Genre features of the ballad. Characteristic features of the ballad genre

Among the genres of world literature, ballads stand out, which romantic poets loved to turn to. Initially, the genre originated in the poetry of the Middle Ages, but was later rethought and acquired a new sound and meaning. We offer you to get acquainted with the key features of the ballad, which will help distinguish it from other poetic works.

Distinctive features

The creator of the literary ballad is considered to be Robert Burns, who actively turned to folk stories, but clothed them in a more correct poetic form. In his works, the features of the song itself and a fascinating story with a plot are harmoniously intertwined. What are the main features of a ballad distinguished by literary critics?

• Author's feelings or sensations of characters are expressed brightly and expressively.
• A plot is required, but in some cases it can be replaced by a dialogue in which there is some action.
• An element of mystery, mysticism, something unknown is often used, this gives the text a special sound. Examples of such a construction of the text can be found in Zhukovsky (for example, "Svetlana", "Lenora" - the author's translation of the work of the same name by Burger).
• Often the action takes place against the backdrop of a striking landscape: incredibly beautiful or fantastic.

It is equally important to note that the hallmark of the ballad as a literary genre is the combination in a single text, often small in volume, of epic and lyrical principles.

Difference from other genres

Consider how a ballad differs from similar genres, epics and fairy tales. For convenience, the material is presented in the form of a table.

ballad genre

Compare parameter	Ballad	Bylina	Story
Authorship	There are folk and literary texts	There is no author, the texts belong to oral folk art	There are folk and literary texts
Presentation feature	Written in verse form. A ballad line was used: even and odd verses had a different number of stops	Written in tonic verse, most often the number of stresses is from 2 to 4	Both prose and verse form could be used, depending on the desire of the author.
Plot	The presence of the plot is required
Heroes	A hero could be any person with whom an event worthy of mention happened.	A positive hero - the embodiment of courage and justice in the minds of the people - a hero or a prince. He always does his deeds for the sake of the people. The negative hero - the embodiment of evil qualities, was often a fictional creature (The Nightingale the Robber)	Fairy tale: the heroes were kings, princes, fictional creatures, sorcerers. About animals: there are representatives of wildlife, endowed with human qualities. Household: ordinary people (peasants, priests, soldiers)
Scene	Against the backdrop of a mysterious or beautiful landscape	Be sure to clearly indicate (Kyiv-grad)	The text may not mention the location
Subject	An unusual event in the life of any person, not necessarily a hero. Although there is a separate layer of heroic ballads (for example, about Robin Hood)	An event of all-Russian significance, with patriotic pathos, something great, a grandiose victory	Absolutely any event at the behest of the narrator

Using the table, you can understand the signs of a ballad and quickly distinguish works of this genre from any others.

Texts by Zhukovsky

This romantic poet was so fond of the genre in question that he was jokingly nicknamed the "ballade". His pen belongs to a huge number of translations and his own texts, which are still interesting to the reader due to their uncomplicated style and fascinating plot. What are the main features of Zhukovsky's ballads?

• In many tests, the motif of the struggle between evil and good sounds, and the author's sympathies are on the side of the latter, but the victory often goes to negative characters (the girl Lyudmila in the work of the same name died only because she wanted to stay with her lover forever).
• The presence of otherworldly power, a mystical component (fortune-telling, ghosts, fantastic creatures - all this makes the texts interesting for the modern reader).
• A large number of dialogues that make the perception of the text even easier.
• A special role is played by the description of nature, sometimes the landscape becomes a kind of character.

A sign of love-themed ballads is the deep penetration and expression in the poetic text of the finest shades of feelings.

Here is an example from Svetlana:

How can I, girlfriends, sing?

Dear friend far away;

I am destined to die

In lonely sadness.

The year has flown by - there is no news;

He does not write to me;

Oh! and they only have a red light,

They only breathe in the heart ...

Will you not remember me?

Where, which side are you?

Where is your abode?

I pray and shed tears!

Assuage my sadness

Comforting angel.

The text conveys all the experiences of Svetlana, her longing, doubts and the hope that her beloved will still return to her.

"Forest King"

Let us consider the features of a ballad in Zhukovsky's The Forest Tsar, a short work built in the form of a dialogue. What features make it possible to attribute the text to ballads?

• The presence of a plot that has a certain dynamics.
• Big role of dialogues.
• Expression of feelings: reading a ballad, one begins to experience the horror that a child and his father feel from the presence of the Forest King.
• The mystical component is the king himself, the death of a baby.

Finally, despite the fact that the work is complete in meaning, it retains an element of mystery. Such signs of a ballad can be found in Zhukovsky's The Forest Tsar.

The ballad is an amazing genre that has now undeservedly lost its popularity. These poetic texts allow both to tell about an unusual event and to express one's attitude towards the heroes of the story.

Trying to give a clear and complete definition of the term ballad in English, one may encounter considerable difficulties. They are due to the fact that the range of its meanings is very wide. The reasons for this lie in the peculiarities of the history and development of those poetic genres that were designated by this word.

The term ballad comes from the Latin verb ballare (to dance). Therefore, the song that accompanied the dance was called balada in Provence, and balata in Italy (XIII century). Over time, the term ballad changes its meaning: in the XIV century. the French ballade is a genre of court poetry that required sophisticated skill from the author. This is a poem of three stanzas with three through rhymes (usually in the pattern ab ab bc bc) with an obligatory refrain followed by a shorter “parcel” (envoi) repeating the rhymes of the second half of each stanza. The number of verses in a stanza had to match the number of syllables in a line (8, 10 or 12). Male rhymes had to alternate with female ones. It was very difficult to follow all these rules.

Already in the XIV century. the English borrow the ballad genre from French literature. Karl Ormansky (XV century), who spent 25 years in English captivity, wrote ballads freely in both French and English. Naturally, along with the genre, the word denoting it is also borrowed. It is spelled differently: ballades, balats, ballets, ballets, balletys, ballads.

In the XIV-XVI centuries. the term ballad was not used to refer to that oral genre of English and Scottish folk poetry, which is now called in English literary criticism: popular ballad, ancient ballad, ballad of tradition, traditional ballad. These old folk ballads at that time (in the XIV-XVI centuries) were known as songs (sometimes tales or ditties). The performers did not distinguish them from the mass of other songs in their repertoire.

At the same time, from the XVI century. the word ballad was widely used in relation to the artless, usually anonymous poems on the topic of the day, which were distributed in the form of printed leaflets on city streets. This genre was called: street ballad, stall ballad, broadside or broadsheet.

In dictionary Longman Dictionary of English. Longman Group UK Limited 1992 broadside and broadsheet are usually considered synonymous, but in highly specialized bibliographic terminology broadside is text printed on one side of a sheet, regardless of its size, and broadsheet is text continued on the back of the sheet. In domestic literary criticism, the term “lubok” was proposed for this urban street ballad.

It is hard to imagine two more different than the refined, stylistically complex French court ballad and the rough street ballad of the London common people. Scientists have long been occupied with the mystery associated with the transfer of the name from one genre to another. The explanation offered by some scholars for this transfer, that both the French and the English ballad were connected with dance, is now recognized as untenable.

Folklorist D.M. Balashov writes about the English ballad: “It would be erroneous to associate the origin of other genres with the name “ballad” with this genre. Balashov D.M. Folk ballads - M., 1983. It is possible that this statement is too categorical. The American scientist A. B. Friedman offered a convincing explanation for the paradox in question. He considers the link between French and English street ballads to be the so-called “pseudo-ballad”, which was one of the main genres of English poetry of the 15th century. (Gasparov M.L., 1989, 28). The fact is that in England the French ballad is undergoing significant changes. Justified by the lack of equally rhyming words in the English language, poets increase the number of rhymes, and also abandon the “sending” (envoi). The number of stanzas increases from three to 10-20.

The strict form is blurred. With an increase in the circle of readers, the pseudo-ballad is democratized. Simplifies her style. Increasingly used "ballad stanza" (ballad stanza), widespread in English folk poetry. This is a quatrain in which lines of four-foot and three-foot iambic alternate with rhyming according to the ab ac scheme (some other options are also possible). It is characteristic that one of the first printed street ballads that have come down to us, “A ballade of Luther, the pope, a cardinal and husbandman”, circa 1530) reveals traces of a connection with a pseudo-ballad.

This is a possible way of turning a French court ballad into an English street ballad.

During the XVI-XVII centuries. there is a gradual expansion of the meaning of the word ballad. So, in 1539, in the so-called “episcopal” translation of the Bible (Bishop's Bible), King Solomon’s “Song of Songs” was translated: “The ballet of bollets”, although there was some inappropriateness of the term “ballet” in relation to the text of the sacred And in 1549 the first poet-translator W. Bolvin (William Baldwin) published Canticles or Balades of Salomon, phraslyke declared in Englyshe Metres.

After 16th century the French ballad was long forgotten in England. However, by the end of XIX - beginning of XX centuries. imitation of this genre can be found in the works of some English poets (A. Lang, A. Swinburne, W. Henley, E. Goss, G.K. Chesterton).

The English street ballad existed from the 16th century until almost the 20th century, when it was supplanted by the tabloid newspaper, which borrowed from it the subject matter, the noisy manner of presenting the material, and even some design details (the use of Gothic font in the titles of English newspapers comes from the ballad) (English folk ballads, 1997 , 63).

The theme of the street ballad was extremely diverse. First of all, this is all kinds of sensational news: various miracles, omens, catastrophes, criminal stories, detailed descriptions of the execution of criminals. A variety of street ballad called “Good night” was very popular, which was a description of the last night of a criminal before execution. He remembers all his sins and calls on good Christians not to follow a bad example. In 1849, the circulation of two such ballads amounted to 2.5 million copies.

The street ballad did not lack plots, borrowing them from everywhere: from chivalric novels, historical chronicles (for example, T. Deloni's ballads), fablio, etc. Personal scores could be settled in ballads: Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV (1596) threatens his drinking buddies to compose for each "a ballad with music to be sung at all crossroads" (part I, act II, scene 2, lines 48 -49). The ballad could tell a touching love story. There were also comic ballads, rough to the point of obscenity.

The attitude to the street ballad was ambivalent. A contemporary of Shakespeare, the poet and playwright Ben Jonson wrote: “The poet must abhor the writers of ballads” Jonson Ben Dramatic works: trans. from English / ed. I.A. Aksenova - M. Academy, 1931. And at the same time, ballads were an integral part of the urban culture of that time. The dramas of the Elizabethans are full of allusions to contemporary ballads. John Selden (1584-1654), a scholar and friend of Ben Jonson, notes: “Nothing captures the zeitgeist like ballads and lampoons” (Questions of English Contextology, Issue 1).

The street ballad served as a powerful weapon of struggle and invariably accompanied all the political crises of the 16th-18th centuries. During the years of the revolution and the civil war (40-60s of the 17th century), the printing of ballads was prohibited by parliament, and special spies monitored the observance of this ban. In 1688 King James II was exiled to the accompaniment of the ballad "Lilliburleo". In 1704, the poet J. Fletcher of Saltown wrote: “... if anyone were allowed to write all the ballads in the country, then he would no longer care who makes the laws” (Questions of English Contextology, Issue 2).

The number of ballads has steadily increased. From 1557 to 1709, more than 3,000 titles were printed, according to the far from complete data of the London Booksellers' Register. The printed ballad is also conquering rural England, displacing the old oral songs. However, much of this oral poetry ends up in print.

In the XVII-XVIII centuries. the word ballad came to mean any song that was sung by the people, regardless of whether it was printed or transmitted orally. Thus, ancient songs of a narrative nature that have existed for many centuries also began to be called ballads. Domestic literary critic M.P. Alekseev understands English and Scottish ballad as a lyric-epic or lyrical-dramatic story, which has a strophic form, intended for singing, often accompanied by playing musical instruments (Alekseev, 1984, 292).

Scholars rightly consider the old traditional ballad and the printed street ballad to be genres. The main feature of the first is that, as a result of a long process of oral transmission, it has acquired a number of high artistic merits: brevity, expressiveness, drama, dynamic narration, etc. its figurative system, motives, plots, serious tone, depth of feelings sharply distinguish it from a cheeky, cynical, superficial, wordy street ballad, which is bound by printed text and is not able to improve in the process of oral transmission.

However, the two genres have a lot in common. Both belonged to the common people and were felt as something different from the fiction of the upper classes of society. For four centuries they were closely interconnected and influenced each other. Both were a specific combination of narrative, lyrical and, sometimes, dramatic elements (with the former predominating). They shared a common ballad stanza (with a few exceptions). And finally, all the ballads were closely connected with music and were often sung to the same old tunes.

As noted above, the ballad is a short folk song with narrative content. It is the plot that is the special feature that distinguishes the ballad from other poetic genres. The sources of ballad plots were Christian legends, chivalric romances, ancient myths and works of Greek and Roman authors in medieval retelling, the so-called “eternal” or “wandering” plots, as well as genuine historical events stylized on the basis of ready-made song schemes.

The development of ballad plots followed two main directions: the plots of the heroic-historical genre turned out to be extremely productive; in parallel, they intensively developed plots related to love themes. In fact, there was no sharp dividing line between these two groups. Heroic and love plots were often intertwined with each other within the framework of one ballad, absorbed fairy-tale folklore motifs, were sometimes interpreted in a comic way, acquired some specific features associated with the place of origin or existence of a particular ballad, but beyond the boundaries of the two named plots. -themed folk English and Scottish ballads never came out.

Heroic ballads, which are predominantly epic in nature, are based on specific historical events that can be traced to a greater or lesser extent in each of them, which gives the right to call them heroic-historical.

But not only historical events underlie the plots of such ballads. Ancient folk songs not only supplement the meager facts of history with information about events unknown to the chronicles, but give a vivid idea of ​​human relations, how the distant ancestors of modern Englishmen and Scots thought and spoke, experienced and felt. From history, readers first of all learn what people did, and from ballads - what they were. Having directly become acquainted with the way of life, manners and customs of long gone generations with the help of ballads, we can better understand the writings of the chroniclers.

Heroic-historical folk ballads depict the wars between the English and the Scots, heroic deeds in the struggle for personal and national freedom. "Frontier" ballads were formed in the border zone between England and Scotland in the era of frequent clashes between these countries. Some of the ballads can be dated quite accurately, as they probably appeared shortly after the events they are told, taking listeners and readers back to the 14th century.

Such, for example, is the ballad "The Battle of Durham" (Durham field), which tells how King David of Scotland wanted to take advantage of the absence of the English king, who fought in France, and conquer England; he gathers an army, leads him to the English borders. There is a bloody battle at Durham (1346); the Scots are defeated, their king is taken prisoner; he is taken to London, and here he meets not only with the English king Edward, but also with the king of France, who was captured by the Black Prince and also brought to London: according to the composers of the ballad, the battle of Crescy (mixed here with the battle of Poitiers) in France and at Derham in northern England took place on the same day. The tendency of this "military" ballad betrays its English origin.

Another bloody episode in the history of the Anglo-Scottish clashes, dating back to 1388, is captured with almost chronicle accuracy in the ballad "The Battle of Otterburn" ("The Battle of Otterbourne"). The Scots, led by the successful and fearless Douglas, make daring raids on the English borderlands. Once, in a skirmish with a detachment of the British, commanded by Percy, Douglas captured the battle flag. Percy vowed to take revenge on Douglas and return the banner. Not far from Otterburn, a fierce battle takes place between them. Like most battles of this kind, there were no winners: Douglas died and Percy was taken prisoner. But in the ballad (because it is of Scottish origin) it is stated that the victory was with the Scots.

Widely known (judging by the abundance of options in which it has come down to us) was the ballad "The Hunting of the Cheviot Hills" ("The Hunting of Cheviot", in the later edition of "Chevy Chase"), the main characters of the ballad are still the same Douglas and Percy . The latter once hunted near the Cheviot Hills, located along the ever-changing line of the Anglo-Scottish border. Douglas felt that Percy had invaded his domain and decided to defend his rights. Another fierce battle ensued: Douglas died, Percy died. The news of the death of glorious heroes reached London and Edinburgh. "The Scots no longer have such military leaders as: Douglas," the Scottish king sighed. "There were no better warriors in my kingdom than Percy," said the English king. And, with the logic inherent in those times, he gathered the army belonging to the narrator, the final military and moral victory was asserted either by the British or by the Scots.

Along with the "Hunting at the Cheviot Hills" in the XIV-XV centuries. other ballads connected with the border strip between England and Scotland were also known; most of them are dedicated to the same bloody raids, battles, struggles and are just as epic in nature. Such, for example, is the "Battle of Garlo" (The battle of Hag1aw). In most other historical ballads, the events of the 15th century, the Anglo-French wars, the feudal feuds of the English barons, etc. are meant. All these events were idealized, epic generalizations, the influence of traditional song legend. Wandering epic motifs were attached to some of them; some have been subjected, perhaps even to book influences.In the ballad "The Conquest of France by King Henry V" (King Henru the Fifth's Conquest of Fganse), for example, there is a motif also known from the legends of Alexander the Great: the French king does not pay attention to Henry's threats and; to caustically emphasize youth and inexperience in battles, sends him three balls instead of tribute; exactly the same is told in the pseudo-Kallisthenian "Alexandria" about Tsar Darius, who sends several children's toys to Alexander along with a mocking letter.

Some clashes between the English and the Scots, long since effaced in popular memory and insignificant in themselves, served as the basis for such ballads as "Kinmont Billy", "Katherine Johnston" (Katherine Johnston), "Lady Maesri" (Lady Maisry) and a number of others. The deep causes of the clashes between the English and the Scots are not touched by the nameless authors of the ballads, but they were hardly clear to them. In their minds, each collision had its own separate and only reason: someone wandered off to hunt in the wrong forest, someone kidnapped the bride, someone just wanted to "amuse the right hand" and made a robbery raid on a nearby neighbor, etc. .

Perhaps the greatest poetic charm was preserved by those ballads that tell not about military exploits, but about their sad consequences for human destinies. Remarkable in this regard is the ballad Bold George Campbell (Bonnie George Campbell). A young and brave young man goes to fight for no one knows why and no one knows where (however, according to the general mood of the ballad, it is not difficult to guess that we are talking about the same Anglo-Scottish border). But soon the horse returns without a rider:

High upon Highlands

And low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Cambell

Ride out on a day.

saddled and bred

And gallant rade he;

Hame cam his guid horse,

But never cam he.

The mother weeps bitterly, the bride cries. But such is the fate of women on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border. One of the most celebrated Scottish ballads, A boardeline widow, is also devoted to this theme.

Among the heroic-historical ballads that have an epic character are the ballads about Robin Hood, which were most popular for many centuries. Robin Hood with his retinue of dashing people, an "outlaw" - (outlaw) and enemy of the feudal lords, but a friend and protector of the poor, widows and orphans, became a beloved folk hero. He is sung in a large number of ballads, which make up one of the most important cycles, which is represented by four dozen separate works that tell about the various adventures of the hero and his comrades.

Robin Hood was at the head of hundreds of free shooters, who were powerless to cope with government units. He and his gang robbed only the rich, spared and rewarded the poor, did no harm to women; the deeds and adventures of this man “all Britain sings in their songs” (“The Ballads of Robin Hood”, 1987).

In their early development, the Robin Hood ballads did not provide a coherent account of his life; they told only about some of his adventures. A large place in them was occupied primarily by stories about the formation of his squad. Many ballads are based on a simple plot scheme: some craftsman, for example, a tanner, boilermaker, potter or forest ranger, at the behest of the king, sheriff, or on his own impulse, tries to capture Robin Hood as standing “outlaw”, fights with him, but, having experienced his strength and courage, voluntarily, joins his retinue. Thus begins Robin's acquaintance and friendship with the most faithful of his comrades and assistants - "Little John" (Little John), a daring and strong man, whose nickname - "little", "small" - is ironic, since he is seven feet tall. A dashing fight begins Robin Hood's friendship with the defrocked monk, brother Tuck, who does not take off his cassock, even joining the squad of daring men, and does not use other weapons in battles with enemies, except for his weighty club. The ballads also name other members of the squad (Scath-locke, Mutch, etc.), who freely and cheerfully live in Sherwood Forest. They are united by hatred for the feudal lords and all oppressors of the people.

In many ballads, one can recognize the features of this particular time - the anti-feudal moods of the peasant masses, acute hatred of the highest church authorities, provincial administration, etc. The socio-historical situation of the 15th century, with outbreaks of peasant uprisings, feudal wars, growing military taxes, etc. etc., contributes to the further development of the same legends, finally crystallizes them, completes the process of epic idealization of the main character.

Generous, generous, courageous persecutor of all injustice, Robin Hood gives a helping hand to everyone who needs it; he is tireless, dexterous, skillfully eludes all the traps that lie in wait for him, runs away from any pursuit, knows how to get out of any trouble and take good revenge on his enemies.

The story of Robin Hood has left a noticeable mark in world fiction. In England, Shakespeare's contemporaries: Robert Green, Mondey and Chetl processed ballad motifs in their dramatic works. These ballads have been known in Russian literature since the 1930s; some of them exist in Russian translations by N. Gumilyov, V. Rozhdestvensky and others.

Ballads dedicated to love and having a lyric-dramatic character make up the largest group among all ballad cycles. They tell about the sorrows of love, about the innumerable dangers and obstacles that lay in wait for lovers in those distant times. It would probably be possible to group love plots on the basis of an equal kind of misfortunes and obstacles. There would be a fair list: feuds between Scots and English, feuds between clans, feuds between families, feuds within families, jealousies, envy, kidnappings, misunderstandings. Many ballads sound tragic, for example, in “Annie of Loch Royan”.

... A young woman hurries to her lover, the father of her child, but she is not allowed into the castle: her lover is sleeping and does not hear the call, and his mother drives the young woman away. She sets off on her way back and dies in the depths of the sea along with her child. Sensing something unkind, the father hurries to the seashore… the raging surf brings the corpse of his beloved to his feet.

Perhaps the consciousness of the impossibility of happy love in those years poisoned by blood and hatred gave rise to numerous motives for otherworldly love. In the ballad “Billy” (“Billy”), unconditional and unshakable fidelity was affirmed, which even death cannot shake. This, apparently, the most important idea of ​​love and fidelity for the moral consciousness of that era, is realized in English and Scottish ballads not only in fantastic plots, but also quite real ones, in some cases supplemented by a symbolic ending. Thus ends the plot of love and fidelity in the already mentioned ballad “Lady Maisry” (“Lady Maisry”, William throws herself into the fire to die like his beloved) or in the ballad “Clyde waters” (“Clyde waters”, the girl throws herself into water that killed her beloved, to perish with him).

In the ballads "Edward" (Edward), "Prince Robert" ("Prince Robert"), "Lady Isabel" ("Lady Isabel") women are not inferior to men in hatred, enmity or revenge; ballads depict an evil mother, stepmother, wife, mistress, mad with envy, jealousy, despair.

In some old ballads, the motif of conscious or unconscious incest is often found, perhaps an echo of song plots from the era of ancient tribal relations, such as in the ballad Sheath and Knife and Lizie Wan.

Tragedies of jealousy are frequent in ballads. But even stronger than jealousy is the feeling of spontaneous, endless love, which delivers not only boundless grief, but also the greatest happiness. In the ballad "Child Waters" (Child Waters), to which Byron refers in the preface to "Child Harold", Ellen follows her lover, disguised as a page, endures all the hardships of the campaign, guards and cleans his horse, is ready to accept even his new mistress and make a bed for her; at night, in the stable, in terrible agony, abandoned and ridiculed, she gives birth to a baby, and then only her love is rewarded: Waters marries her. If fate haunts those who love until the end of their lives, then they unite behind the grave; the symbol of love, which knows no barriers even in death itself, becomes a rose, wild rose or other flowers that grow on their graves and intertwine with their branches.

Thus, most ballads have an ominous flavor and end in a fatal outcome. The drama of the situation and dialogues, the lyrical excitement reach great tension here. Feelings of revenge, jealousy and love rage in the hearts of the characters; blood flows in torrents; follies, crimes, murders are as frequent as the lyrical ups and downs of the greatest, completely captivating love.

In the minds of most people, a ballad is almost synonymous with devilry: supernatural events are piled one on top of the other, coffins are torn off their chains, ghosts scurry through castles, forests and glades are inhabited by goblin and fairies, the waters are teeming with mermaids. These representations, inspired by the romantic literary ballad, do not fully correspond to the actual content of the folk ballad. Of the more than 300 English and Scottish folk ballads currently known, hardly 50 - that is, about one in six - contain supernatural events.

It is rather difficult to explain this, given that the medieval consciousness was literally permeated with faith in miracles and accepted the existence of devils, brownies and goblin as a self-evident element of everyday life.

Mythologism as a worldview is preserved only in the most ancient ballads, as well as in ballads, where their archaic basis emerges in one form or another. used as a poetic device or for allegorical purposes.

In the ballad "The Boy and the Cloak" (The Boy and the Cloak) magic motifs - a mantle that has the miraculous property of detecting a woman's infidelity; the head of a boar, against which the braggart's knife breaks; a magic horn spilling wine on a coward's dress - all this is used by the nameless author of the ballad for a more vivid and convincing moral assessment of real human vices.

Especially often, magical motifs are used as an extended poetic metaphor in stories about the test of loyalty, courage, and nobility. In the ballad The Young Templane, the hero's bride, true to her love, courageously goes through difficult trials.

The test of the moral qualities of the heroes can be not only purely physical suffering, but also moral suffering associated with negative aesthetic emotions. For example, the noble Evain had to go through such trials, who saved the girl, whom the evil stepmother turned into an ugly beast (“Knight Evain” - The Knight Avain). A peculiar version of the fantastic motif of the "test of fidelity" is also the story of the bride following her beloved to the grave. Another variation of the same motive is plots where, in response to the call of a woman (usually a mermaid), a man with boundless courage rushes after her into the depths of the sea (ballad "Mermaid" - Kemp Oweyne).

It is fantastic ballads that will attract the attention of European romantics, including English ones (Coleridge, Southey, Scott), who will bring them to the fore among the entire ballad heritage; however, in the heyday of ballad creativity, fabulous, fantastic ballads do not occupy such an exclusive place and their fantasy does not bear an ominous imprint.

In the popular mind, the tragic and the comic always go hand in hand. In the funniest comic stories, it is not uncommon to find hidden elements of tragedy. It is pointless to find out which ballads - tragic or comic sounding - appeared earlier: the origins of both are lost in the depths of time and are practically inaccessible to rigorous research. They probably appeared almost simultaneously, although, perhaps, in a different social environment. The point of view is hardly fair, according to which comic ballads appeared much later than tragic ones, in the course of ballad evolution towards "simplification" of plots and the penetration of everyday elements into them. Everyday details are also characteristic of the earliest ballads; the fact that people were able to see the funny and laugh at all times is evidenced by numerous comedies, satires, fables, comic songs, medieval farces and fables.

Take, for example, the famous "Ballad of the Miller and His Wife". The game's comic dialogue is clearly farcical in nature. The tipsy miller, returning home in the evening, is still not so drunk as not to notice some signs of his wife's infidelity: men's boots with copper spurs, a raincoat, etc. But the lively and crafty "hostess" is by no means inclined to give up and with enviable resourcefulness tries to dissuade the "master" of his suspicions. But even the miller is not a fool: in every explanation of his wife, not without humor, he finds some detail that destroys all her ingenious constructions; and finally, the miller discovers a man in bed.

Equally comical is the dialogue between husband and wife in the ballads Get up and Bar the Door, The Old Cloak, or the dialogue between a knight and a peasant girl in the ballad Deceived knight".

Comic ballads are diverse in content and are by no means confined to everyday subjects. They affect the social sphere, complex psychological relationships between people, love topics ("The Tramp", "The Shepherd's Son", "A Trip to the Fair"). In a number of ballads, which in terms of content it would be wrong to classify as "purely" comic, the comic element is nevertheless unusually strong ("The King and the Bishop", "Two Wizards", etc.)

I. Andronnikov. "Why am I so hurt and so sad ...". And sullenly You concealed what the thought languished about, And came out to us with a smile on your lips. An immortal and always young poet. Childhood of the poet. Arakcheev. Loneliness is socially conditioned, generated by a gloomy and suffocating era, early orphanhood. “No, it’s not you that I love so passionately.” “Abandon vain worries.” "When the yellowing field is agitated." About nature. About the motherland. Purpose: to understand what are the origins of Lermontov's work. "Don't trust yourself..." Philosophical Poems. “I love my homeland, but with a strange love…”.

"V.A. Zhukovsky ballad Svetlana" - Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky. V.A. Zhukovsky ballad "Svetlana". Characteristic features of the ballad genre. The presence of a plot basis, a plot. Moral outcome. A tense dramatic, mysterious, or fantasy story. Symbolic character of space and time. Exposition Outcome Development of action Climax Decoupling. Literature lesson in grade 9 Author: teacher of Russian language and literature Kirpitneva L.B. A.S. Pushkin. Often (but not necessarily) the presence of a folklore element.

"Gogol Dead Souls Lesson" - Story. A.P. Chekhov. Tale. Let's check our knowledge. Svetly, 2009. Chapter? Literature lesson for grade 9. A.S. Pushkin. Lesson plan. Working with a table. Novel. Travel notes.

"Dante Alighieri" - Love ... Life and work. Last years. Dante Alighieri. Target. Birth. @ OU secondary school No. 23, the city of Rybinsk, Yaroslavl region, 2007. What was the name of Alighieri's love of life? The years of Dante Alighieri's life… Creativity. Studies. In what year was Dante sentenced to exile from the country and the death penalty? Born in May or June 1265 in Florence. Harsh sentence. World fame.

"S.P. Sysoy" - I remember everything that my mother said, And I simply cannot live otherwise. S. Sysoy. "Milder than all the native land." With firm faith in the victory of their beloved country, the soldiers marched forward against the enemy. "My prayers and my love." You are a gift of fate to me, The fragrance of delicate roses. "About love, fate and eternity, "The Fatherland remembers by name." To study the principles of analysis and interpretation of a poetic text.

"Tyutchev and Fet" - What other feelings are expressed in the poem? What kind of person is each poet? "What a night!" Grade 9 What are the features of the poetic language of each poem? Consider the theme, idea, composition, movement of poetic thought in works. Before us are two landscape sketches. Note the time of writing. Reading poetry. What feelings do you get after reading the poem? Comparative analysis of the poems "Summer Evening" by F.I. Tyutchev and "What a Night" by A.A. Fet.

Features of the ballad genre

V. A. Zhukovsky introduced the Russian reader to one of the most beloved genres of Western European romantics - the ballad. And although the ballad genre appeared in Russian literature long before Zhukovsky, it was he who gave it poetic charm and made it popular. Moreover, he merged the poetics of the ballad genre with the aesthetics of romanticism, and as a result, the ballad genre turned into the most characteristic sign of romanticism.

What is a ballad? And why exactly this genre attracted Zhukovsky? A ballad is a short poetic story of a predominantly heroic-historical or fantastic nature. The presentation of a pronounced plot in the ballad is lyrically colored. Zhukovsky wrote 39 ballads, of which only five are original, the rest are translations and arrangements.

Beginning of the 19th century. Zhukovsky is disappointed in life, his soul suffers from unfulfilled happiness with his girlfriend, from an early age he constantly feels the bitterness of social inequality. He is constantly confronted with social issues. This is a Decembrist movement, which he is forced to perceive from two points of view: both as a friend of many Decembrists and persons from their environment, and as a courtier close to the royal family. All this prompted Zhukovsky to embark on the path of ethical solution of acute problems. From the very beginning of his ballad work, Zhukovsky fought for a morally pure personality.

The main theme of his ballads is crime and punishment, good and evil. The constant hero of the ballads is a strong personality who has thrown off moral restrictions and fulfills his personal will, aimed at achieving a purely selfish goal. Let us recall the ballad "Warwick" - the original translation of the Sau-ti ballad of the same name. Warwick seized the throne by killing his nephew, the rightful heir to the throne. And all because Warwick wants to reign.

According to Zhukovsky, the crime is caused by individualistic passions: ambition, greed, jealousy, selfish self-affirmation. The man failed to curb himself, succumbed to passions, and his moral consciousness turned out to be weakened. Under the influence of passions, a person forgets his moral duty. But the main thing in ballads is still not an act of crime, but its consequences - the punishment of a person. The criminal in Zhukovsky's ballads is punished, as a rule, not by people. Punishment comes from a person's conscience. So, in the ballad "Castle Smalholm" no one punished the murderer of the baron and his wife, they voluntarily go to monasteries, because their conscience torments them. But the monastic life does not bring them moral relief and consolation either: the wife is sad, the world is not dear to her, and the baron "is shy of people and is silent." By committing a crime, they themselves deprive themselves of the happiness and joys of life.

But even when the conscience does not wake up in the criminal, the punishment still comes to him. According to Zhukovsky, it comes, as it were, from the very depths of life. The conscience is silent in the greedy Bishop Gatton, who burned down the barn with the hungry poor and thought with cynical satisfaction that he had rid the hungry land of greedy mice (ballad "God's Judgment on the Bishop").

"Nature in Zhukovsky's ballads is fair, and she herself takes on the function of revenge - for the crime: the Avon River, in which the little heir to the throne was sunk, overflowed its banks, overflowed, and the criminal Warwick drowned in furious waves. Mice began a war against Bishop Gatton and killed him.,

In the ballad world, nature does not want to absorb evil into itself, to preserve it, it destroys it, takes it away forever from the world of being. The ballad world of Zhukovsky arguing that in life there is often a duel between good and evil. In the end, good, high moral principle always wins), Zhukovsky's JjbcV pp is a fair retribution. The poet firmly believes that a vicious act will be surely punished. And the main thing in Zhukovsky's ballads is the triumph of the moral law.

A special place among the works of Zhukovsky is occupied by ballads dedicated to love: "Lyudmila", "Svetlana", "Aeolian harp" and others. The main thing here for the poet is to reassure, set on the true path a man in love who has experienced a tragedy in love. Zhukovsky here also demands the curbing of egoistic desires and passions.

The unfortunate Lyudmila is cruelly condemned because she indulges in passion, the desire to be happy at all costs with her beloved. The passion of love and the bitterness of the loss of the groom so blind her that she forgets about her moral obligations towards other people. Zhukovsky, by romantic means, seeks to prove how unreasonable and even dangerous for a person is this selfish desire for one's own happiness in spite of everything:

Coffin, open;
to live fully;
Double heart
not to love.

So exclaims Lyudmila, distraught with grief. The coffin opens and the dead man takes Lyudmila into his arms. The horror of the heroine is terrible: they turn to stone, their eyes grow dim, the blood turns cold. And it is already impossible to regain the life she so unreasonably rejected. But Zhukovsky's terrible ballad is full of life. The poet prefers real life, despite the fact that it sends severe trials to a person.

The ballad "Svetlana" is close to "Lyudmila" in its plot, but it is also profoundly different. This ballad is a free arrangement of the ballad by the German poet G. A. Burger "Lenora". It tells how the girl wonders about the groom: he has gone far and does not send news for a long time. And suddenly he appears in a charming dream inspired by divination. Darling calls the bride to get married, they gallop through the blizzard on mad horses. But the groom suddenly turns into a dead man and almost drags the bride to the grave. However, everything ends well: there is an awakening, the groom appears in reality, alive, and the desired, joyful wedding is performed. Zhukovsky goes far from the original, introducing a national Russian flavor into the ballad: he includes a description of divination in the "Epiphany evening", signs and customs:

Once a Epiphany Eve
The girls guessed:
Shoe behind the gate.
Taking off their feet, throwing
Snow weeded, under the window
listened to, fed
Counted chicken grain,
Burning wax was drowned
In a bowl of clean water
They put a golden ring,
emerald earrings,
Spread out white boards
And they sang in tune over the bowl
The songs are submissive.

The poet reproduces an attractive and graceful girlish world, in which the slipper, the emerald earrings, and the golden ring are significant.

The ballad not only told about an episode from the life of a young creature, but presented her inner world. The whole ballad is full of life, movement, both internal and external, some kind of girlish bustle. The spiritual world of Svetlana is also full of movements. She then refuses baptismal games, then she agrees to join the fortunetellers; she is afraid and hopes to receive the desired news, and in a dream she is overcome by the same feelings: fear, hope, anxiety, trust .. to the groom. Her feelings are extremely tense, sensations are aggravated, her heart responds to everything. The ballad is written in a rapid rhythm: the ballad horses are racing, the girl and the groom are racing on them, and her heart is breaking.

Interesting in the ballad "Svetlana" and colors. The entire text is permeated with white: it is, first of all, snow, the image of which arises immediately, from the first lines, the snow that Svetlana dreams of, a blizzard over the sleigh, a blizzard all around. Further, this is a white scarf used during divination, a table covered with a white tablecloth, a snow-white dove, and even a snowy sheet with which the dead man is covered. The white color is associated with the name of the heroine: Svetlana, light, and: pi-nvrodno - white light. Zhukovsky has white here, undoubtedly a symbol of purity and purity.

The second contrasting color in the ballad is not black, but rather dark: dark in the mirror, dark is the distance of the road along which the horses rush. The black color of the terrible ballad night, the night of crimes and punishments, is softened and brightened in this ballad.

Thus, white snow, dark night and bright points of candlelight or eyes - this is a kind of romantic background in the ballad "Svetlana".

And yet the charm of the ballad is in the image of the young Svetlana in love. Her fears have dissipated, she is not guilty of anything. But the poet, true to his ethical principles, warned the young being about the vice of the sagas of prayer. Faith in providence turns into faith in life:

Smile my beauty
To my ballad
It has great wonders.
Very little stock.
Here are my ballads:
“The best friend to us in this life is
The blessing of the builder backwater:
Here misfortune is a false dream;
Happiness is an awakening."

So, using the example of the best and main ballads of V. A. Zhukovsky, we tried to analyze the basic principles of the ballad genre. I must say that, after Zhukovsky, Russian writers actively turned to this genre: this is A. S. Pushkin "The Song of the Prophetic Oleg" (1822), and M. Yu. Lermontov "Airship" (1828), "Mermaid" (1836), and A. Tolstoy "Vasily Shibanem" (1840).

Over time, the genre acquired clichés, which gave rise to numerous parodies: “The German Ballad” by Kozma Prutkov (1854) is a parody of Schiller’s ballad translated by Zhukovsky “Knight Togenvorg”. In 1886, several ballad parodies were written by Vl. Solovyov: "Vision", "The Mysterious Sexton".

38 Artistic originality of the ballad genre.

Folk ballads - these are lyrical-epic songs about tragic events in family and everyday life. In the center of ballads there is always a person with his moral problems, feelings, experiences. The hero of ballads differs from heroes-heroes who perform a feat, from fairy-tale characters. This is a nameless person, experiencing, suffering and sometimes dying in difficult life circumstances. If there are heroic principles in epics, optimistic ones in fairy tales, then tragic pathos expressed in ballads.

"The ballad puts the focus on individual human destiny. Events of national significance, ethical, social, philosophical problems are reflected in ballads in the form of specific destinies of individuals and private family human relations." Russian ballads depict the era of the Middle Ages , the heyday of the genre falls on the XIV-XVII centuries. The plots of ballads are diverse, but ballads on family and everyday topics are more widespread. In these ballads, the main characters, as in fairy tales, are the "good fellow" and the "beautiful maiden." Often they tell about unhappy love and tragic events.

Exist two points of view on the origin of ballad songs. Some researchers (A.N. Veselovsky, N.P. Andreev) believed that ballads originated in "prehistoric" times. As evidence, they referred to the fact that the ballad songs preserved the most ancient motifs of incest, cannibalism, transportation across the river as symbols of the transition from one state of life to another, the conversion of a person into a plant and animal, etc. Others (for example, V.M. Zhirmunsky) claimed that ballads originated in the Middle Ages. The second point of view in relation to Russian ballad songs seems to be more acceptable. The content of the ballad songs speaks for itself. As for the most ancient motifs, they testify to the connection between medieval song folklore and previous ideological and historical traditions.

Poetics. Ballads belong to the epic genre of poetry. The story in them is conducted from the third person, as if from the outside, from the narrator. The main sign of the epic nature of a ballad is the presence of a plot in them, but the plot does not appear the same as in other genres: in ballads, as a rule, only the climax and denouement are presented within the figurative image; the rest is said only in general terms. In a ballad, we are always talking about an event, which in itself is a continuation of the previous ones, but one can only guess about them. This makes the ballad story mysterious and at the same time contributes to the fact that it highlights the most necessary for the realization of the plan. The ballad avoids multiple episodes. Ballads have long been noticed plot dynamism. In them, the reception of an unexpected development of the action is frequent.

Verse. The verse of the ballad is closely connected with the melodic structure of the singing, and the melodies include the properties of the solemn chant inherent in the epic, and a piercing tonality. The intonation of misfortune and grief from such a combination of majestic sadness. The verse of a ballad is more mobile than that of an epic, it is closer to the verse of historical songs and differs from it only in strong emotional impulses as a result of a sharp emotional-intonational movement. The verse becomes especially expressive in the most dramatic moments of singing. In these cases, he takes properties from bitter weeping. In the genre that arose at the stage of transition from the "classic" epic epic to the new one, the transition of archaic song forms to new ones, in which there are already lyrical qualities, is noticeable.

Between the world recreated in the ballad and its creator (and, consequently, the reader) arises space-time distance. The ballad space, emphatically "otherworldly", fundamentally different from everyday reality, is not just removed from the perceiving individual. It is qualitatively designated as belonging to another aesthetic and ethical system associated with folklore ideas, as V.G. Belinsky, pointing to the "fantastic and folk legend" underlying the ballad plot . Closed space(!)

Ballad lyricism is the result of the impact on the subject of some epic event, the reaction of the soul, experiencing its discovery of the ballad world.

Unmotivated Evil(ignoring the need for motivation). Over the life of ballad heroes, their feelings "a tragic fate gravitates" (V.M. Zhirmunsky). That is why the hero of the ballad often seems to even voluntarily go to his death, resignedly accepts death.

The specifics of the conflict: behind the characteristically ballad situations of family drama, social inequality, captivity-non-freedom, etc. really determined by the specific circumstances of the Middle Ages, a higher and eternal plan emerges, to which the folk ballad gravitates, striving to reduce various conflicts and conflicts to the most general, generic, unchanging confrontations: love-hate, good-evil, life-death. The main conflict in the ballad Man and Fate, Fate, Man before the court of Higher powers. Conflict is always tragic and inexplicable.

Ballad Function: the need to master the tragic sphere of being. The ballad genre responded to the needs of the individual to experience feelings and states that she was deprived of in everyday reality.

As a genre, the ballad of the old formation remained a unique phenomenon in the history of folklore, and many features of the genre influenced the formation of song genres of a time closer to us.

Addition

Russian folk ballads are works of rich vital content, high artistic perfection, and wonderful art of the word. This is manifested primarily in the mastery of the plot: on the one hand, in the selection of situations of great emotional power, and on the other, in the exact characterization of the characters in their actions. In the ballads, in a summary of the episode, limited in time and place of action, the tragedy of the position of an innocently dying person, usually a woman, is skillfully revealed. The tragic in a ballad is, as a rule, terrible. This is often a crime, an atrocity committed against a close or dear person, which creates a particularly acute tension. Prince Roman deals with his wife with terrible cruelty; the sister recognizes the bloody shirts of her brother, who was killed by her "robber husband." A significant role in the course of the action is played by the unexpected, for example, the sister's recognition of her brother's shirts, the involuntary poisoning of her son's mother. The episode, which serves as the plot center of the ballad, does not have an exposition, but sometimes receives a brief motivation in denunciation or slander, which then drive the actions of the characters.Motivation is sometimes combined with the mystery that arises as a result of a prediction (prophetic dream, omen) or prediction of events.The tragic in the plots of ballads is manifested not only in the actions of the characters (murder, torture), but also in the peculiarities of their mental states.The tragic fate of a person in a feudal society, the suffering and death of victims of despotism, as well as a tragic mistake, deceit, slander, which "lead to the death of people. The tragic thing is the late repentance of a mother or husband who killed an innocent son or wife, in the late recognition of a dishonored sister by a brother. The ballad differs from other folklore genres by the depth of the psychological image, the ability to reveal complex and intense experiences, including the state of mind of the killer, his remorse and remorse. Ballad characters are characterized by strong passions and desires. Avdotya Ryazanochka goes to the camp to the enemies in order to free the captives; the girl flees from captivity: freedom is dearer to her than life; unable to escape from her pursuers, she throws herself into the river; defending the right to love, the girl prefers to die, but not to be forcibly married. In reckless anger, a husband can destroy his beloved wife. Characters are possessed by such feelings as horror, despair, severe suffering, unbearable grief. Their experiences are most often expressed in action, in deeds. In the ballad “Well Done and the Princess,” the king’s anger at the young man, at the servants, is expressively conveyed, and the change in the king’s state of mind is motivated in a peculiar way. Feelings are transmitted in their external expression. In the ballad “Prince Roman Lost His Wife,” the daughter learns about the death of her mother: As the princess fought on the damp ground, She cried in a loud voice. And further: She beat her hands on the oak table. Experiences are also expressed in the speech of the characters, in monologues and dialogues. It often takes a peculiar form. Sophia, who loves Vasily, stands on the kliros in the church. She wanted to say: "Lord, forgive me." Meanwhile, she said: "Vasilyushko, Vasily, my friend, touch me, Touch me, move over, Let's hug and kiss." Works of the ballad type are more realistic than other poetic genres, since in the latter there is neither such a detailed psychological development of images, nor so many opportunities for showing everyday details. The realism of ballads consists in the vitality of conflicts, in the everyday typification of characters, in the plausibility of events and their motivation, in everyday details, in the objectivity of the narrative, in the absence of fantastic fiction. The latter is present only occasionally in the denouement of events and is used to morally condemn the villains. This is the motif of intertwining trees on the grave of the perished, which serves as a symbol of true love. The motive of turning a girl into a tree is also usually in the denouement of events. The originality of the ballad is manifested primarily in its difference from other genres. The ballad is a poetic genre, but its verse, although sometimes close to the epic one, differs in that it is shorter, usually two-strike, while the epic verse is usually three-strike. The similarity with the epic verse is manifested in the presence of a pause approximately in the middle of the line. Traveled // Mitriy Vasilyevich In the open field, // on a good horse, Sat // Domna Aleksandrovna In a new hill, // under a slanted window, Under a crystal // under a glass. She thought, // thought, She blasphemed him, // blasphemed him. In epics, and often in historical songs, the positive hero triumphs, but in ballads he dies, and the villain does not receive direct punishment, although sometimes he grieves and repents. Heroes in ballads are not heroes, not historical figures, but usually ordinary people; if these are princes, then they are bred in their personal, family relationships, and not in state activities. The ballads are close to epics and historical songs in epic, narrative, plot, but their plots are less developed and usually come down to one episode. They reveal the relationship of characters in more detail than the plot situation in lyrical songs. Ballads differ from them in the absence of lyricism, which appears only in later works and testifies to the destruction of the genre. However, ballads interact with other genres. They contain epic formulas, epithets: They lead the cross in a written way, Bow in a learned way In the early ballads, epithets are not uncommon: a good horse, a feast of honors, oak tables, a damask sword. But the structure of a ballad is different from that of an epic. There are fabulous motifs in the ballads: predictions, transformations. In the ballad "The Prince and the Old Women" the princess is revived with living water; in the variant of the ballad "Slandered Wife", the snake that the young man wanted to kill promises to help him in gratitude for the rescue, but her words turn out to be slander. Unlike epics and historical songs, the meaning of which is patriotic and historical ideas, the meaning of ballads is in expressing moral assessments of the behavior of characters, in deep humanism, in protecting the free expression of feelings and aspirations of the individual.

Scientists note the difficulty of classifying the folk ballad genre, since it does not have a clear form of performance, does not have a stable everyday use (ballads are performed mainly from time to time, sometimes on famous holidays), and "the rhythmic structure of the ballad opens up scope for the most peculiar musical possibilities" nineteen . Apparently, the ballad is determined by its own genre specificity, and the researchers establish common features of the ballad genre. The ballad is set to depict the world of private people, "the world of human passions interpreted tragically"20. "The world of the ballad is the world of individuals and families, scattered, disintegrating in a hostile or indifferent environment"21. The ballad focuses on the disclosure of the conflict. “For centuries, typical conflict situations have been selected and cast in ballad form”22. The ballads contain "sharp, irreconcilable conflicts, good and evil, truth and untruth, love and hate, positive and negative characters are opposed, and the main place is given to the negative character. Unlike fairy tales, it is not good that wins in ballads, but evil, although negative characters suffer a moral defeat: they are condemned and often repent of their actions, but not because they realized their inadmissibility, but because at the same time as those whom they wanted to destroy and the people they love are dying.”23 The conflict is revealed dramatically, and, it should be noted, the drama literally permeates the entire ballad genre. “The artistic specificity of the ballad is determined by its dramatic nature. The composition, the way of depicting a person, and the very principle of typification of life phenomena are subject to the needs of dramatic expressiveness. The most characteristic features of the composition of the ballad are: one-conflict and conciseness, discontinuity of presentation, an abundance of dialogues, repetitions with an increase in drama ... The action of the ballad is reduced to one conflict, to one central episode, and all the events preceding the conflict are either set out extremely briefly .. or completely absent...” The images of ballad characters are also revealed according to the dramatic principle: through speech and actions. It is the attitude to action, to the disclosure of a personal position in conflict relations that determines the type of the hero of the ballad. “The creators and listeners of ballads are not interested in personalities. They are primarily concerned with the relationships of the characters among themselves, transferred, epically copying the world of consanguinity and family relations. The actions of the heroes of the ballads have a universal meaning: they determine the entire plot basis of the ballad and have a dramatic tense character, setting the stage for a tragic denouement. "Events are conveyed in the ballad in their most intense, most effective moments, there is nothing in it that would not relate to action." “The action in a ballad, as a rule, develops rapidly, in leaps and bounds, from one peak scene to another, without connecting explanations, without introductory characteristics. The speeches of the characters alternate with narrative lines. The number of scenes and characters is reduced to a minimum ... The whole ballad often represents, as it were, a preparation for the denouement.

Scientists note the incompleteness of the ballad genre, almost any ballad can be continued or expanded into a whole novel. "Mysteriousness or innuendo, arising from the compositional properties of the ballad, is inherent in the ballads of all peoples". As a rule, the ballad has an unexpected and cruel denouement. The heroes do things that are impossible in ordinary, everyday life, and they are prompted to do such actions by an artistically constructed chain of accidents, usually leading to a tragic ending. "Motives of unexpected misfortune, irreparable accidents, terrible coincidences are common for a ballad". The presence of these features allows us to assert that "ballads have such a specific character that one can speak of them as a genre." Currently, there are four theories for defining the genre of the ballad. 1. Ballad is an epic or epic-dramatic genre. The supporters of this position include N. Andreev, D. Balashov, A. Kulagina, N. Kravtsov, V. Propp, Yu. Smirnov. "Ballad is an epic (narrative) song of a dramatic nature". The source of the emotionality of the narration is the dramatic beginning, the author's presence in the ballad is not expressed, which means that the lyrics as a generic feature of the genre are absent. The lyrical beginning is understood as a direct expression of the author's attitude to reality, the author's mood. 2. Ballad - a lyrical form of poetry. At the moment of the development of science, such a point of view should be considered abandoned. Its origin dates back to the 19th century. It was believed that the ballad in its literary form reflects the folk form and easily correlates with such lyrical genres as romance and elegy. Pavel Yakushkin, one of the well-known collectors of folk poetry, wrote: “The ballad so easily turns into an elegy and, conversely, an elegy into a ballad, that it is impossible to strictly distinguish between them”33. They differ only in the number of options presented more in the ballad34. Such a theory does not withstand serious criticism, much earlier V.G. Belinsky wrote about the belonging of the ballad, which arises in the Middle Ages, to epic works, although in general it should be considered, according to the critic, in the section of lyric poetry35. 3. Ballad - lyrical-epic genre. This point of view is shared by A. Veselovsky, M. Gasparov, O. Tumilevich, N. Elina, P. Lintur, L. Arinstein, V. Erofeev, G. Kalandadze, A. Kozin. Until recently, this theory was considered classical. There is every reason to believe that it arises from the assumption about the lyrical warehouse of the ballad, which was widespread in the 19th century. Scientists note the peculiar lyricization of the folk ballad: “If for epics the main path of transformation is the transition to prose, in the form of a wide range of prose forms ... then for the ballad, the main path of transformation is the transition to lyrics, in the form of, perhaps, a wider set of lyric -epic and lyrical forms"36 . Considering such lyrical-epic ballads of the 18th - 19th centuries, researchers come to the rightful conclusion that the leading principle in the structure of the genre is precisely the lyric. Unfortunately, in the definition of a specific manifestation of the lyrical principle, the very term lyricism, general, mostly non-genre grounds are given. We are talking about a special emotional perception, lyrical empathy of listeners to the content of ballads, their sympathy for the suffering and death of heroes. Also, as a drawback of this concept, one should point out the lack of works devoted to the genre evolution of the ballad: perhaps the ancient form of ballad songs is not constant, changes over time and does not quite correspond to the modern form of ballads. 4. Ballad - epic-lyrical-dramatic genre. This approach to the definition of a ballad is now entering the leading positions. Supporters of this concept are M. Alekseev, V. Zhirmunsky, B. Putilov, A. Gugnin, R. Wright-Kovaleva, A. Mikeshin, V. Gusev, E. Tudorovskaya. "A folk ballad is an epic-lyrical song with pronounced dramatic elements"37. In principle, Russian folklore studies have been moving towards such a definition for a long time and independently, but it is possible to establish connections with the analytical works of German poets and collectors of folk poetry of the 18th-19th centuries, who created the type of romantic ballad. I.V. Goethe believed that "the singer uses all three main types of poetry, ... he can start lyrically, epicly, dramatically, and, changing forms at will, continue ...". In the definition of a ballad as a symbiosis of three poetic genera, I.G. Herder added another mythological element. The dramatic beginning is one of the leading elements that form the ballad genre. The dramatic presentation of the series of events, the dramatic conflict and the tragic denouement determine not the lyrical, but the dramatic type of emotionality of the ballad genre. If the lyrics in folklore mean the subjective attitude of the author to the events depicted, then the dramatic beginning is the attitude of the characters to the events taking place, and the ballad genre is formed in accordance with precisely this approach39. The last group of scientists believes that the dramatic beginning is an indispensable feature of the genre and has an equal role with the epic and lyrical. In a particular song of the epic-lyric-dramatic type, they can be involved to varying degrees, depending on the needs of the historical time and the ideological and artistic setting of the work. Such a position, in our opinion, seems to be the most promising and fruitful in relation to the study of the folk ballad genre. Unfortunately, we have to admit that there are only a few works devoted to the origin and development of the Russian folk ballad genre. V.M. Zhirmunsky, in his article "The English Folk Ballad" in 1916, proposed dividing ballads into genre varieties (epic, lyrical-dramatic or lyrical)40, thereby removing the question of the problem of the evolution of the ballad genre as such. In 1966, the study “The History of the Development of the Russian Folk Ballad Genre” by D.M. Balashov, in which the author, using specific material, shows the thematic nature of the change in the ballad in the 16th - 17th centuries, and in the 18th century notes signs of the destruction of the genre as a result of the development of an extra-ceremonial lyrical lingering song and "the absorption of the epic fabric of the ballad by lyrical elements"41. N.I. Kravtsov summarized all the available experience and proposed to approve four groups or cycles of ballads in the educational literature: family, domestic, love, historical, social42. In 1976, in the scientific work "Slavic Folklore", the scientist noted the evolutionary nature of these groups43. In 1988 Yu.I. Smirnov, analyzing East Slavic ballads and forms similar to them, presented the experience of an index of plots and versions, where he subjected reasonable criticism to the artificiality, conventionality of dividing ballads into fantastic, historical, social, etc. “Such an artificial division breaks the natural connections and typological relationships between the plots, as a result of which forms related or close to them are separated and are considered in isolation”44. The scientist clarifies the rules for constructing an evolutionary chain45 in relation to ballad material, highlighting five derivatives of the genre (from a drawn-out or “vocal” song intended for choral performance to literary ballad songs common among the people)46. In general, there is a general picture of the evolution of the folk ballad genre from epic to lyrical form. In this work, private and practical questions about the ways and reasons for modifying the genre elements of the ballad are solved, connections between disparate plots are established, and the genre specificity of specific texts is determined. In our work, we use the text reconstruction method, the foundations of which were laid in the works of the historical-typological school of V. J. Propp and B.N. Putilov. With regard to the ballad genre, it has its own specifics and is realized in the following aspects. It is assumed that the ballad genre is organized in certain cycles that contribute to the maximum disclosure of all genre features of the ballad. The cyclization of the ballad genre is primarily a plot-variative realization of one conflict. In the ballad cyclization, the dramatic element will be fundamental, which in practice consists in creating a) variants of a dramatic situation (early cycles), then ending the conflict; b) versions of a dramatic situation, conflict. A variant of the ballad cycle is a song that repeats a given conflict model, but aims to reveal it as fully as possible in the plot. The version is a qualitative change in the text, the creation of a new conflict on the basis of a developed cycle or a separate ancient ballad (“Omelfa Timofeevna rescues her relatives” and “Avdotya the Ryazanochka”, “Tatar full” and a cycle about Polonian girls). Cycles are studied in their direct interaction, internal evolutionary connections, it is also traced how the very principles of folk cyclization change over time. The study of the composition of the cycle involves a genre analysis of the plot-variative series of songs. Particular attention is paid to the study of the main components of the genre specificity of the ballad. The type of cyclization and formulary, the type of hero and the level of conflict, the nature of the folk / author's assessment and the dialogic / monologue speech of the characters, the use of folklore and intra-genre traditions, the type of conventionality and the reflection of the aesthetics of the artistic / direct case are analyzed, the role of formal plot logic, the category of miraculous and symbolic is established. . The features of the poetic language and artistic techniques of the style of ballads are studied. The impact on specific plots of the tradition of adjacent ballad forms and ritual, epic, lyrical, historical songs, as well as spiritual poems is especially noted. All results of analytical work are brought into line with the requirements of historical time, so the approximate time of demand for ballad cycles is determined. Ultimately, the typological features of the ballad genre are established at each historical stage. The nature and features of the genre changes of the ballad in its generic and artistic aspects, the general principles of its evolution are revealed. The ballad cycles are considered in their direct connection and are more or less accurately dated. As a result of the analysis of the ballad material in the Russian region, it is established that the ballad is a flexible, mobile unit of epico-lyrical-dramatic character, which has certain stable typological features at each historical stage of its development from the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries. to the 18th - 19th centuries Initially, the lyrics are involved in the form of tradition and do not have a significant role in the genre structure of the ballad. Gradually, the lyrical beginning changes the genre appearance of the ballad, which ultimately leads to the lyricization of the genre or its transformation into literary analogues. The ballad worldview, as it were, prepares the ground and contributes to the emergence of personal and historical artistic consciousness, which led to the development of forms of extra-ceremonial lyrical and historical poetry. Subsequently, the ballad genre cannot fully reflect the conflicts of the new era. Competing with historical and lyrical songs in the 16th-17th centuries, strengthening the role of the lyrical element in its genre structure, the ballad gradually, as it were, dissolves into the lyrical element, which is more in line with the reflection of all the depth and inconsistency of the new era. At best, what remains of a genuine ballad is an external form, a kind of ballad style of presentation or ballad plot (a type of petty-bourgeois ballads). The original genre of the folk ballad was conserved in the 19th and 20th centuries. The most famous, topical ballad plots for a particular locality are preserved. They are given a lyrical form, they are lyrically processed, but certain stable typological features remain unchanged (cf. a similar process that began earlier in epic creativity). Such ballad songs are gradually disappearing as the literacy of the population grows, the distribution of books and the disappearance of the ballad narrators and performers themselves.