospelov). The difference between style and other categories of poetics, in particular from the artistic method, is in its immediate concrete implementation: stylistic features seem to appear on the surface of the work as a visible and tangible unity of all the main aspects of the artistic form.

Style “absorbs into itself the content and form of art without a trace, unites and guides everything in a work, from the word to the central thought” (Benedetto Croce). The linguistic approach to style assumes that the main object of study is language, language as the first and clearly distinguishable appearance and materiality of a literary work. This means that internal linguistic laws come to the fore. Style, artistic fabric are considered as a combination of different styles existing in addition to it in the language and pre-given ones - clerical-bureaucratic, epistolary, archaic, business, style of scientific presentation, etc. But this approach does not explain the change in literary styles. Moreover, the style of a work of art cannot be reduced to a mechanical combination. Style is a stable community of figurative system, means artistic expression, characterizing the originality of a writer’s work, a separate work, a literary movement, or national literature. Style in in a broad sense- a cross-cutting principle of constructing an artistic form that imparts tangible integrity, a uniform tone and color to the work.

What are the mechanisms of style formation? D.S. Likhachev proceeds from the fact (“Man in the Literature of Ancient Rus'”) that artistic style combines both the general perception of reality characteristic of the writer and the writer’s artistic method, determined by the tasks that he sets for himself. That is, style is not what the writer chose in his work, but how he expressed it, from what angle.

It is impossible to explain style without considering its connection with artistic method. The concept of artistic method expresses the fact that historical reality determines not only the content of art, but also its innermost aesthetic laws. The creative method aesthetically summarizes people's practical attitude to their historical tasks and their understanding of life, and creates that special relationship between ideals and reality that determines the structure of artistic images. Thus, the mythological view of nature and social relations underlay Greek fantasy and Greek art. The creative method of classical art required that the artist guess the perfect in the imperfect, so that he would show realized all the harmonious fullness of the possibilities of the human spirit. The creative method of classical art indicated to the artist a more or less constant angle of obligatory elevation of the image above reality, a more or less established direction in the artistic expression of a life phenomenon. Thus, he gave the beginning of the style. The relationship between ideal and reality inherent in classical art turned out to be the key to understanding the classical style with its clarity and transparency, normativity, beauty, strict order, with its inherent harmonious balance of parts and peace of internal completeness, the obvious connection of form and function, the paramount importance of rhythm, with his naive laconicism and amazing sense of proportion.

Style is a pattern in the construction, connection and similarity of forms, allowing these forms to express not only the particular content of a given work, but also to reproduce the most general signs of man’s relationship to nature and society. Style is the general character of expressiveness of various forms. Style is a connection of forms that reveals the unity of artistic content (Gothic style, Baroque style, false classical style, Rococo style, etc.). There are large styles, the so-called styles of the era (Renaissance, Baroque, Classicism), styles various directions and currents and custom styles artists.

The style was a pointed writing stick with a ball at the other end, which was used to erase what was written. Hence the catchphrase: “Turn your style more often!”

“Style is a person” (J. Buffon).

“Style embalms a literary work” (A. Daudet).

“Style may be defined as follows: the appropriate words in the appropriate place” (J. Swift).

“Style is the face of the mind, less deceptive than the real face. Imitating someone else's style is like wearing a mask. The pomposity of style is like grimacing” (A. Schopenhauer).

The very relationship between method and style turns out to be different at different stages of artistic development. As a rule, in the early periods of the development of art, the style was unified, comprehensive, strictly subordinated to religious and dogmatic norms; with the development of aesthetic sensibility, the need for each era to have a singular style (the style of the era, the aesthetic code of culture) noticeably weakens.

In pre-realistic art we observe the predominance of a general style, and in realistic art we observe the predominance of individual styles. In the first case, the method seems to merge with a certain style, and in the second, the more abundant and dissimilar the styles that grow on its basis, the more fully it is implemented. In the first case, the method brings about uniformity, in the second, a variety of styles. The dominance of the general style corresponds to the relatively simple artistic content. In ancient society, relationships between people were still clear and transparent. The same mythological motifs and subjects are repeated in all types of art. The scope of artistic content remains quite narrow. The difference of personal points of view fits within the boundaries of a single aesthetic tradition. All this leads to the unification of artistic content, which determined the formation of a common style.

The dominance of a general style is decisively connected with the predominance of idealization as a method of artistic generalization, and the dominance of individual styles with typification. Idealization more easily connects heterogeneous phenomena into a single style. In classical art the form is inevitably more coherent, rigid, and stable than in a realistic image. The general style subordinates the individuality of the artist. Only those personal talents that meet the requirements of the general style are given scope and can develop. Thus, discussing the general style of Old Russian literature, D.S. Likhachev writes that the features of folk collectivism are still alive in ancient Russian literature. This is literature in which the personal element is muted. Many works incorporate previous works and follow traditions of literary etiquette created by several authors, which were subsequently corrected and supplemented by correspondence. Thanks to this feature, the literature of Ancient Rus' contains a monumental epic principle. This monumentality is enhanced by the fact that works in Ancient Rus' are devoted mainly to historical themes. They contain less fictional, imaginary, designed for entertainment and entertainment. The seriousness of this literature is also due to the fact that its main works are civic in the highest sense of the word. The authors perceive their writing as service to the Motherland. The higher the ideals of ancient Russian authors, the more difficult it was for them to come to terms with the shortcomings of reality (historical monumentalism).

In the classicism of the 17th–18th centuries, the obligatory nature of the general style is supported by the established and indisputable authority of antiquity, the recognition of the decisive importance of its artistic images as objects of imitation. Religious-mythological authoritarianism is replaced by aesthetic authoritarianism (rules). It is necessary to consider whether a given work belongs to the general style and then to discover those modifications, enrichments, and innovations that depend on the individual style. The general style subjugates the artist and determines his aesthetic taste. Realism changes the very type of aesthetic taste and includes its ability to develop naturally. The realistic method is associated with a new era in which people's relationships take on an extremely confusing appearance.

In the capitalist era, a complex mechanism of social, political and ideological relations is developed, things are personified, people are reified. The cognitive capabilities of art are expanding. Analysis is deeply embedded in the description, the scope of artistic content becomes wider, and a huge area of ​​life prose opens up. The artist no longer works with the life process, which was previously reworked by folk fantasy and included a collective assessment of the phenomena of reality. From now on, he must independently find an image of reality. Thanks to this, even a small change in the angle of view, the position of the observer, is enough for the artistic content to change dramatically and significantly. Previously, this change led to the formation of personal shades within the boundaries of a single style; now it has become the basis for the emergence of individual styles. The diversity of assessments, aspects, views, approaches, and degrees of historical activity among artists is of great importance. Individual attitude to reality and individual forms of expression.

– Selection

Art Direction – Grading

– Generalization

– Artistic embodiment

Classicism– artistic style and aesthetic direction in European literature in art of the 17th – early XVIII centuries, one of the important features of which was the appeal to the images and forms of ancient literature and art as an ideal aesthetic standard. As an integral artistic system, classicism was formed in France during the period of strengthening and flourishing of absolutism. Classicism receives a complete systematic expression in “The Poetic Art” (1674) by N. Boileau, who summarizes the artistic experience of French literature of the 17th century. The aesthetics of classicism are based on the principles of rationalism, corresponding to the philosophical ideas of Cartesianism. They affirm the view of a work of art as an artificial creation - consciously created, intelligently organized, logically constructed. Having put forward the principle of “imitation of nature,” the classicists consider its indispensable condition to be strict adherence to the unshakable rules, which are drawn from ancient poetics (Aristotle, Horace) of art and determine the laws of artistic form, transforming life material into a beautiful, logically harmonious and clear work of art.

The artistic transformation of nature, the transformation of nature into beautiful and ennobled is at the same time an act of its highest knowledge - art is called upon to reveal the ideal pattern of the universe, often hidden behind the external chaos and disorder of reality. The mind, comprehending the ideal pattern, acts as an “arrogant” principle in relation to individual characteristics and the vibrant diversity of life. The classic image gravitates towards the model, it is a special mirror, where the individual turns into the generic, the temporary into the eternal, the real into the ideal, history into myth, it is the triumph of reason and order over the chaos and fluid empirics of life. This also corresponded to the social and educational function of art, to which the aesthetics of classicism attached great importance.

The aesthetics of classicism establishes a strict hierarchy of genres, which are divided into “high” (tragedy, epic, ode, their sphere is public life, historical events, myths, their heroes - monarchs, generals, mythological characters, religious devotees) and “low” (comedy , satire, fable), depicting the private everyday life of people of the middle classes. Each genre has strict boundaries and clear formal characteristics; no mixing of the sublime and the base, the tragic and the comic, the heroic and the ordinary is allowed. The leading genre of classicism was tragedy, addressed to the most important social and moral problems of the century. Social conflicts appear in it reflected in the souls of the heroes, faced with the need to choose between moral duty and personal passions. In this collision, a polarization of human public and private existence emerged, which also determined the structure of the image.

Romanticism – one of the largest destinations in European and American literature the end of the 18th – first half of the 19th centuries, which gained worldwide significance and distribution. Romanticism was the highest point of the anti-Enlightenment movement. Its main socio-ideological prerequisites are disappointment in the results of the Great French Revolution and in bourgeois civilization in general. Rejection of the bourgeois way of life, protest against the vulgarity and prosaicness, lack of spirituality and selfishness of bourgeois relations, which found initial expression in sentimentalism and pre-romanticism, acquired particular poignancy among the romantics. The reality of history turned out to be beyond the control of “reason,” irrational, full of secrets and unforeseen events, and the modern world order turned out to be hostile to human nature and his personal freedom.

Disbelief in social, industrial, political and scientific progress, which brought new contrasts and antagonisms, as well as “fragmentation”, leveling and spiritual devastation of the individual, disappointment in society, which was foreshadowed, justified and preached by the best minds (as the most “natural” and “reasonable” ") of Europe, gradually grew to cosmic pessimism. Taking on a universal, universal character, it was accompanied by moods of hopelessness, despair, and “world sorrow” (“the disease of the century,” inherent in the heroes of Chateaubriand, Musset, and Byron). The theme of the “terrible world” “lying in evil” (with its blind power of material relations, the irrationality of destinies, the melancholy of the eternal monotony of everyday life) has passed through the entire history of romantic literature, embodied most clearly in the “drama of rock”, in the works of J. Byron, E. . Hoffman, E. Poe and others. At the same time, romanticism is characterized by a sense of belonging to a rapidly developing and renewing world, inclusion in the flow of life, in the world historical process, a feeling of hidden wealth and limitless possibilities of existence. “Enthusiasm”, based on faith in the omnipotence of the free human spirit, a passionate, all-encompassing thirst for renewal is one of the characteristic features of the romantic worldview (see the work of N.Ya. Berkovsky “Romanticism in Germany” about this, pp. 25–26).

The depth and universality of disappointment in reality, in the possibilities of civilization and progress is polar opposite to the romantic craving for the “infinite”, for absolute and universal ideals. The romantics dreamed not of a partial improvement of life, but of a holistic resolution of all its contradictions. The discord between ideal and reality, characteristic of previous movements, acquires extraordinary sharpness and intensity in romanticism, which is the essence of the so-called romantic two worlds. Rejecting the everyday life of modern civilized society as colorless and prosaic, the romantics strove for everything unusual. They were attracted to fantasy, folk legends, folk art, past historical eras, exotic pictures of nature, life, way of life and customs of distant countries and peoples. They contrasted base material practice with sublime passions (the romantic concept of love) and the life of the spirit, the highest manifestations of which for the romantics were art, religion, and philosophy.

The Romantics discovered the extraordinary complexity, depth and antinomy of the human spiritual world, the inner infinity of human individuality. For them, a person is a small universe, a microcosm. Intense interest in strong and vivid feelings, in the secret movements of the soul, in its “night” side, a craving for the intuitive and unconscious are the essential features of the romantic worldview. Equally characteristic of the romantics is the defense of freedom, sovereignty, the self-worth of the individual, increased attention to the individual, the unique in man, and the cult of the individual. An apology for the individual served, as it were, as self-defense against the merciless march of history and the growing leveling of man himself in bourgeois society.

The requirement for historicism and folk art (mainly in the sense of faithfully recreating the color of place and time) is one of the enduring achievements of the romantic theory of art. The endless variety of local, epochal, national, historical, and individual characteristics had a certain philosophical meaning in the eyes of the romantics: it was a discovery of the wealth of a single world whole - the universe. In the field of aesthetics, romanticism contrasted the classicist “imitation of nature” with the creative activity of the artist with his right to transform the real world: the artist creates his own special world, more beautiful and true, and therefore more real than empirical reality, since art itself is the highest reality . The Romantics fiercely defended the creative freedom of artists and rejected normativity in aesthetics, which, however, did not exclude the creation of their own romantic canons.

From the point of view of the principles of artistic representation, the Romantics gravitated towards fantasy, satirical grotesque, demonstrative conventionality of form, fragmentation, fragmentation, peak composition; they boldly mixed the ordinary and the unusual, the tragic and the comic.

Realism, an artistic direction in art, following which the artist depicts life in images that correspond to the essence of the phenomena of life itself and are created through the typification of facts of reality. Affirming the importance of realism as a means for a person to understand himself and the world around him, realism strives for a deep comprehension of life, for a broad coverage of reality with its inherent contradictions, and recognizes the artist’s right to illuminate all aspects of life without restrictions. The art of realism shows the interaction of man with the environment, the impact of social conditions on human destinies, the influence of social circumstances on the morals and spiritual world of people. In a broad sense, the category of realism serves to determine the relationship of literary works to reality, regardless of the writer’s affiliation with one movement or another. The origins of realism in Russia were I.A. Krylov, A.S. Griboyedov, A.S. Pushkin (in Western literature, realism appeared somewhat later; its first representatives were Stendhal and Balzac).

Main features of realism. 1. The principle of life's truth, which guides the realist artist in his work, striving to give the most complete reflection of life in its typical properties. The fidelity of the depiction of reality, reproduced in the forms of life itself, is the main criterion of artistry. 2. Social analysis, historicism of thinking. It is realism that explains the phenomena of life, establishes their causes and consequences on a socio-historical basis. In other words, realism is unthinkable without historicism, which presupposes an understanding of a given phenomenon in its conditionality, development and connection with other phenomena. Historicism is the basis of the worldview and artistic method of a realist writer, a kind of key to understanding reality, allowing one to connect the past, present and future. In the past, the artist looks for answers to pressing issues of our time, and interprets modernity as the result of previous historical development. In realistic literature, the inner world and behavior of the characters, as a rule, bear the indelible stamp of time. The writer often shows the direct dependence of their social, moral, religious ideas on the conditions of existence in a given society, and pays great attention to the social and everyday background of the time. At the same time, in mature realistic art, circumstances are depicted only as a necessary prerequisite for revealing the spiritual world of people. 3. Critical portrayal of life. Writers deeply and truthfully show the negative phenomena of reality and focus on exposing them. But at the same time, realism is not devoid of life-affirming pathos, because it is based on positive ideals - sympathy for the masses, searches for positive hero in life, faith in the inexhaustible possibilities of man. 4. The depiction of typical characters in typical circumstances, that is, the characters are depicted in close connection with the social environment that raised them and formed them in certain socio-historical conditions. 5. The relationship between the individual and society is the leading problem posed by realistic literature. The drama of these relationships is important for realism. As a rule, the focus of realistic works is on extraordinary individuals, dissatisfied with life, breaking out from their environment, but this does not mean that realists are not interested in invisible people, merging with their environment, representatives of the masses (the type of little man in Gogol and Chekhov). 6. The versatility of the characters: their actions, actions, speech, lifestyle and inner world, the “dialectic of the soul,” which is revealed in the psychological details of its emotional experiences. Thus, realism expands the possibilities of writers in the creative exploration of the world, in the creation of a contradictory and complex personality structure as a result of subtle penetration into the depths of the human psyche. 7. Expressiveness, brightness, imagery, accuracy of Russian literary language, enriched with elements of colloquial speech that realist writers draw from the common language. 8. A variety of genres (epic, lyre-epic, dramatic, satirical). 9. Reflection of reality does not exclude fiction and fantasy, although these artistic means do not determine the main tone of the work.

Artistic method- this is a way of mastering and displaying the world, a set of basic creative principles for the figurative reflection of life. The method can be spoken of as the structure of the writer’s artistic thinking, which determines his approach to reality and its reconstruction in the light of a certain aesthetic ideal. Through method we comprehend those creative principles, thanks to which the writer reproduces reality: selection, evaluation, typification (generalization), artistic embodiment characters, life phenomena in historical refraction. The method is manifested in the structure of thoughts and feelings of the heroes of a literary work, in the motivations for their behavior and actions, in the relationship of characters and events, in accordance life path, the fate of the characters and the socio-historical circumstances of the era.

Artistic method is a system of principles for selecting life material, its evaluation, principles and prevailing forms of artistic generalization and rethinking. It characterizes a complex of factors: a holistic ideological, evaluative, individually unique, social attitude of the artist to reality, to consciously or spontaneously reflected needs, ideological and artistic traditions. The artistic method largely determines the specificity of the artistic image.

Art style- A system of linguistic means and ideas characteristic of a particular literary work, genre, author or literary movement (Gogol’s style. Romantic style). In this style, it affects the imagination and feelings of the reader, conveys the thoughts and feelings of the author, uses all the wealth of vocabulary, possibilities different styles, is characterized by imagery and emotionality of speech. In a work of art, the word not only carries certain information, but also serves to have an aesthetic impact on the reader with the help of artistic images. The brighter and more truthful the image, the stronger its impact on the reader. In their works, writers use, when necessary, not only words and forms of the literary language, but also outdated dialect and vernacular words. The means of artistic expression are varied and numerous. These are tropes: comparisons, personification, allegory, metaphor, metonymy, synecdoche, etc. And stylistic figures: epithet, hyperbole, litotes, anaphora, epiphora, gradation, parallelism, rhetorical question, silence, etc. Trope(from ancient Greek τρόπος - turnover) - in a work of art, words and expressions used in a figurative meaning in order to enhance the imagery of the language, the artistic expressiveness of speech.

Literary direction is a set of fundamental spiritual and aesthetic principles of many writers, as well as a number of groups and schools. There are the following literary trends:

1. Baroque(port. perola barrocco - an irregularly shaped pearl).

Appears with gray 16th - 17th centuries in the art of many European countries(especially in Italy and Spain). Most of all it manifests itself in the manner of writing or a pictorial image. The following important features of the Baroque are highlighted:

ornateness,

Pomposity,

Decoration,

Tendency to allegory, allegorism,

Complex metaphors

A combination of comic and tragic

An abundance of stylistic decorations in artistic speech.

A prominent representative of the Baroque was P. Calderon. In Russia, the features of this style appeared in the poetry of S. Polotsky, S. Medvedev, K. Istomin. The main works of the Baroque: E. Tesauro “Aristotle’s Spyglass”, B. Gracian “Wit, or the Art of a Sophisticated Mind”.

2.Classicism- (Latin classicus - exemplary) literary movement that developed in European literature of the 17th century, based on (according to S.P. Belokurova (3)):

1. Recognition of ancient art as the highest example, ideal, and works of antiquity as the artistic norm.

2. The principle of rationalism and “imitation of nature.”

3. Cult of reason.

4. Active appeal to social and civil issues.

5. Emphasized objectivity of the narrative.

6. Strict hierarchy of genres

3.Sentimentalism- (from French sentiment - feeling, sensitivity) - literary movement of the second half of the 18th century. - beginning XIX century (3). The main genres are sentimental novel, story, diary, travel, letter, elegy, message.

In works of this direction human personality was interpreted as responsive, capable of compassion, humane, kind, possessing high moral principles. The largest representatives in European literature are L. Stern ("Sentimental Journey through France and Italy"), J.-J. Rousseau ("Julia, or the New Heloise"), S. Richardson ("Ppamela, or Virtue Rewarded", "Clarissa, or the Story of a Young Lady"), I.-V. Goethe (“The Sorrows of Young Werther”) and others; in Russian literature of the second half of the 18th century. - M.N. Muravyov, N.M. Karamzin, V.V. Kapnist, N.A. Lvov, A.N. Radishchev, early V.A. Zhukovsky.

With his own syllable in an important mood, it used to be that a fiery creator showed us his hero as a model of perfection.

("Eugene Onegin" Chapter 3 Stanza 11)

4. Romanticism(from the French roman - a work in Romance languages). Romanticism dates back to the first third of the 19th century. Germany became the birthplace of romanticism (brothers F. and A. Schlegel, L. Tieck, Novalis). Romanticism is characterized by “attention to the individual as a spiritual being, possessing a sovereign inner world, independent of the conditions of existence and historical circumstances” (1).

5. Realism- "(from Latin realis - material) - an artistic method in literature and art, following which the writer depicts life in accordance with objective reality"(3). The focus of realism is facts, events, people and things, patterns that operate in life, the relationship between man and the environment, the hero and the time in which he lives. The writer does not break away from reality, selects the inherent life traits and thereby enriches the reader with knowledge of life.

6. Symbolism"- (fr. symbolisme< от греч. symbolon - знак, опознавательная примета) - явление художественной культуры последней thirds of the XIX- beginning twentieth century, which opposed itself to realism and made the basis of its artistic system the philosophical concept of the fundamental unknowability of the world and man by means of scientific experience, logical analysis and realistic depiction" (3). As D.S. Merezhkovsky noted, the three main elements of symbolism are mystical content, symbols, expansion of artistic impressionability.

7. Modernism- (from the French moderne - modern, newest). Modernism is characterized by “anti-historicism of thinking (history is replaced by a certain model of the world in which nothing changes, the mythologization of the past, present and future), interest in man in general, and not in man as a product of his era (the specific historical situation in the works of modernism does not have meaning, for “a person, like a horse, always walks with his eyes closed in the same circles” (D. Joyce)), lack of social typification.”

8. Postmodernism(from the French post - after and moderne - modern, newest) - a direction in the literature of the 20th century. For this direction Characterized by the perception of the world as chaos, the reflection of the unconscious, random in the behavior of the characters, an abundance of irony (Irony) and parody. A feature of postmodernism works is that they often consist of words and situations that the author presents to the reader in a parody. For example, these include the works of V. Pelevin and D. Prigov.

Literary movement is a collection of creative individuals who are characterized by ideological and artistic affinity and programmatic and aesthetic unity. Simply put, a literary movement is a type of literary movement. For example, in Russian romanticism there are such movements as “philosophical”, “psychological” and “civil”, and in Russian realism some distinguish “psychological” and “sociological” movements, etc. and so on...

From the point of view of literary understanding“Style is an individually outlined and closed, purposeful system of means of verbal and aesthetic expression and embodiment artistic reality. A broad literary definition of an artist’s style as “the main ideological and artistic features inherent in his work (ideological positions, range of characters and plots, originality of language). According to the views of G.N. Pospelov, style includes three main elements: language, composition, details of the subject figurativeness. Language is the most obvious, tangible element of style. This includes rhythm, intonation, vocabulary and tropes. . From the point of view of linguistic understanding: Style is a type of language, assigned in a given society by tradition to one of the most general areas social life and partially different from other varieties of the same language in all basic parameters - vocabulary, grammar, phonetics;

Related information.

Part I (XVII-XVIII centuries)

Who is talking about what - and I am all about literary criticism. :-)We have already agreed that this concept is capacious and includes, in particular, both theory and the history of literature. It’s between these Scylla and Charybdis that I’ll try to navigate. I really want to at least try to give a systematic view of literature as an art form, as a single living process, although I understand that this task is practically impossible within the framework of several review articles. And yet some basic features can be crystallized and brought into a system. But to do this, you need to decide which main stoves to dance from, so as not to miss a single cornerstone.

Eat several ways to review the literature as a whole, related to its main aspects. These are the starting points:

1. Chronology and cultural and geographical features . This is the most traditional way of studying the history of literature - from folklore to the present day, in different countries, sequentially and in parallel. It is the most complete and leisurely, and that is why we will not follow it. :-)
2. Genera, types and genres . We have already talked about them in general terms, so I will operate with these concepts without detailed explanations, although in the future, I hope, we will return to them and consider their evolution in different national and time environments. Then we will be able to clearly combine theory with history, but for now we need to talk about one more problem, without solving which it is impossible to get a complete picture of the development of any type of art:
3. Method. This is the concept we will start from today.

Artistic (creative) method is a concept denoting the most general principles and methods of selecting, evaluating and reflecting life, provided that these principles and methods are repeated in the works of a number of writers who are similar in worldview and technique of creative development (re-creation) of reality. Until the 17th century there were no attempts to theoretically substantiate individual methods: the artist had only to “imitate” life, as he defined the main function of literature back in IV V. BC. Aristotle.

Since the 17th century appeared theoretical works that define the socio-philosophical basis and aesthetic framework of literary methods as a way of artistic re-creation of life, its creative transformation. Yes, with a manifesto classicism became a treatise N. Boileau “Poetic art”, romanticism – « Philosophy of Art" by F. Schelling, preface to the drama “Cromwell” by V. Hugo, romanticism And realism – Stendhal's treatise "Racine and Shakespeare", realism – preface by O. de Balzac to “ Human Comedy» , etc. Individual literary movements also had their own literary manifestos.

So, first literary methods (more broadly - methods of art) were classicism and baroque, which developed in the 17th century. I will describe the methods in the most concise form, emphasizing features through comparisons, but then I undertake to answer any specific questions if any arise.

COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF CLASSICISM AND BAROQUE ( XVIIV .)

Classicism in architecture:

Baroque in architecture:

But life did not stand still: political trends changed and social structure, science and economics developed, the human mind became more and more inquisitive, and set new goals for itself. So, one of the noblest ideas XVIII century became an idea Enlightenment : if educated people share their knowledge with the uneducated, then everyone will equally possess the greatest wealth - Knowledge, and the time of equality, justice and prosperity will come... Looking ahead, it must be said that this idea did not bear the fruits for which it was intended , although it played a certain role. As for methods and trends, classicism acquired more and more educational features until, finally, it was transformed into a somewhat schematic educational realism, from which realism as such would develop in the next century. On the other hand, enlightened Europe, which did not immediately become happy from knowledge, went to the other extreme - feelings, which led to the formation of extremely “sensitive” trends - sentimentalism and pre-romanticism, which will soon manifest itself as true romanticism.

COMPARATIVE CHARACTERISTICS OF LITERARY DIRECTIONS XVIIIV . (Enlightenment era)

But all this is only preparation for the development of literature in XIX and subsequent centuries, and the main thing is yet to come.

Literature 8th grade. Textbook-reader for schools with in-depth study of literature Team of authors

About what a creative method, an artistic system and a literary movement are

The question of the laws for creating the artistic world of a literary work is one of the most difficult in the art of words. You already know well that artistic reality is conditional and does not coincide with real reality, but at the same time, the source of creating the artistic world is always personal experience the writer, that is, his ideas about the real world.

How does the idea of ​​real life turn into the artistic world of a literary work? Many generations of artists and scientists have sought the answer to this question. The result of their reflections was the concept of the creative method.

Creative method- these are the main artistic principles assessment, selection and reproduction of reality in the work.

What does it mean? Think about it, in order to create artistic reality Based on one of the types of convention, you must first imagine what reality is. In other words, before depicting nature and man, the writer should realize what he calls nature and how he imagines man. He first of all has to determine his view of the world around him, create his own concept of the world and man (you are already familiar with this concept).

So, first of all, the writer makes an assessment of reality on the basis of the scientific data at his disposal and in accordance with his worldview. The concept of the world and man he created serves as the source material for constructing the artistic world of a literary work.

However, you already know that you cannot mechanically transfer everything known about the earthly world in which a person lives onto the pages of a book. The writer inevitably has to select what seems most important to him. The principles of typing help him in this.

Typing is selection and artistic comprehension characteristic features, phenomena and properties of reality in the process of creating artistic images and building the artistic world of a literary work. Simply put, it is a display of general, characteristic features of life in specific artistic images.

Typification is one of the main properties of any art. To create an artistic world, the author must, based on his own experience, select from the facts of real life, from the variety of human characters, those that, when transferred to a work of art, will create in it the illusion of living life. Single, unique artistic images reflect the characteristic properties of everyday reality. Remember the collisions of "Dubrovsky". A. S. Pushkin created two wonderful, unique artistic characters - Andrei Dubrovsky and Kirila Troekurov. But they imprinted the traits of many Russian landowners: the pride of the impoverished nobility, the arrogance of rich aristocrats, the concept of honor characteristic of Russian officers. And in the court scene, the dependence of officials on the local rich, the nature of the consideration of litigation, was reflected like a drop of water. The exclusivity and singularity of the quarrel between Andrei Dubrovsky and Kirila Troekurov reflected numerous conflicts of the local nobility.

Not only ordinary, familiar features are typified Everyday life. The writer’s ability to feel the emergence of new trends of the time, new people and to bring them out in his creation is also associated with typification. This is a reflection in a specific image of ideal or just emerging new phenomena. Here, for example, is the image of Gauvin from “A Mule Without a Bridle”: it reflects the dream of an ideal knight, a true defender of the weak and offended. And V. S. Pikul in the essay “Horse artillery - march-march!” managed to show the features of a real Russian officer epic heroes- here you have the embodiment of the dreams of your ancestors in the concrete form of their descendant...

Typification has existed in art as long as art itself has existed. Since ancient times, artists have created their own images in which other people recognized the world they were familiar with. But as humanity developed, art changed, and the principles of typification also changed, since they depend on how a person sees the world, what place he allocates for himself in it. Typification reflects the level of human ideas that is inherent in a specific historical period in the development of society.

You see what difficult work the author has to do to realize his life experience in creating the artistic world of the work! But that's not all. It’s not enough to take away required material, it is necessary for the imaginary world to live its own independent life, has become full-blooded and natural in the reader’s perception, it is necessary to feel the possibilities artistic convention, know the laws of literature as an art form (poetics). Exactly poetics and defines the principles of reproducing reality in a literary work. The writer chooses the form of convention, genre, techniques and means of artistic expression... However, these components of poetics were not immediately discovered by artists; they changed historically, were enriched and developed. The variability of the principles of assessment, selection and reproduction of reality was the objective reason for the change in creative methods throughout the development of the literary process.

Some creative methods arose on the basis of the dominant ideology and existed long time, changing under the influence of new historical conditions. Such creative methods usually called productive. These include classicism, romanticism, realism. They formed entire art systems(the totality of all literary works created on the basis of one productive creative method).

Since the productive creative method existed for a long time, experiencing certain modifications, within the artistic system appeared literary trends, that is, concrete historical manifestations of the creative method.

But there were also unproductive creative methods(Baroque, sentimentalism, naturalism), which appeared as a result of the creative polemics of writers with representatives of productive methods. Unproductive methods existed for a relatively short time, and no artistic systems arose on their basis, although they created their own literary movements.

Since each national literature is based on its original national tradition and uses its own language, national manifestations of the creative method have their own characteristic features and are called literary movement.

The first of the creative methods known to us in the literary process European civilization, was classicism that arose during the Renaissance.

Here you may rightly ask: how did the literature of the Middle Ages exist without creative methods? The fact is that medieval literature had not yet separated from other types creative activity of man: hagiography (hagiography), chronicles, scientific reasoning. Writers did not feel the need to understand the ways of constructing the artistic world.

At the same time, mythological, journalistic and artistic principles were quite often synthesized in medieval literature. Genre independence was absolute, and the interaction of genres (a phenomenon common in subsequent eras) began relatively late in medieval art.

Simply put, the role of the method at that time was played by individual genres. I hope you remember that in the Middle Ages there were no clear boundaries between literature and folklore, and method is a characteristic feature of literary creativity.