ARTISTIC WORKS - a product of art. creativity, in which the spiritual content of its creator, the artist, is embodied in a sensual-material form and which meets certain criteria of aesthetic value; main custodian and source of information in the field of art and culture. P. x. it can be single and ensemble, deployed in space and developing in time, self-sufficient or requiring performing arts. In the system of culture, it functions due to its material-subject carrier: the typographic text of a book, a painting canvas with its physical, chemical and geometric properties, a cinematographic tape; in performing iek-vah - to the orchestra, actor, etc. Actually P. x. is constructed on the basis of the primary pictorial series: sounding or imaginary speech, a combination of shapes and color planes in the visual arts, a moving image projected onto a film and television screen, an organized system of musical sounds, etc. Although, unlike a natural object, the creation of P. x . determined by the purpose of man, it occurs on the border with nature, because it uses natural materials (Material of art), and in some types of art P. occurs in the process of rearranging and emphasizing natural objects ( landscape gardening) or in an ensemble with them (, memorial and monumental and landscape gardening). Being a product of specific creative activity, P. x. at the same time, it borders on the world of utilitarian and practical things (decorative and applied art), documentary and scientific sources, and other cultural monuments, for example. “The historical novel is, as it were, the point at which history as a science merges with art” (Belinsky). P. x. borders, however, not only on “practically useful”, but also on “unsuccessful attempts at art” (Tolstoy). It must satisfy at least the minimum requirements of artistry, i.e., stand on a step closer to perfection. Tolstoy divided P. x. into three types - P. outstanding: 1) "by the significance of its content", 2) "by the beauty of the form", 3) "by its sincerity and truthfulness." The coincidence of these three moments gives rise to. Artistic the merits of P. art are determined by the talent of their creator, the originality and sincerity of the idea (in the art of constantly renewing cultures), the most complete embodiment of the possibilities of the canon (in the art of traditional cultures), and a high degree of skill. The artistry of P. art is manifested in the completeness of the realization of the idea, the crystallization of its aesthetic expressiveness, in the content of the form, adequate to the general author's concept and individual nuances of figurative thought (Artistic Concept), in integrity, which is expressed in proportionality that meets the principle of unity in diversity , or in an emphasis towards either unity or diversity. Organism, apparent unintentionality of the present P. x. prompted Kant and Goethe to compare it with a product of nature, romantics - with the universe, Hegel - with man, Potebnya - with the word. Artistic the integrity of the item of art, its completeness is by no means always adequate to the technical, quantitatively calculable side of the constituent parts, its external completeness. And then the sketch is in a meaningful-hu-doge. relation is so precise that it outweighs in its significance and expressive power the detailed and outwardly large-scale P. x. (for example, V. Serov, A. Scriabin, P. Picasso, A. Matisse). In the Soviet fine arts, there are also detailed, outwardly finished paintings, and those in which there is a tendency to expressiveness, elevating a fragment to the status of an artist. integrity. However, in all cases, genuine P. x. there is a certain organization, orderliness, conjugation of aesthetic ideas into a whole. In the process of development of one or another type of art suit, the function can also be acquired by technical means, with the help of which P. x. delivered, transmitted to the public accepting the claim (for example, in cinema). In addition to the materially fixed plan P. x. carries encoded information of an ideological, ethical, socio-psychological order, which in its structure acquires an artist. value. Despite relative stability, P.'s content x. updated under the influence of social development, changes in art. tastes, trends and styles. Contacts in the field of art. the contents are not fixed with unambiguous certainty, as is the case in a scientific text, they are relatively mobile, thereby P. x. is not closed in the system once and for all given meanings and meanings, but allows different readings. P. x., intended for performance, already in its textual structure suggests the versatility of artistic and semantic shades, the possibility of different artistic. interpretation. This is also the basis for the creation in the process of cultural inheritance of a new artist. integrity through creative borrowing from the treasury of aesthetic discoveries of past eras, transformed and modernized by the power of civic pathos and talent of new generations. artists. It is important, however, to distinguish the fruits of such creative borrowings from epigone handicrafts, where only the external features of one or another manner captured in P. x are most often reproduced. other masters, but the emotional-figurative fullness of the original is lost. The formal and soulless reproduction of plots and art. techniques does not give rise to a new organic and creatively suffered artist. integrity, but its eclectic likeness. As a cultural phenomenon, P. x. usually considered aesthetic theory as part of a particular system: for example, in the complex of art. values ​​of one or more types of art, united by a typological community (genre, style,), or within the framework of a socio-aesthetic process that includes three links: - P. x. -. Features of psychophysiological perception of P. x. are investigated by the psychology of art, and its existence in society - by the sociology of art.

Aesthetics: Dictionary. - M.: Politizdat. Under total ed. A. A. Belyaeva. 1989 .

See what "WORK OF ART" is in other dictionaries:

Work of fiction- WORK OF FICTION. To define a work of art, it is necessary to understand all its main features. Let's try to do this, keeping in mind the works of our great writers, for example, "The Brothers Karamazov" by Dostoevsky ... Literary Encyclopedia

Work of fiction- a product of artistic creativity: in which the intention of its creator, the artist, is embodied in a sensually material form; and which meets certain categories of aesthetic value. See also: Artistic works Works ... ... Financial vocabulary

Piece of art- This term has other meanings, see Work ... Wikipedia

Work of fiction- WORK OF FICTION. To define a work of art, it is necessary to understand all its main features. Let's try to do this, keeping in mind the works of our great writers, for example, "The Brothers Karamazov" ... ... Dictionary of literary terms

ARTISTIC SPACE- the space of a work of art, the totality of those of its properties that give it internal unity and completeness and endow it with an aesthetic character. The concept of "H.P.", which plays a central role in modern aesthetics, has developed only ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

A work of art in the era of its technical reproducibility- "The work of art in the era of its technical reproducibility" (Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit) essay, written in 1936, by Walter Benjamin. In his work, Benjamin analyzes the transformation ... ... Wikipedia

ARTISTIC KNOWLEDGE- 1) the knowledge of objective and subjective reality by a person (not an artist) who has an innate ability to figuratively see the world and perceive the world in a “beautiful shell”, as subjectively expressively colored (an example of such ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

work of fiction- ▲ work of art in the form, literary work action (# of the novel occurs where). plot is the course of events in a literary work. plot move. intrigue (twisted #). | episode. exod. remark. | retardation. plot. sing. start. |… … Ideographic Dictionary of the Russian Language

ARTISTIC TIME AND ARTISTIC SPACE- ARTISTIC TIME AND ARTISTIC SPACE, the most important characteristics of the artistic image, providing a holistic perception of artistic reality and organizing the composition of the work. The art of the word belongs to the group ... ... Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary

Piece of art- a spiritually material reality that meets artistic and aesthetic criteria, which arose as a result of the creative efforts of an artist, sculptor, poet, composer, etc. and represents a value in the eyes of certain communities. ... ... Aesthetics. encyclopedic Dictionary

Nowadays, anyone who would like to understand the nature of art comes across many categories; their number is growing. This is the plot, plot, circumstances, character, style, genre, etc. The question arises: is there no such category that would unite all others - without losing their special meaning? It is enough to put it down to immediately answer: of course, there is, this is a work of art.

Any review of the problems of theory inevitably returns to it. A work of art brings them into one; from it, in fact - from contemplation, reading, acquaintance with it - all the questions that a theoretician or a person simply interested in art can ask, but to him - resolved or unresolved - these questions return, connecting their distant content, revealed by analysis with the same general, albeit now enriched, impression.

In a work of art, all these categories are lost in each other - for the sake of something new and always more meaningful than themselves. In other words, the more there are and the more complex they are, the more pressing and important becomes the question of how an artistic whole, complete in itself, but infinitely expanded into the world, is formed and lives with their help.

It is separated from everything that the categories designate on a fairly simple basis: "complete in itself" remains, although old, but, perhaps, the most accurate definition for this distinction. The fact is that the plot, character, circumstances, genres, styles, etc. -

these are still only the "languages" of art, the image itself is also a "language"; a work is a statement. It uses and creates these "languages" only to the extent and in those qualities that are necessary for the completeness of its thought. A work cannot be repeated, as its elements are repeated. They are only historically changing means, a substantive form; a work is a formalized and not subject to change content. It balances and disappears any means, because they are here to prove something new, not amenable to any other expression. When this new takes and re-creates exactly as many “elements” as are necessary for its justification, then the work will be born. It will grow on the various sides of the image and put into practice its main principle; here art will begin and the finite, isolated existence of various means, which is so beneficial and convenient for theoretical analysis, will cease.

We must agree that, in answering the question about the whole, the theory itself will have to undergo some switching. That is, since a work of art is first of all unique, it will have to generalize, yielding to art, in a manner unusual for itself, within one whole. To talk about a work in general, as one talks, for example, about the structure of an image, would mean to move away from its special theme and place among theoretical problems into something else, for example, into the study of the relationship of different aspects of this “general” figurative structure to each other. The work is solely according to its task; in order to understand this task, its role among other categories of art, it is obviously necessary to take one of all the works.

What to choose? There are thousands of works - perfect and artistic - and most of them are not even known to any individual reader. Each of them, like a person, carries in itself a root relationship with all others, the original knowledge that the machine does not possess and which is “programmed” by the entire self-developing nature. Therefore, we can confidently take any and recognize in it this unique unity, which is only gradually revealed in the repetition of scientific, provable quantities.

Let's try to consider for this purpose the story of L. Tolstoy "Hadji Murad". This choice is, of course, arbitrary; however, several arguments can be made in its defense.

First, we are dealing here with undeniable artistry. Tolstoy is known primarily as an artist, possessing an incomparable material-figurative-bodily power, that is, the ability to capture any detail of the “spirit” in the external movement of nature (compare, for example, Dostoevsky, who is more inclined, as one critic well said, to "hurricane of ideas").

Secondly, this artistry is the most modern; it has only just managed to become a classic and is not as distant from us as the systems of Shakespeare, Rabelais, Aeschylus or Homer.

Thirdly, this story was written at the end of the journey and, as often happens, it carries within itself its concise conclusion, the result - with a simultaneous exit into the future art. Tolstoy did not want to publish it, among other things, because, as he said, "it is necessary that something be left after my death." It was prepared (as an "artistic testament" and turned out to be unusually compact, containing, as in a drop, all the grandiose discoveries of Tolstoy's "past"; this is a concise epic, a "digest" made by the writer himself - a circumstance very beneficial for theory.

Finally, it so happened that in a short introduction, at the entrance to his own building, Tolstoy, as if on purpose, scattered several stones - the material from which it was indestructibly shifted. It is strange to say, but all the beginnings of art really lie here, and the reader can freely survey them: please, the secret is revealed, perhaps in order to see how great it really is. But nevertheless they are named and shown: both the nascent idea, and the first small image that will grow, and the way of thinking in which it will develop; and all three main sources of nutrition, supplies, from where it will gain strength - in a word, everything that will begin to move towards the unity of the work.

Here they are, these beginnings.

“I returned home through the fields. Was the most middle

for the summer. The meadows were cleared, and they were just about to mow the rye.”

These are the first three sentences; Pushkin could have written them - simplicity, rhythm, harmony - and this is no longer accidental. This is indeed the idea of ​​the beautiful that comes from Pushkin in Russian literature (in Tolstoy, of course, it arises spontaneously and only as the beginning of his idea); here she will undergo a terrible test. “There is a lovely selection of colors for this time of year,” Tolstoy continues, “red, white, pink, fragrant, fluffy porridge,” etc. An exciting description of colors follows - and suddenly: the image of a black “dead field”, raised steam - all this must perish . “What a destructive, cruel creature, man, how many various living beings, plants have been destroyed for half the maintenance of his life.” This is no longer Pushkin - "And let the young life play at the coffin entrance" - no. Tolstoy but he agrees. just like Dostoevsky with his “only tear of a child”, just like Belinsky, who returned to Yegor Fedorovich Hegel his “philosophical cap”, does not want to buy progress at the cost of the death and death of the beautiful. He believes that a person cannot come to terms with this, he is called upon to overcome it at all costs. Here begins his own idea-problem, which sounds in "Resurrection": "No matter how hard people try ..." and in "The Living Corpse": "Three people live ..."

And now this idea meets with something that seems ready to confirm it. Looking at the black field, the writer notices a plant that nevertheless stood before man - read: before the destructive forces of civilization; this is a "Tatar" bush by the road. “What, however, is the energy and strength of life,” and in the diary: “I want to write. Defends life to the last” 1 . At this moment, the "general" idea becomes a special, new, individual idea of ​​the future work.

II. In the process of its inception, it is therefore immediately artistic, that is, it appears in the form

1 Tolstoy L.I. Full. coll. soch., v. 35. M., Goslitizdat, 1928 - 1964. p. 585. All subsequent references are to this edition by volume and page.

original image. This image is a comparison of the fate of Hadji Murad, known to Tolstoy, with the "Tatar" bush. From here the idea takes on a social direction and is ready, with the passion characteristic of the late Tolstoy, to fall upon the entire ruling apparatus of the oppression of man. She takes as her main artistic problem the most acute of all possible positions of her time - the fate of the whole person in the struggle of systems alienated from her, in other words, the problem that, in various changes, then passed through the literature of the 20th century in its highest models. However, here it is still only a problem in the bud; the work will help her to become complete and convincing. In addition, in order to develop into art, and not into a logical thesis, it needs various other “substances” - which ones?

III. “And I remembered one old Caucasian story, some of which I saw, some I heard from eyewitnesses, and some I imagined. This story, as it has developed in my memory and imagination, is what it is.

So, they are singled out, and it is only necessary to put signs to distinguish between these isolated sources of art: a) life, reality, fact - what Tolstoy calls "heard from eyewitnesses", that is, this includes, of course, documents, surviving objects, the books and letters he re-read and revised; b) the material of consciousness - "memory" - which is already united according to its own internal personal principle, and not according to some disciplines - military, diplomatic, etc.; c) "imagination" - a way of thinking that will lead the accumulated values ​​to new, still unknown ones.

It only remains for us to take one last look at these origins and say goodbye to them, because we will not see them again. The next line - and the first chapter - already begins the work itself, where there are no traces of a separate memory, or references to an eyewitness, or imagination, - "it seems to me that it could be so," but just some person rides a horse on a cold November evening with whom we have to get to know, who does not suspect that we are following him and what he reveals to us with his behavior

great problems of human existence. And the author, who had appeared at the beginning, also disappeared, even - paradoxically - the work that we took in our hands also left: there was a window into life, thrown open by a single effort of idea, fact and imagination.

Having crossed the threshold of a work, we thus find ourselves inside a wholeness that is so hostile to dismemberment that even the very fact of reasoning about it contains a contradiction: in order to explain such a unity, it seems to be more correct to simply rewrite the work, and not to reason and investigate that only again brings us back to the scattered, albeit aimed at conjugation "elements".

True, there is one natural way out.

After all, the integrity of the work is not some kind of absolute point, devoid of dimensions; a work has extension, its own artistic time, order in alternation and transition from one "language" to another (plot, character, circumstances, etc.), and more often - in the change of those special life-like positions that these "languages" combined. Mutual arrangement and connection within the work, of course, pave and trace many natural roads to its unity; an analyst can also pass them. They, in addition; as a general phenomenon, have long been examined and are called composition.

Composition is the disciplining force and organizer of the work. She is instructed to ensure that nothing breaks out to the side, into its own law, namely, it is conjugated into the whole and turns in addition to his thought: she controls artistry in all joints and in general. Therefore, it usually does not accept either logical derivation and subordination, or a simple life sequence, although it is very similar to it; its purpose is to arrange all the pieces so that they close into the full expression of the idea.

The construction of "Hadji Murad" grew out of Tolstoy's many years of observation of his own and other people's work, although the writer himself opposed this work, far from moral self-improvement, in every possible way. Painstakingly and slowly, he turned over and rearranged the heads of his "burdock", trying to find a match.

perfect frame of the work. “I will do it on the sly,” he said in a letter to M. L. Obolenskaya, having previously announced that he was “on the edge of the grave” (vol. 35, p. 620) and that therefore it was ashamed to deal with such trifles. In the end, he nevertheless managed to achieve a rare order and harmony in the huge plan of this story.

Thanks to his originality, Tolstoy for a long time was incomparable with the great realists of the West. He alone walked the path of entire generations from the epic scope of the Russian Iliad to a new acutely conflicted novel and a compact story. As a result, if one looks at his works in the general current of realistic literature, then, for example, the novel "War and Peace", which stands out as one of the highest achievements of the 19th century, may seem like an anachronism on the part of purely literary technique. In this work, Tolstoy, according to B. Eikhenbaum, who is somewhat exaggerating, but on the whole right, treats “slender architectonics with complete contempt” 1 . The classics of Western realism, Turgenev and other writers in Russia had by that time managed to create a special dramatized novel with one central character and a clearly defined composition.

Balzac's programmatic remarks about the "Parma Monastery" - a work very beloved by Tolstoy - make one feel the difference between a professional writer and such seemingly "spontaneous" artists as Stendhal or Tolstoy of the first half of his creative path. Balzac criticizes the looseness and disintegration of the composition. In his opinion, the events in Parma and the story of Fabrizio are developed into two independent themes of the novel. Abbot Blanes is out of action. Against this, Balzac objects: “The ruling law is the unity of the composition; unity may be in a common idea or plan, but without it, ambiguity will reign” 2 . One must think that if he had War and Peace in front of him, the head of the French realists, having expressed admiration, perhaps no less than for Stendhal's novel, would not fail to make similar reservations.

1 Eichenbaum B. Young Tolstoy, 1922, p. 40.

2 Balzac on art. M. - L., "Art", 1941, p. 66.

It is known, however, that towards the end of his life, Balzac begins to retreat from his rigid principles. A good example is his book "Peasants", which loses its proportion due to psychological and other digressions. A researcher of his work writes: "Psychology, as a kind of commentary on the action, shifting attention from the event to its cause, undermines the powerful structure of the Balzac novel" 1 . It is also known that in the future the critical realists of the West gradually decompose the clear-cut forms of the novel, filling them with sophisticated psychologism (Flaubert, later Maupassant), subordinating documentary materials to the action of biological laws (Zola), etc. Meanwhile, Tolstoy, as Rosa Luxemburg well said , "going indifferently against the current" 2, strengthened and purified his art.

Therefore, while - as a general law - the works of Western novelists of the late 19th - early 20th centuries are moving further and further away from a coherent plot, blurring in fractional psychological details, Tolstoy, on the contrary, rids his "dialectics of the soul" of uncontrolled generosity in shades and reduces the former multi-darkness to single plot. At the same time, he dramatizes the action of his great works, chooses the conflict that explodes more and more each time, and does this at the same depths of psychology as before.

There are great general changes in the formal structure of his creations.

The dramatic succession of scenes is grouped around an ever smaller number of basic images; family and love couples, of which there are so many in War and Peace, are reduced first to two lines of Anna - Vronsky, Kitty - Levin, then to one line: Nekhlyudov - Katyusha, and, finally, in Hadji Murad they disappear completely, so that Nekrasov's well-known reproach to "Anna Karenina" for excessive attention to adultery, and in itself unfair, could no longer be addressed to this thoroughly social story. This epic drama focuses on one person, one big

1 Reizov B.G. Creativity of Balzac. L., Goslitizdat, 1939, p. 376.

2 About Tolstoy. Collection. Ed. V. M. Friche. M. - L., GIZ, 1928, p. 124.

an event that rallies everything else around itself (such is the regularity of the path from War and Peace to Anna Karenina, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Living Corpse, and Hadji Murad). At the same time, the scale of the problems raised does not fall and the volume of life captured in artistic scenes does not diminish - due to the fact that the significance of each person is increased, and the inner connection of their relations to each other as units of a common thought is more strongly emphasized.

Our theoretical literature has already spoken of how the polarities of Russian life in the 19th century influenced artistic consciousness, putting forward a new type of artistic assimilation of contradictions and enriching the forms of thinking in general 1 . Here we must add that the very principle of polarity was innovatively extended in Tolstoy to the end of his way of the form of composition. It can be said that thanks to him in "Resurrection", "Hadji Murad" and other later works of Tolstoy, the general laws of the distribution of the image within the work were more clearly revealed and sharpened. The magnitudes reflected in each other lost their intermediate links, moved away from each other to enormous distances - but each of them began to serve as a semantic center for all the others.

You can take any of them - the smallest event in the story - and we will immediately see that it deepens and becomes clearer when we get acquainted with every detail that is far from it; at the same time, each such detail receives a new meaning and evaluation through this event.

For example, the death of Avdeev - killed in a random shootout of soldiers. What his death means for various human psychologies, laws and social institutions, and what they all mean for him, a peasant son, is unfolded in a fan of details that flashed just as “accidentally” as his death.

“I just started loading, I hear it chirped ... I look, and he fired a gun,” repeats the soldier who was paired with Avdeev, obviously shocked by the ordinariness of what could happen to him.

1 See: G. D. Gachev, The Development of Figurative Consciousness in Literature. - Theory of literature. Main problems in historical coverage, vol. 1. M., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1962, p. 259 - 279.

“- Te-te,” Poltoratsky clicked his tongue (company commander. - P.P.). - Well, does it hurt, Avdeev? .. ”(To the sergeant major. - P.P.):“- Well, all right, you make arrangements,” he added, and, “waving his whip, rode at a big trot towards Vorontsov.”

Zhurya Poltoratsky for arranging a skirmish (it was provoked in order to introduce Baron Frese, demoted for a duel), Prince Vorontsov casually inquires about the event:

“- I heard a soldier was wounded?

Very pity. The soldier is good.

It seems hard - in the stomach.

Do you know where I'm going?"

And the conversation turns to a more important subject: Vorontsov is going to meet Hadji Murad.

“Who is assigned what,” say the patients in the hospital where they brought Petrukha.

Immediately, “the doctor dug for a long time with a probe in the stomach and felt for a bullet, but could not get it. Bandaging the wound and sealing it with a sticky plaster, the doctor left.

The military clerk informs his relatives about Avdeev's death in the wording that he writes according to tradition, hardly thinking about its content: he was killed, "defending the tsar, the fatherland and the Orthodox faith."

Meanwhile, somewhere in a remote Russian village, although these relatives are trying to forget him (“the soldier was a cut piece”), they still remember him, and the old woman, his mother, even decided to somehow send him a ruble with a letter: “ And also, my dear child, you are my little dove Petrushenka, I cried out my eyes ... "The old man, her husband, who took the letter to the city," ordered the janitor to read the letter to himself and listened attentively and approvingly.

But, having received the news of death, the old woman "wailed while there was time, and then set to work."

And Avdeev's wife, Aksinya, who mourned in public "Pyotr Mikhailovich's blond curls", "in the depths of her soul ... she was glad of Peter's death. She was again a belly from the clerk with whom she lived.

The impression is completed by a magnificent military report, where Avdeev’s death turns into some kind of clerical myth:

“On November 23, two companies of the Kurinsky regiment set out from the fortress for logging. In the middle of the day, a significant crowd of highlanders suddenly attacked the cutters. The chain began to retreat, and at this time the second company struck with bayonets and knocked over the mountaineers. In the case, two privates were lightly wounded and one was killed. The highlanders lost about a hundred people killed and wounded.

These amazing trifles are scattered in different parts of the work and each stand in the natural continuation of its own, different event, but, as we see, they are composed by Tolstoy in such a way that now one or the other whole is closed between them - we took only one!

Another example is a raid on a village.

Cheerful, just escaped from St. Petersburg, Butler eagerly absorbs new impressions from the proximity of the highlanders and the danger: “It’s either the case, or the case, rangers, rangers!” - sang his songwriters. His horse walked with a cheerful step to this music. The company's shaggy, gray Trezorka, like a chief, with a twisted tail, with a preoccupied look, ran in front of Butler's company. My heart was cheerful, calm and cheerful.”

His boss, the drunken and good-natured Major Petrov, views this expedition as a familiar, everyday affair.

“So that's it, sir, father,” said the major in the interval of the song. - Not like you have in St. Petersburg: alignment to the right, alignment to the left. But work hard, and go home.

What they "worked" on is evident from the next chapter, which talks about the victims of the raid.

The old man, who rejoiced when Hadji Murad ate his honey, has now just “returned from his bee-house. The two stacks of hay that were there were burned ... all the beehives with bees were burned.

His grandson, “that handsome boy with sparkling eyes, who enthusiastically looked at Hadji Murad (when Hadji Murad visited their house. - P.P.), was brought dead to the mosque on a horse covered with a cloak. He was pierced in the back with a bayonet ... ”, etc., etc.

Again the whole event is restored, but through what a contradiction! Where is the truth, who is to blame, and if so, how much, for example, the thoughtless campaigner Petrov, who cannot be otherwise, and the young Butler, and the Chechens.

Isn't Butler a man, and aren't people his songwriters? Questions arise here by themselves - in the direction of the idea, but none of them finds a frontal, one-sided answer, bumping into another. Even in one “local” unity, the complexity of artistic thought makes everything dependent on each other, but at the same time, as it were, it accelerates and kindles the need to embrace, understand, balance this complexity in the whole truth. Feeling this incompleteness, all “local” unities move towards the whole that the work represents.

They intersect in all directions in thousands of points, add up to unexpected combinations and gravitate towards the expression of one idea - without losing their "self".

All large categories of the image behave in this way, for example, characters. They, of course, also participate in this intersection, and the main compositional principle penetrates into their own core. This principle consists in, unexpectedly for logic, to place any uniqueness and opposites on some axis passing through the center of the image. The external logic of one sequence breaks down, colliding with another. Between them, in their struggle, artistic truth is gaining strength. The fact that Tolstoy took special care of this is evidenced by entries in his diaries.

For example, on March 21, 1898: “There is such an English peepshow toy - one thing or another is shown under a glass. This is how you need to show a person X (aji) -M (urat): a husband, a fanatic, etc.

Or: May 7, 1901: “I saw in a dream the type of old man that Chekhov anticipated in me. The old man was especially good because he was almost a saint, and meanwhile a drinker and a scolder. For the first time, I clearly understood the power that types gain from boldly applied shadows. I will do it on X (adji) -M (urate) and M (arye) D (mitrievna) ”(v. 54, p. 97).

Polarity, that is, the destruction of external sequence for the sake of internal unity, led the late Tolstoy's characters to a sharp artistic "reduction", that is, the removal of various intermediate links, along which in another case

go reader's thought; this reinforced the impression of extraordinary courage and truth. For example, Comrade Prosecutor Breve (in "Resurrection") graduated from high school with a gold medal, received a prize at the university for an essay on servitudes, is successful with the ladies, and "as a result of this he is extremely stupid." The Georgian prince at dinner at Vorontsov's is "very stupid", but he has a "gift": he is "an unusually subtle and skillful flatterer and courtier."

In the versions of the story there is such a remark about one of the murids of Hadji Murad, Kurban; “Despite his obscurity and not a brilliant position, he was devoured by ambition and dreamed of overthrowing Shamil and taking his place” (vol. 35, p. 484). In the same way, by the way, one “bailiff with a large bundle, in which there was a project on a new method of conquering the Caucasus”, was mentioned, etc.

Any of these particular units was noticed and singled out by Tolstoy from outwardly incompatible, assigned to different rows of signs. The image expanding its space breaks and breaks these rows one by one; polarities grow larger; the idea receives new evidence and confirmation.

It becomes clear that all its so-called contrasts are, on the contrary, the most natural continuation and steps towards the unity of artistic thought, its logic. They are "contrasts" only if we assume that they are supposedly "shown"; but they are not shown, but proved, and in this artistic proof not only do they not contradict each other, but they are simply impossible and meaningless one without the other.

Only for this they constantly reveal themselves and move the story to a tragic end. They are especially felt in places of transition from one chapter or scene to another. For example, Poltoratsky, who returns in an enthusiastic mood from the charming Marya Vasilievna after a small talk and says to his Vavila: “What did you think of locking up?! Bolvan!. Here I'll show you..." - there is the most convincing logic of the movement of this general thought, as well as the transition from the wretched hut of the Avdeevs to the Vorontsovs' palace, where "the head waiter solemnly poured steaming soup from a silver bowl", or from the end of the story of Hadji Murad Loris - Melikov: “I am tied, and the end of the rope is with Shamil in

hand" - to Vorontsov's exquisitely cunning letter: "I did not write to you with the last mail, dear prince ...", etc.

From the compositional subtleties, it is curious that these contrasting pictures, in addition to the general idea of ​​​​the story - the story of "burdock" - also have special transitions that form in them themselves, which transfer the action, without breaking it, to the next episode. Thus, Vorontsov's letter to Chernyshev introduces us to the emperor's palace with an inquiry about the fate of Hadji Murad, which, that is, fate, depends entirely on the will of those to whom this letter was sent. And the transition from the palace to the chapter on the raid follows directly from Nicholas' decision to burn and ravage the villages. The transition to the family of Hadji Murad was prepared by his conversations with Butler and the fact that the news from the mountains was bad, etc. In addition, scouts, couriers, messengers rush from picture to picture. It turns out that the next chapter necessarily continues the previous one precisely because of the contrast. And thanks to the same idea of ​​the story, while developing, it remains not abstract scientific, but humanly alive.

In the end, the range of the story becomes extremely large, because its grandiose initial thought: civilization - man - the indestructibility of life - requires exhausting all "earthly spheres". The idea “calms down” and reaches its climax only when the entire plan corresponding to itself passes: from the royal palace to the court of the Avdeevs, through ministers, courtiers, governors, officers, translators, soldiers, along both hemispheres of despotism from Nikolai to Petrukha Avdeev, from Shamil to Gamzalo and Chechens, prancing with the singing of "La ilaha il alla." Only then does it become a work. Here it also achieves general harmony, proportionality in complementing each other with different sizes.

In two key places of the story, that is, at the beginning and at the end, the movement of the composition slows down, although the swiftness of the action, on the contrary, increases; the writer plunges here into the most difficult and complex work of setting up and unleashing events. The unusual fascination with details is also explained by the importance of these supporting paintings for the work.

The first eight chapters cover only what happens during one day during the release of Had-

Zhi-Murata to the Russians. In these chapters, a method of opposition is revealed: Hadji Murad in a sakla at Sado (I) - soldiers in the open (II) - Semyon Mikhailovich and Marya Vasilievna Vorontsov behind heavy curtains at the card table and with champagne (III) - Hadji Murad with nukers in the forest (IV) - Poltoratsky's company on logging, Avdeev's injury, Hadji Murad's exit (V) - Hadji Murad visiting Marya Vasilievna (VI) - Avdeev in the Vozdvizhensky hospital (VII) - Avdeev's peasant yard (VIII). The connecting threads between these contrasting scenes are: the envoys of the naib to Vorontsov, the notice of the military clerk, the letter of the old woman, etc. The action fluctuates, now running a few hours ahead (the Vorontsovs go to bed at three o'clock, and the next chapter begins late in the evening), then returning back.

Thus, the story has its own artistic time, but its connection with the external, given time is also not lost: for the convincing impression that the action takes place on the same night, Tolstoy, barely noticeable to the reader, several times “glances” at the star sky. The soldiers have a secret: "The bright stars, which seemed to run along the tops of the trees while the soldiers were walking through the forest, now stopped, shining brightly between the bare branches of the trees." After some time, they also said: "Again everything was quiet, only the wind stirred the branches of the trees, now opening, then closing the stars." Two hours later: “Yes, the stars have begun to go out,” said Avdeev.

On the same night (IV), Hadji Murad leaves the village of Mekhet: "There was no month, but the stars shone brightly in the black sky." After he rode into the forest: "... in the sky, although faintly, the stars shone." And finally, in the same place, at dawn: "... while they were cleaning weapons ... the stars faded." The most precise unity is also maintained in other ways: the soldiers secretly hear the very howl of the jackals that woke Hadji Murad.

For the external connection of the last paintings, the action of which takes place in the vicinity of Nukha, Tolstoy chooses nightingales, young grass, etc., which are described in the same detail. But this "natural" unity we will find only in the framing chapters. In quite different ways, the transitions of the chapters, which are told, are carried out.

about Vorontsov, Nikolai, Shamil. But even they do not violate the harmonic proportions; not without reason Tolstoy shortened the chapter about Nikolai, throwing out a lot of impressive details (for example, the fact that his favorite musical instrument was a drum, or the story about his childhood and the beginning of his reign) in order to leave only those signs that most closely correlate in their inner essence with another pole of absolutism, Shamil.

Creating a holistic thought of the work, the composition brings into unity not only the large definitions of the image, but also coordinates with them, of course, the speech style, syllable.

In "Hadji Murad" this affected the choice by the writer, after long hesitation, of which of the forms of narration would be best for the story: on behalf of Leo Tolstoy or a conditional narrator - an officer who served at that time in the Caucasus. The diary kept these doubts of the artist: “H(adji)-M(urata) thought a lot and prepared materials. I can’t find all the tone ”(November 20, 1897). The initial version of "Repey" is presented in such a way that although it does not have a direct story in the first person, the presence of the narrator is invisible, as in the "Prisoner of the Caucasus"; in the style of speech, an outside observer is felt, who does not pretend to psychological subtleties and great generalizations.

“In one of the Caucasian fortresses lived in 1852 the military commander, Ivan Matveyevich Kanatchikov, with his wife Marya Dmitrievna. They didn’t have children…” (vol. 35, p. 286) and further in the same vein: “As Marya Dmitrievna planned, she did everything” (vol. 35, p. 289); about Hadji Murad: “He was tormented by terrible longing, and the weather was suitable for his mood” (vol. 35, p. 297). About halfway through the work on the story, Tolstoy already simply introduces an officer-witness reinforcing this style with meager information about his biography.

But the plan grows, new big and small people are involved in the case, new scenes appear, and the officer becomes helpless. A huge influx of paintings is cramped in this limited field of vision, and Tolstoy parted with him, but not without pity: “It used to be

the message was written like an autobiography, now written objectively. Both have their advantages” (vol. 35, p. 599).

Why, after all, did the writer tend to the advantages of the “objective”?

The decisive thing here was - this is obvious - the development of an artistic idea, which required "divine omniscience." The humble officer could not grasp all the causes and consequences of Hadji Murad's entry to the Russians and his death. Only the world, knowledge and imagination of Tolstoy himself could correspond to this big world.

When the composition of the story was freed from the plan “with an officer”, the structure of individual episodes within the work also shifted. Everywhere the conditional narrator began to fall out and the author took his place. Thus, the scene of the death of Hadji Murad changed, which, even in the fifth edition, was transmitted through the lips of Kamenev, was interspersed with his words and interrupted by the exclamations of Ivan Matveyevich and Marya Dmitrievna. In the last version, Tolstoy discarded this form, leaving only: “And Kamenev told,” and in the next sentence, deciding not to trust this story to Kamenev, he prefaced Chapter XXV with the words: “It was like this.”

Having become a “small” world, the style of the story freely accepted and expressed the polarity with which the “big” world developed, that is, a work with its many sources and colorful material. Soldiers, nukers, ministers, peasants spoke to Tolstoy themselves, without regard for external communications. It is interesting that in such a construction it turned out to be possible - as it always succeeds in a truly artistic creation - to direct towards unity that which, by its nature, is called upon to isolate, separate, consider in an abstract connection.

For example, Tolstoy's own rationalism. The word "analysis", so often used next to Tolstoy, is, of course, not accidental. Looking more closely at how people feel in him, one can see that these feelings are conveyed by means of an ordinary division, so to speak, by translation into the realm of thought. From this it is easy to conclude that Tolstoy was the father and forerunner of modern intellectual literature; but of course this

far from the truth. It is not a matter of which of the forms of thought lies on the surface; an outwardly impressionistic, scattered style can be essentially abstract-logical, as was the case with the expressionists; on the contrary, Tolstoy's strict rationalistic style turns out to be not at all strict and reveals in every phrase an abyss of incompatibilities that are compatible and reconcilable only in the idea of ​​the whole. Such is the style of Hadji Murad. For example: “The eyes of these two people, having met, told each other a lot that cannot be expressed in words, and certainly not at all what the translator said. They directly, without words, expressed the whole truth about each other: Vorontsov's eyes said that he did not believe a single word of everything that Hadji Murad said, that he knew that he was the enemy of everything Russian, that he would always remain so and now submits only because he is forced to do so. And Hadji Murad understood this, and nevertheless assured him of his devotion. The eyes of Hadji Murad said that this old man should have thought about death, and not about war, but that, although he is old, he is cunning, and one must be careful with him.

It is clear that rationalism here is purely external. Tolstoy does not even care about the apparent contradiction: first he claims that the eyes said "the inexpressible in words", then he immediately begins to report what exactly they "said". But all the same, he is right, because he himself really speaks not in words, but in positions; his thought comes in flashes of those collisions that are formed from the incompatibility of words and thoughts, feelings and behavior of the translator, Vorontsov and Hadji Murad.

The thesis and thought can stand at the beginning - Tolstoy loves them very much - but real thought, artistic, will somehow become clear in the end, through everything that has been, and the first thought will turn out to be only a pointed moment of unity in it.

Actually, we observed this principle already in the beginning of the story. This little exposition, like the prologue in a Greek tragedy, announces in advance what will happen to the hero. There is a legend that Euripides explained such an introduction by the fact that he considered it unworthy for the author to intrigue the viewer with an unexpected

action gate. Tolstoy also neglects this. His lyrical page about burdock anticipates the fate of Hadji Murad, although the movement of the conflict in many versions did not go after the “plowed field”, but right from the moment of the quarrel between Hadji Murad and Shamil. The same "introduction" is repeated in small expositions of some scenes and images. For example, before the end of the story, Tolstoy again resorts to the technique of the "Greek choir", notifying the reader once again that Hadji Murad was killed: Kamenev brings his head in a sack. And in the construction of secondary characters, the same bold tendency is revealed. Tolstoy, not fearing to lose attention, immediately declares: this person is stupid, or cruel, or "does not understand life without power and without humility," as it is said about Vorontsov Sr. But this statement becomes undeniable for the reader only after several completely opposite (for example, the opinion of this person about himself) scene-pictures.

In the same way as rationalism and "thesis" introductions, numerous documentary information entered the unity of the story. They did not need to be specially hidden and processed, because the sequence and connection of thoughts were not kept by them.

Meanwhile, the history of the creation of "Hadji Murad", if traced by variants and materials, as A. P. Sergeenko did, 1 really resembled the history of a scientific discovery. Dozens of people worked in different parts of Russia, looking for new data, the writer himself re-read piles of material for seven years.

In the development of the whole, Tolstoy moved in "leaps", from the accumulated material to a new chapter, excluding the scene in the Avdeevs' courtyard, which he, as an expert on peasant life, wrote immediately and did not remake again. The rest of the chapters demanded the most varied "inlays".

A few examples. The article by A.P. Sergeenko contains a letter from Tolstoy to the mother of Karganov (one of the characters in Hadji Murad), where he asks that “dear Anna Avesealomovna” inform him of some

1 Sergeenko A.P. "Hadji Murad". The history of writing (Afterword) - Tolstoy L. N. Full. coll. cit., v. 35.

other facts about Hadji Murad, and in particular ... “whose horses were on which he wanted to run. His own or given to him. And were these horses good, and what color. The text of the story convinces us that these requests stemmed from an indomitable desire to convey all the variety and variegation required by the plan through accuracy. So, during the exit of Hadji Murad to the Russians, “Poltoratsky was given his little karak Kabardian”, “Vorontsov rode his English, blooded red stallion”, and Hadji Murad “on a white-maned horse”; another time, at a meeting with Butler, near Hadji Murad there was already “a red-brown handsome horse with a small head, beautiful eyes”, etc. Another example. In 1897, Tolstoy writes while reading "Collection of information about the Caucasian highlanders": "They climb onto the roof to see the procession." And in the chapter about Shamil we read: "All the people of the large village of Vedeno stood on the street and on the roofs, meeting their lord."

Accuracy in the story is found everywhere: ethnographic, geographical, etc., even medical. For example, when Hadji Murad's head was cut off, Tolstoy remarked with invariable calmness: "Scarlet blood gushed from the arteries of the neck and black blood from the head."

But just this exactness - the last example is especially expressive - is taken in the story, as it turns out, in order to further and further push the polarities apart, to isolate, remove every trifle, to show that each of them is in its own, as if tightly closed from others, a box that has a name, and with it a profession, a specialty for the people involved in it, while in fact its true and highest meaning is not at all there, but in the sense of life - at least for a person who stands at the center of them. The blood is scarlet and black, but these signs are especially meaningless before the question: why was it shed? And - was the man who defended his life to the last not right?

Scientific and precise, thus, also serve the artistic unity; moreover, in it, in this whole, they become channels for spreading the idea of ​​unity outside, to all spheres of life, including ourselves. A concrete, historical, limited fact, document becomes indefinitely close

for all. The boundaries between time- and place-specific art and life in the broadest sense are crumbling.

In fact, few people think when reading that "Hadji Murad" is a historical story, that Nikolai, Shamil, Vorontsov and others are people who lived without a story, on their own. No one is looking for a historical fact - whether it was, was not, than confirmed - because these people are told many times more interesting than could be extracted from the documents that history has left. At the same time, as mentioned, the story does not contradict any of these documents. He simply looks through them or guesses them in such a way that extinct life is restored between them - it runs like a stream along a dried-up channel. Some facts, external, known, entail others, imaginary and deeper, which, even when they happened, could not be verified or left for posterity - it seemed that they had irretrievably gone in their precious single content. Here they are restored, returned from non-existence, become a part of contemporary life for the reader - thanks to the life-giving activity of the image.

And - a wonderful thing! - when it happens that these new facts somehow manage to be verified from the fragments of the past, they are confirmed. Unity, it turns out, reached out to them. One of the miracles of art is performed (miracles, of course, only from the point of view of a logical calculation that does not know this inner relationship with the whole world and believes that an unknown fact can be reached only by the sequence of the law) - from the transparent emptiness one suddenly hears the noise and cries of a bygone life , as in that scene at Rabelais, when the battle “frozen” in antiquity thawed out.

Here is a small (at first extraneous) example: Nekrasov's sketch of Pushkin. As if an album sketch - not a portrait, but so, a fleeting idea - in the verses "About the Weather".

The old messenger tells Nekrasov about his ordeals:

I've been babysitting with Sovremennik for a long time:

He wore it to Alexander Sergeyich.

And now it's the thirteenth year

I wear everything to Nikolai Alekseich, -

Lives on Li gene...

He visited, according to him, many writers: Bulgarin, Voeikov, Zhukovsky ...

I went to Vasily Andreevich,

Yes, I didn’t see a penny from him,

Not like Alexander Sergeyich -

He often gave me vodka.

But he reproached everything with censorship:

If red meets crosses,

So it will let you proofread:

Get out, please, you!

Watching a man get killed

Once I said: “It will do, and so!”

This is blood, she says, shed, -

My blood - you are a fool! ..

It is difficult to convey why this little passage so suddenly illuminates Pushkin's personality for us; brighter than a dozen historical novels about him, including very smart and scholarly ones. In a nutshell, of course, we can say: because he is highly artistic, that is, he captures, according to the facts known to us, something important from Pushkin's soul - the temperament, passion, loneliness of his genius in the literary and bureaucratic fraternity (not to mention the light) , hot temper and innocence, suddenly breaking into a bitter mockery. However, all the same, listing these qualities does not mean explaining and unraveling this image; he was created by an artistic, integral thought that restored the life-like trifle, the detail of Pushkin's behavior. But what? Having examined it, then suddenly we can come across a fact saved in Pushkin's correspondence - a completely different time and a different situation, from his youth - where the expressions and spirit of speech completely coincide with Nekrasov's portrait! Letter to P. A. Vyazemsky dated February 19, 1825: “Tell Mukhanov from me that it is a sin for him to joke magazine jokes with me. Without asking, he took the beginning of the Gypsies from me and dissolved it around the world. Barbarian! it's my blood, it's money! now I have to print out Tsyganov, and not the time at all” 1 .

In "Hadji Murad" this principle of artistic "resurrection" was expressed, perhaps, more fully than anywhere else in Tolstoy. This work is in the most precise sense - a reproduction. His realism re-creates what has already been, repeats the course of life in such moments that give the focus of everything that was in something personal, free, individual: you look - this fictional past turns out to be a fact.

Here is Nikolai, who is taken from documentary data and dispersed, so to speak, from there into such self-propulsion that a new document, not “laid” into him at first, is restored in him. We can check this through the same Pushkin.

Tolstoy has one of the persistent external leitmotifs - Nikolai "frowns." This happens to him in moments of impatience and anger, when he dares to be disturbed by something that he has resolutely condemned: irrevocably, for a long time and therefore has no right to exist. An artistic find in the spirit of this personality.

"What's your last name? - asked Nikolai.

Brzezovsky.

Of Polish origin and a Catholic,” answered Chernyshev.

Nicholas frowned.

Or: “Seeing the uniform of the school, which he did not like for freethinking, Nikolai Pavlovich frowned, but his tall stature and diligent drawing and saluting with a student’s pointedly protruding elbow softened his displeasure.

What's the last name? - he asked.

Polosatov! Your Imperial Majesty.

Well done!"

And now let's look at Pushkin's random testimony, which has nothing to do with the story of Hadji Murad. Nikolai was "photographed" in it in 1833, that is, twenty years before the time that Tolstoy described, and without the slightest desire to "deep" into the image.

“Here’s the thing,” Pushkin writes to MP Pogodin, “according to our agreement, for a long time I was going to seize the time,

to ask the sovereign for you as an employee. Yes, everything somehow failed. Finally, at Shrovetide, the tsar once spoke to me about Peter I, and I immediately presented to him that it was impossible for me to work alone on the archives and that I needed the help of an enlightened, intelligent and active scientist. The sovereign asked who I needed, and at your name he almost frowned (he confuses you with Polevoy; excuse me generously; he is not a very firm writer, though a fine fellow, and a glorious king). I somehow managed to introduce you, and D. N. Bludov corrected everything and explained that only the first syllable of your surnames is common between you and Polevoy. To this was added the favorable opinion of Benckendorff. Thus the matter is harmonious; and the archives are open to you (except the secret one)" 1 .

Before us, of course, is a coincidence, but what is the correctness of repetitions - in what is unique, in life's little things! Nikolai stumbled upon something familiar - immediate anger ("frowned"), it is now difficult for him to explain anything ("I somehow," writes Pushkin, "managed to recommend you ..."); then some deviation from the expected still "softens his displeasure." Perhaps in life there was no such repetition, but in art - from a similar position - it resurrected and from an insignificant stroke became an important moment in artistic thought. It is especially pleasing that this "movement" into the image took place with the help, albeit without the knowledge, of two geniuses of our literature. In undeniable examples, we observe the process of spontaneous generation of an image in a primary conjugating trifle and, at the same time, the power of art, capable of restoring a fact.

And one more thing: Pushkin and Tolstoy, as one can guess here, are united in the most general artistic approach to the subject; art as a whole, as can be understood even from such a small example, rests on the same foundation, has a single principle - with all the contrast and difference in styles, manners, historical trends.

As for Nicholas I, Russian literature had a special account for him. Still not written

1 Pushkin A. S. Full. coll. cit., vol. X, p. 428.

although sparsely known, the history of the relationship of this person with Russian writers, journalists, publishers and poets. Nikolai dispersed most of them, gave them to the soldiers or killed them, and pestered the rest with police guardianship and fantastic advice.

The well-known Herzen list is far from complete in this sense. It lists only the dead, but there are not many facts about the systematic strangulation of the living - about how Pushkin's best creations were put aside on the table, mangled by the highest hand, how Benckendorff set even on such an innocent, in the words of Tyutchev, "dove" like Zhukovsky, and Turgenev was put under arrest for his sympathetic response to Gogol's death, and so on and so forth.

Leo Tolstoy, with his Hadji Murad, repaid Nikolai for everyone. It was, therefore, not only artistic, but also historical revenge. However, in order for it to come true so brilliantly, it still had to be artistic. It was precisely art that was needed to revive Nicholas for a public trial. This was done by satire - another of the unifying means of this artistic whole.

The fact is that Nikolai in Hadji Murad is not just one of the polarities of the work, he is a real pole, an ice cap that freezes life. Somewhere on the other end there should be its opposite, but only, as the plan of the work finds out, there is the same hat - Shamil. From this ideological and compositional discovery in the story, a completely new type of realistic satire, apparently unique in world literature, is born - a through parallel exposure. By mutual similarity, Nikolai and Shamil destroy each other.

Even the simplicity of these creatures turns out to be false.

“In general, there was nothing shiny, gold or silver on the imam, and his tall ... figure ... produced the same impression of greatness,

“... returned to his room and lay down on the narrow, hard bed, which he was proud of, and covered himself with his cloak, which he considered (and so he said)

which he desired and knew how to produce among the people.

ril) as famous as Napoleon's hat..."

Both of them are aware of their insignificance and therefore hide it even more carefully.

"... despite the public recognition of his campaign as a victory, he knew that his campaign was unsuccessful."

"... although he was proud of his strategic abilities, in the depths of his soul he was aware that they were not."

The majestic inspiration, which, according to despots, should shock subordinates and inspire them with the idea of ​​communication between the ruler and the supreme being, was noticed by Tolstoy back in Napoleon (leg trembling is a “great sign”). Here it rises to a new point.

“When the advisers talked about this, Shamil closed his eyes and fell silent.

The advisers knew that this meant that he was now listening to the voice of the prophet speaking to him.

“Wait a bit,” he said, and closing his eyes, lowered his head. Chernyshev knew, having heard this more than once from Nikolai, that when he needed to solve some important issue, he only needed to concentrate, for a few moments, and that then inspiration came to him ... "

A rare ferocity distinguishes the decisions made by such intuitions, but even this is sanctimoniously presented as mercy.

“Shamil fell silent and looked at Yusuf for a long time.

Write that I took pity on you and will not kill you, but gouge out your eyes, as I do to all traitors. Go."

“Deserves the death penalty. But, thank God, we do not have the death penalty. And it's not for me to enter it. Pass 12 times through a thousand people.

Both of them use religion only to strengthen their power, not at all caring about the meaning of commandments and prayers.

“First of all, it was necessary to perform the midday prayer, for which he now had not the slightest disposition.”

“... he read the usual, since childhood prayers: “Theotokos”, “I believe”, “Our Father”, without attributing any meaning to the spoken words.

They correlate in many other details: the empress “with a shaking head and a frozen smile” plays under Nicholas essentially the same role as “a sharp-nosed, black, unpleasant face and unloved, but older wife” will enter under Shamil; one attends the dinner, the other brings it, these are their functions; therefore, Nikolai's entertainment with the girl Kopervain and Nelidova only formally differ from Shamil's legalized polygamy.

Messed up, merged into one person, imitating the emperor and the highest ranks, all kinds of courtiers, Nikolai is proud of his cloak - Chernyshev that he did not know galoshes, although his legs would feel cold without them. Chernyshev has the same sleigh as the emperor, the adjutant wing on duty, just like the emperor, combing his temples to his eyes; Prince Vasily Dolgorukov’s “stupid face” is decorated with imperial sideburns, mustaches and the same temples. Old Vorontsov, like Nikolai, says "you" to young officers. With another

On the other hand, Chernyshev flatters Nikolai in connection with the affair of Hadji Murad (“He realized that it was no longer possible for him to hold on”) in exactly the same way as Manana Orbeliani and other guests - Vorontsov (“They feel that they now (this now meant: with Vorontsov) cannot withstand"). Finally, Vorontsov himself even somewhat resembles the imam: "... his face smiled pleasantly and his eyes squinted ..."

" - Where? - Vorontsov asked, screwing up his eyes ”(squinted eyes were always a sign of secrecy for Tolstoy, remember, for example, what Dolly thought about why Anna squinted), etc., etc.

What does this similarity mean? Shamil and Nikolai (and with them the “half-frozen” courtiers) prove by this that they, unlike other diverse and “polar” people on earth, do not complement each other, but duplicate, like things; they are absolutely repeatable and therefore, in essence, do not live, although they stand on the official heights of life. This special kind of compositional unity and balance in the work means, therefore, the most profound development of her idea: "a minus by a minus gives a plus."

The character of Hadji Murad, irreconcilably hostile to both poles, ultimately embodying the idea of ​​people's resistance to all forms of an inhuman world order, remained Tolstoy's last word and his testament to the literature of the 20th century.

"Hadji Murad" belongs to those books that should be reviewed, and not written literary works about them. That is, they need to be treated as if they had just left. Only conditional critical inertia still does not allow doing so, although each edition of these books and each encounter with them by the reader is an incomparably stronger intrusion into the central questions of life than - alas - sometimes happens among contemporaries catching up with each other.

“... Perhaps,” Dostoevsky once wrote, “we will say unheard-of, shameless insolence, but let them not be embarrassed by our words; after all, we are talking only one assumption: ... well, if the Iliad is more useful than the works of Marko Vovchka, and not only

before, and even now, with modern questions: is it more useful as a way of achieving the known goals of these same questions, solving desktop problems? one

In fact, why not, at least for the sake of the smallest, harmless projecting, our editors not try - at the moment of unsuccessful searches for a strong literary response - to publish a forgotten story, story or even an article (these are just requested) on some similar modern issue by a real deep writer from the past?

That sort of thing is probably justified. As for the literary analysis of classical books, then he, in turn, can try to keep these books alive. For this it is necessary that the analysis of the various categories from time to time return to the whole, to the work of art. Because only through a work, and not through categories, can art act on a person with the quality that only it can act - and nothing else.

1 Russian writers on literature, vol. II. L., "Soviet writer", 1939, p. 171.

Plan

1. Initial literary and psychological provisions that determine the methodology of reading in the primary grades.

2. Literary foundations for the analysis of a work of art

3. Psychological features of the perception of a work of art by younger students

4. Methodological patterns of work with a literary text in elementary grades

Literature

1. Lvov M.R., Ramzaeva T.G., Svetlovskaya N.N. Methods of teaching the Russian language in elementary school. M.: Enlightenment, -1987. –p.106-112

2. Lvov M.R., Goretsky V.G., Sosnovskaya O.V. Methods of teaching the Russian language in primary school. M .: publishing house "Academy", 2000 - 472s

3. Russian language in primary school: Theory and practice of teaching. / M.S. Soloveychik, P.S. Zhedek, N.N. Svetlovskaya and others. - M .: 1993. - 383s

4. Rozhina L.N. Psychology of perception of a literary hero by schoolchildren. M., 1977. - p.48

1. Initial literary and psychological provisions that determine the methodology of reading in the primary grades.

In the methodological science of the 30-50s, a certain approach to the analysis of a work of art in elementary school developed, which was based on the originality of a work of art in comparison with a scientific and business article, assumed the phased work on the work, the development of reading skills, the analysis of the work in parts, followed by generalization, systematic work on the development of speech. E.A. Adamovich, N.P. Kanonykin, S.P. Redozubov, N.S. Rozhdestvensky and others made a great contribution to the development of the explanatory reading methodology.

In the 1960s, changes were made to the content and methods of teaching classroom reading. This led to an improvement in the methodology for analyzing a work of art: more creative exercises were given, work on the work was carried out as a whole, and not on separate small parts, various types of tasks were used in working with the text. The methodologists V.G.Goretsky, K.T.Golenkina, L.A.Gorbushina, M.I.Omorokova and others took part in the development of the classroom reading methodology.

In the 1980s, reading programs for the three-year school were improved and programs were created for teaching in the four-year elementary school. The authors of programs and books for reading: V.G. Goretsky, L.F. Klimanova and others, focusing on the implementation of educational, upbringing and developmental functions of education, conducted a selection of works, taking into account their cognitive value, social and ideological and moral orientation, educational significance, compliance with the age characteristics of younger students.

The modern method of reading a work of art involves the mandatory analysis of the text in the classroom under the guidance of a teacher. This principle of work, firstly, has historical roots, secondly, it is determined by the peculiarities of fiction as an art form, and thirdly, it is dictated by the psychology of the perception of a work of art by younger students.

The previously existing method of explanatory reading required the teacher to pose questions to the text being read. The questions were of a stating nature and helped not so much the student to understand the work as the teacher to make sure that the main facts of the work were learned by the children. In the subsequent generalization at the lesson, the educational potential of the work was revealed.

In modern teaching to read, the general principle of working with a work has been preserved, but the nature of the questions has changed significantly. Now the task of the teacher is not to explain the facts of the work, but to teach the child to reflect on them. With this approach to reading, the literary foundations of the analysis of a work of art become fundamental.

Main methodological provisions, defining the approach to the analysis of a work of art are as follows:

Clarification of the ideological and thematic basis of the work, its images, storyline, composition and visual means serves the overall development of students as individuals, and also ensures the development of students' speech;

Reliance on the life experience of students is the basis for conscious perception of the content of the work and a necessary condition for its correct analysis;

Reading is considered as a means of enhancing the cognitive activity of students and expanding their knowledge of the surrounding reality;

Text analysis should awaken thoughts, feelings, arouse the need to speak out, correlate your life experience with the facts presented by the author.

The modern methodology is based on theoretical principles developed by such sciences as literary criticism, psychology, and pedagogy. For the correct organization of reading and literature lessons, the teacher needs to take into account the specifics of a work of art, the psychological foundations of the reading process at different stages of education, the peculiarities of perception and assimilation of the text by schoolchildren, etc.

2. Literary foundations for the analysis of a work of art

Reading books include both fiction of various genres and popular science articles. The objective content of any work is reality. In a work of art, life is represented in images. The figurative form of reflection of reality is a significant difference between a work of art and a scientific work. Under way is understood as “a generalized reflection of reality in the form of a single, individual” (L.I. Timofeev). Thus, the figurative reflection of reality is characterized by two traits: generalization and individuality.

In the center of a work of art, most often there is a person in all the complexity of his relationship with society and nature.

In a literary work, along with the objective content, there is a subjective assessment by the author of events, facts, human relations. This subjective assessment is transmitted through the image. The very selection of life situations in which the character finds himself, his actions, relationships with people and nature bear the author's assessment. These provisions are of theoretical and practical importance for the methodology. Firstly, when analyzing a work of art, the teacher gives a central place to the disclosure of the motives of the behavior of the characters and the author's attitude to the depicted. Secondly, a correct reading of the text, a correct understanding of the motives of the characters, a reliable assessment of the facts and events described in the work are possible under the condition of a historical approach to the depicted in the work. This indicates the need for a brief familiarization of students with the time reflected in the work and the development of an evaluative approach to the actions of actors, taking into account temporal and social factors. Thirdly, it is advisable to acquaint children with the life of the writer, his views, since in the work the author seeks to convey his attitude to the depicted facts, phenomena, specific ideas of certain strata of society. The writer's evaluation of life material constitutes the idea of ​​a work of art. When analyzing a work of art, it is important to teach students to understand the ideological orientation of the work, which is necessary for the correct perception of the work, for the formation of students' worldviews, their civic feelings.

For the correct organization of work on a work of art, it is necessary to proceed from the position on the interaction of form and content. This interaction permeates all components of the work, including images, composition, plot, visual means. The content manifests itself in the form, the form interacts with the content. One does not exist without the other. Therefore, when analyzing a work in a complex, its specific content, images, artistic means of depiction are considered.

All of the above allows us to make methodical findings:

1) when analyzing a work of art, it is necessary to keep the images created by the author in sight. In literature, there are image-landscape, image-thing and image-character;

2) in elementary school, when analyzing epic works, the reader's attention is focused on the image-character. The term image is not used, words are used hero of the work, protagonist, character;

3) in elementary school, works of landscape lyrics are offered for reading, i.e. those in which the lyrical hero is focused on the experiences caused by external pictures. Therefore, it is very important to bring the created pictorial image-landscape closer to the child, to help him see the realities that made an impression on the poet. To do this, it is useful to draw parallels between the emerging imaginary representations (images) and the verbal fabric (dictionary) of the work;

5) when analyzing, it is important to pay attention to form works and teach to comprehend formal components.

3. Psychological features of the perception of a work of art by younger students

Literature is a special kind of art, since the act of perceiving the images at the center of a work is a complex process. The artist depicts the world with the help of colors, the composer uses sounds, the architect uses spatial forms, and the writer, poet uses the word. Spectators, listeners perceive works of fine art, music, architecture directly with the senses, i.e. perceive the material from which the work is “made”. And the reader perceives graphic signs printed on paper, and only by turning on the mental mechanisms of the brain these graphic signs are transformed into words. Thanks to the words and the recreating imagination, images are built, and already these images evoke an emotional reaction from the reader, give rise to empathy for the characters and the author, and from this arises an understanding of the work and an understanding of one’s attitude to what is read.

Psychologists identify several levels of understanding of the text. First, the most superficial is the understanding of what is being said. Next ( second) the level is characterized by an understanding of “not only what is being said, but also what is being said in the statement” (I.A. Zimnyaya)

Perfect reading skill involves the complete automation of the first steps of perception. Decoding graphic signs does not cause difficulties for a qualified reader, he spends all his efforts on understanding the figurative system of the work, on recreating the artistic world of the work in the imagination, on understanding its idea and his own attitude towards it. However, the younger student does not yet have sufficient reading skills, therefore, for him, converting graphic characters into words, understanding the meanings of words and their connections are rather laborious operations that often overshadow all other actions, and reading thus turns into simple voicing, and does not become a communication with the author of the work. The need to read the text on your own often leads to the fact that the meaning of the work remains unclear to the novice reader. That is why, according to M.R. Lvov, the primary reading of the work should be carried out by the teacher. It is important to carry out thorough vocabulary work: explain, clarify the meanings of words, provide preliminary reading of difficult words and phrases, emotionally prepare children for the perception of the work. It should be remembered that at this stage the child is still listener, but not reader. Perceiving the work by ear, he encounters voiced content and voiced form. Through the form presented by the teacher, focusing on intonation, gestures, facial expressions, the child penetrates the content.

A qualified reader perceives a work of art simultaneously with two points of view: First of all, as a special world within which the described events take place; Secondly, as a reality constructed for special purposes and according to special laws, which obeys the will of the author, corresponds to his plan. The harmonious combination of these two points of view in the reader's activity makes an individual who knows how to voice graphic signs, reader.

An unqualified, untrained reader, respectively, can be two types:

1) one who stands only on the "internal" point of view, does not separate himself from the text, perceives what is written, based only on his worldly experience. Such readers are called naive realists". They perceive the artistic world of the work as a reality and experience when reading not aesthetic, but worldly emotions. A long stay in the stage of a “naive realist” prevents the reader from enjoying the harmonious unity of the form and content of a work of art, deprives him of the pleasure of adequately understanding the author’s intention, and also correlating his subjective reader experiences with the objective interpretation of the work in literary science;

2) one who stands only on the "external" point of view and perceives the world of the work as an invention, an artificial construction, devoid of the truth of life. Such individuals do not correlate their personal attitudes with the author's values, they do not know how to understand the position of the author, therefore they do not emotionally respond and aesthetically do not react to the work.

Junior student - "naive realist"". At this age, he does not realize the special laws of constructing a literary text and does not notice the form of the work. His thinking is still active-figurative. The child does not separate the object, the word denoting this object, and the action that is performed with this object, therefore, in the child's mind, the form is not separated from the content, but merges with it. Often a complex form becomes an obstacle to understanding the content. Therefore, one of the tasks of the teacher is to teach children the "external" point of view, that is, the ability to understand the structure of the work and to assimilate the patterns of construction of the artistic world.

For the correct organization of the analysis of a work, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of the perception of a work of art by children of primary school age. In the studies of O.I. Nikiforova, L.N. Rozhina and others, the psychological characteristics of the perception and evaluation of literary heroes by younger schoolchildren were studied. Two types of attitudes towards literary heroes were established:

Emotional, which is formed on the basis of a specific operation with figurative generalizations;

Intellectual-evaluative, in which students use moral concepts at the level of elemental analysis. These two types of relationships depend on the characteristics of the analysis and generalization by children of their everyday and reading experience.

According to O.I. Nikiforova, younger students in the analysis of their own life experience are on two levels: a) emotional-figurative generalization, b) elementary analysis. When evaluating the characters in the work, students operate with such moral concepts that were in their personal experience. Most often they name such moral qualities as courage, honesty, diligence, kindness. Children experience significant difficulties in characterizing heroes because they do not know the appropriate terminology. The teacher's task is to introduce words into the children's speech when analyzing the work, which characterize the moral, intellectual, emotional qualities of the characters.

It is known that the reader's understanding of the characters in the work occurs on the basis of awareness of the motives of their behavior, therefore, purposeful work with students on the motives of the hero's behavior is necessary.

Special studies have established the dependence of younger students' awareness of the qualities of actors on the methods (conditions) for the manifestation of these qualities. In particular, L.N. Rozhina notes that students experience the least difficulty when the author describes an act (the quality is manifested in the act). The most difficult for children to understand are those qualities that are manifested in the experiences and thoughts of the characters. The following fact is not without interest: “If the qualities are named not by the author, but by the characters of the work, then they are more often distinguished by children, but on one condition - if, after pointing to a particular quality, it is told how it manifested itself, and if an assessment is heard in the characters’ statements these qualities” (Rozhina L.N.). In order to properly organize the process of analyzing a work of art, the teacher needs to know what conditions affect the perception of the work and, in particular, its characters.

Thus, the age dynamics of understanding a work of art in general and characters in particular can be represented as a kind of path from empathy with a particular character, sympathy for him to understanding the author's position and further to a generalized perception of the art world and awareness of one's attitude towards it, to understanding the influence of the work on their personal settings. However, only with the help of an adult, a teacher, can a younger student go this way. Concerning teacher tasks can be defined as the need to: 1) together with the children, clarify and consolidate their primary reading impressions; 2) to help clarify and understand the subjective perception of the work, comparing it with the objective logic and structure of the work.

At the same time, the teacher should remember that the levels of reading maturity of students in grades 1-11 and grades 111-1U differ significantly.

Pupils of grades 1-11 cannot independently, without the help of an adult, realize the ideological content of the work; children of this age cannot, according to the description, recreate in their imagination the image of a previously unknown object, but perceive it only on an emotional level: “scary”, “funny”; a reader of 6-8 years does not realize that in a work of art it is not real reality that is recreated, but the attitude of the author to reality, therefore they do not feel the author's position, and therefore do not notice the form of the work. A reader of this level of training cannot assess the correspondence between content and form.

Pupils in grades 111-1U have already acquired some reading experience, their life baggage has become more significant, and some literary and everyday material has already been accumulated, which can be consciously generalized. At this age, the child, on the one hand, begins to feel like a separate person, on the other hand, parting with childish egocentrism. He is open to communication, ready to "hear" the interlocutor, to sympathize with him. As a reader, he already manifests himself at a higher level:

Able to independently understand the idea of ​​a work, if its composition is not complicated, and a work of a similar structure was previously discussed;

The imagination is sufficiently developed to recreate a previously unseen object according to the description, if mastered language means are used to describe it;

Without outside help, he can understand the formal features of a work, if he has already observed similar figurative and expressive techniques in his reading activity;

Thus, he can experience the pleasure of perceiving the form, notice and evaluate cases of correspondence between content and form.

At this age, a new trend appears in reading activity: the child is not satisfied only with a sensual, emotional reaction to what he read, he seeks to logically explain what he reads for himself; everything that is read must be understandable to him. However, this trend, along with the positive side, also has a negative side: everything that is not clear is simply not read in the text. It is difficult for an untrained reader to make efforts to reveal the "code of the work", and for this reason, the reader's emotional deafness gradually develops, when no image, idea or mood arises behind the word. Reading becomes uninteresting and boring, reading activity fades, a person grows up, but does not become a reader.

4. Methodological patterns of work with a literary text in elementary grades

Methodical conclusions all of the above could be:

When analyzing a work, it is necessary to develop an understanding of about what work and as this is stated in the work, thus helping to realize the form of the work;

Language means should be understood, thanks to which the images of the work are created;

When analyzing a work, the attention of children should be drawn to the structure of the work;

It is necessary to activate in the speech of children words denoting emotional and moral qualities;

When analyzing a work, the data of methodological science should also be taken into account. In particular, the teacher should keep in mind the doctrine of the type of correct reading activity, which dictates the need to think about the work. before reading, during reading and after reading, and also do not forget about the principle of productive multi-reading, which involves re-reading text fragments that are important for understanding the idea of ​​​​the work.

Assignment for independent work

1. In your opinion, which of the three types of attitudes to literature, named below, is inherent in primary school students? What attitude to literature is more productive for the development of the reader's personality?

1. Identification of literature with reality itself, that is, a specific, non-generalized attitude to the facts described in the work.

2. Understanding literature as a fiction that has nothing to do with real life.

3. Attitude towards literature as a generalized image of reality (the classification is borrowed from the book by O.I. Nikiforova).

11. Is imagination necessary for a full perception and understanding of fiction? What for? (see Marshak S.Ya. About a talented reader // Collected Works: In 8 vol. - M., 1972 - p. 87)

111. Based on what you have read, describe the next, higher level of artistic perception - “thinking” perception. How can a teacher organize such reading so that communication with literature includes both “direct” and “thinking” perception, so that it becomes reading-thinking, reading-discovery?

The key to the task for independent work

1. The first type of attitude to literature is inherent in younger students - naive-realistic perception.

Naive realism is characterized by a lack of understanding that a work of art was created by someone and for something, insufficient attention to the artistic form of the work.

Naive realists perceive only the eventful, plot outline of the work, not capturing the meaning for which the literary work was created. Under the influence of the read work, such readers have a desire to reproduce in the game or in life circumstances the actions of the characters they like, and to avoid repeating the actions of negative characters. The impact of literature on such readers is primitive due to the imperfection of their perception.

The task of the teacher is to help children preserve the immediacy, emotionality, brightness of the perception of specific content and at the same time teach them to understand the deeper meaning of the work, embodied by the author with the help of figurative means of fiction. According to Kachurin A., second-graders are capable not only of "naive-realistic reading", but also of understanding the inner meaning of the text

11. “Literature needs talented readers as well as talented writers. It is on them, on these talented, sensitive, imaginative readers, that the author counts when he strains all his mental strength in search of the right image, the right turn of action, the right word. The artist-author takes on only part of the work. The rest must be supplemented by the artist-reader with his imagination ”(Marshak S.Ya.)

There are two types of imagination - recreative and creative. The essence of the recreating imagination is to present, according to the author's verbal description, a picture of life created by the writer (portrait, landscape ...)

Creative imagination consists in the ability to present in detail a picture that is sparingly presented in verbal form.

The ability to see and feel what is reflected by the author in the text characterizes the first of the stages of a full-fledged comprehension of a literary work - the stage of "direct" perception.

111. With a defective mechanism of perception, readers assimilate only the plot scheme of the work and abstract, schematic ideas about its images. That is why it is necessary to teach children "thinking" perception, the ability to reflect on a book, and therefore about a person and about life in general. The analysis of the work should be a joint (teacher and student) thinking aloud, which over time will allow you to develop the need to understand what you read yourself.

Tests and assignments for lecture No. 5

Scientific basis for the analysis of a work of art

1. Name the methodologists who have made a great contribution to the development of the explanatory reading methodology: A) E.A. Adamovich, B) Ramzaeva T.G., C) N.P. Kanonykin, D) S.P. Redozubov, E) N. S. Rozhdestvensky

11. Name the methodologists who have made a great contribution to the classroom reading methodology: A) D.B. Elkonin, B) M.R. Lvov, C) V.G. Goretsky, D) K.T. Golenkina, E) L.A. .Gorbushina, E) M.I. Omorokova.

111. What is the essential difference between a work of art and a scientific work: A) artistic means of representation, B) specific content, C) figurative form of reflection of reality?

1U. Criteria for the formation of a high-level reader: A) the ability to retell the work, B) the ability to understand the idea of ​​the work; C) the ability to recreate a previously unseen object according to the description; D) the formation of the ability to "breed" one's own reader's position and the position of the author; D) knowledge of the formal features of the work; E) the ability to notice and evaluate cases of correspondence between content and form.

List the criteria for the formation of a high-level reader

U1 When analyzing a work, you need to: A) form the ability to find the main idea, B) breed an understanding of what about what work and as this is stated in the work; C) linguistic means should be understood, thanks to which images of the work are created; D) when analyzing a work, the attention of children should be drawn to the structure of the work; E) it is necessary to activate in the speech of children words denoting emotional and moral qualities; E) when analyzing a work, the data of methodological science should also be taken into account.

Lecture number 6.

Similar information.

2. Literature and reality. The concept of "ideal" art.

3. Objective and subjective, rational and emotional in the art of the word

4. Overcoming aesthetic dualism

§ 3. A work of art as a structure

1. Structural model of a work of art

2. What makes up the outer form

3. What is the inner form of a work of art?

4. The difference between the external and internal form with the mobility ("transparency") of the boundaries between them. The concept of "application" of the image in Potebnya (in the structural aspect).

5. Content (or idea) of a work of art

6. The ratio of the content (idea) of the artistic

7. General concept of structure isomorphism

8. The "formula" of a work of art in terms of structure.

§ 4. A work of art as an act of creativity (the primary epistemological aspect of A. Potebnya's scientific model).

1. Two stages of creating an artistic image.

2. Primary creation of an artistic image. The essence and mechanism of the psychology of the creative process.

2.1. What is the mechanism for creating an artistic image?

2. 2. The formula of the creative process, the act of creating a work of art.

3. The ratio of content and image (internal form)

1) Uncertainty of the content(s).

2) Inequality of content and image (x and a)

4. Conscious and unconscious in the art of the word.

6. The sphere of existence of an artistic image

§ 5. A work of art as an object of perception and understanding (a secondary epistemological aspect of A. Potebnya's scientific model)

1. What is available to the reader when perceiving a work of art?

2. Psychological mechanism of perception. The similarity of the act of creativity and the act of understanding a work of art. "Formula" of perception.

1) A (author's experience) is not equal to a1 (reader's experience)

2) A1 is not equal to a

3) X is not equal to x1

3. Subjective aspects of the psychology of perception.

3.1. Apperception.

3.2. Subjective aspects of apperception

4. Objective moments of creativity and perception.

5. Methodological significance of the theory of creativity and perception a. Potebni.

§ 6. Problems of analysis and interpretation of a work of art

1. Author's interpretation.

2. Tasks of criticism.

3. Tasks and the main object of scientific analysis of a work of art.

§ 7. The specificity and structure of a work of verbal art and its main elements.

1. What is true art?

The main criterion of artistry.

2. The problem of the conventionality of art.

2.1. Types and forms of allegory

2.2 Allegorical "metaphorical"

2.3. Allegorical synecdocheic (artistic typicality).

2.4. Relativity of this typology.

2.5. The problem of "conditional" and "life-like" in art

3. Specificity of the verbal image

4. Elements of the figurative system (internal and external form) of the work and their specificity in the art of the word.

4.1. The world and its "representation" in literature.

4.2. Space, time, action in the real world

4.3. time in literature.

4.4. Space in Literature

4.5. Action in the art of the word. action and space.

4.6. action and time. The category of causality, its genesis in the art of the word in the interpretation of Potebnya.

4.7. Narrative as an integrating element of the verbal figurative system

4.8. "Point of view" in the narration and composition of a literary work.

4.9. Problems of the specifics of the verbal expression of psychological processes and states

4.10. Consciousness and self-awareness in literature

4.11. Generic and genre forms in the art of the word

Basic initial prerequisites.

Literary genera.

Literary genre, its properties and features.

5. More about artistry. General properties of the figurative system of a verbal work of art.

§ 3. A work of art as a structure

(structural aspect of A. Potebnya's scientific model)

1. Structural model of a work of art

as an analogy of the structural model of the word.

From Potebnya's point of view, "all those constituent parts that we find in works of art" are similar to the constituent parts of a word. The prerequisite for this is that "every word, as far as our experience extends, necessarily passes through the state in which this word is a poetic work." In cases where a word has turned into a two-part word, in which the internal form is forgotten, lost, and the meaning is directly adjacent to the sound, this previous “poetic” state can be restored by studying the history of the word, i.e. methods of etymological analysis.

Here is an example of Potebnya from his Lectures on the Theory of Literature. In the name of the plant "coltsfoot" the inner form is lost. It was associated with the correlation in the mind of such complex emotional states as love and dislike. Even now we cannot determine these phenomena scientifically, "with the accuracy with which it would be desirable." But traces of the fact that a person associated love with warmth, and dislike with cold were preserved in the language (for example, in the Ukrainian word “ostuda”, meaning dislike and at the same time “cold”, or in Russian “hateful”, and also when the word "cold" is used in the sense of "unloving"). In a Ukrainian song, the mother's love and the stepmother's dislike are expressed as follows: "the mother loves how the summer sun warms, but the stepmother does not love, she is cold like the winter sun." This figurative representation (love is warm, dislike is cold) formed the basis of the name of the plant “coltsfoot”, because it has “the upper surface of the leaves is shiny and cold, and the lower one is not green and whitish, soft, warm as covered in white cobwebs. Thus, the plant is both "mother" and "stepmother". The contrast between the warmth of love and the coldness of dislike formed, therefore, the inner figurative core of the word "coltsfoot".

The analysis of a work of art is to some extent similar to the etymological study of a word: it must (has the goal) to reveal the structure of the work, establish its figurative core, and thereby provide the key to understanding its content.

Whatever the work of art: large or small, simple or complex, whatever the individual features of its structure (genre, compositional, plot, stylistic, etc.) - still the most general the principle of its structure similar the structure of the poetic the words.

Like a word, it has an EXTERNAL FORM (but if in a word it is a set of articulate sounds, then in a work of art it is its “verbal embodiment”); INTERNAL FORM (in the word - "representation", a symbol, a sign of meaning, in a work of art - an image or a series of images representing the content, pointing to it, symbolizing it); and, finally, CONTENT (in a word - lexical meaning, in a work of art - a set of thoughts and moods that author expresses in an image and (or) the totality of thoughts and feelings that the image evokes in reader).

In general terms, we have already talked about this above, and now we will try to understand all these elements of the work and their relationships with each other in more detail.

These elements are found in a work of art of any kind of art: in architecture, sculpture, painting, music, literature ... The difference between them lies primarily (although not only) in material, from which the external form of this or that kind of art is built. Potebnya himself draws the following analogy, using as an example the simplest type of image - an allegory: “The same elements are in a work of art, and it will not be difficult to find them if we reason this way: “This is a marble statue (external form) of a woman with a sword and scales (internal form), representing justice (content) ".

Like clay and marble in sculpture, color in painting, sound in music, so in literature the word is the material. About the fact that the word special a material other than the above-named materials from which the external form of other arts is built, the conversation is yet to come. Now we want to emphasize other - common to all arts - properties: firstly, that a verbal work is similar in composition to works of other types of arts, and secondly, that its external form, according to Potebnya, is not something purely material , inert, actually formal - already it, being both “external” and “material” (“material”, as the formalists liked to say), is not some kind of “pure” (i.e. “pure” from thought, from meaning) form. Continuing his analogy, Potebnya says about the external form of the same sculpture that “this last one in the statue is not a rough block of marble, but marble hewn in a certain way”, i.e. already processed (and processing presupposes a certain goal-setting, i.e. some mental, ideal content that the creator expresses in his material, processing, modifying it). Similarly, the external form of a verbal work is not only a collection of articulate sounds. After all, in the word this set of sounds, according to Potebnya, “is also not sound as material, but sound already formed by thought» 1 . Especially it concerns the external form of a work of art.