An artistic detail in a mumu piece. Artistic detail

The tale and its functions in the work. The author's tale and problem.

Personal storytelling and its varieties, their artistic possibilities. Correlation and division in personal narration of the position of the narrator and the author.

17 impersonal storytelling. Correlation in the impersonal narration of the "zone of the author" and the "zone of heroes". The originality and difference between indirect and improperly direct speech.

A set of statements that have pictorial tasks - narration. Description and reasoning were included in the narrative. In a broad sense, a narration is a collection of those utterances, speech subjects by the narrator, the narrator, which perform the functions of mediation between the depicted world and the addressee of the work as a single artistic utterance. Narrative types: personal and impersonal. Personal: on behalf of the lyric hero (confession), on behalf of the narrator's hero. Impersonal- on behalf of the narrator and novel. Yesin singles out the narrative from the 1st person and from the 3rd person. From the first person - enhances the illusion of the authenticity of what is being told, focuses on the image of the narrator, the author is almost always hidden, his non-identity with the narrator appears clearly. From the 3rd person - a freer narration, aesthetically neutral form, Esin does not distinguish direct speech itself (the narration is from the person of a neutral narrator, but it is sustained in whole or in part in the speech manner of the hero, not being his direct speech). They resort to this when they want to create the inner world of the hero through his speech. The words typical for the hero, his speech manner are used.

2 types of storytellers: narrator and storyteller... Personified (a certain portrait, biography, one can say who he is, participates in the action or observes) - if from the first person, then he is a storyteller; not a personified narrator - distantly portrays events, impersonal. The narrator is a carrier of speech, not identified, not named, dissolved in the text. The narrator is a bearer of speech who openly organizes the entire text with his personality. (Corman)

The author is not a narrator, even if there is an image of the author. The image is always artistically conditional. Any image of a narrator or storyteller is a speech mask. The narrator is the subject of the image, associated with a specific socio-cultural and linguistic environment. From this position, he portrays other characters. The narrator hides character, way of thinking, worldview behind the speech manner. The position of the author may or may not coincide with the position of the narrator.


1. The narrator is on the border of the fictional world with reality, the narrator is inside the depicted reality.

2. Where there is a narrator, the event seems to be telling itself. Where there is a narrator, events are the subject of the picture.

3. The narrator has a comprehensive outlook (it seems that the story is more objective), the narrator does not, we look at events through the eyes of the characters, more subjectively. The narrator has a specific speech manner, whether or not it is attached to the story.

4. Nobody sees the narrator inside the depicted world. The narrator, on the other hand, is necessarily included in the horizons of either the narrator or the characters.

5. The narrator in his outlook is close to the author, creator, the narrator is close to the characters.

6. The narrator is the bearer of the generally accepted speech manner, the narrator is not.

Within the text of one work, the ways of storytelling can vary. In any case, the sequence of narrative methods is subordinated to the artistic task of the author and has a certain artistic meaning.

Inappropriate direct speech- this is "a fragment of a narrative text that conveys words, thoughts, feelings, perceptions or only the semantic position of one of the characters depicted, and the transmission of the narrator's text is not marked with either graphic signs (or their equivalents) or introductory words (or their equivalents)", otherwise speaking, it is not highlighted either punctually or syntactically.

The technique of improperly direct speech was first used in Russian literature by A.S. Pushkin, after which it acquired development in fiction... An improperly direct speech at the syntactic level does not stand out from the author's, but retains the lexical, stylistic and grammatical elements inherent in the speaker's speech. indirect speech, the presence in the main sentence of verbs of speech or thought clearly reveals that the author is only transmitting to the reader someone else's speech, thought. Inappropriately direct speech is combined with the author's: in improperly direct speech, the author speaks or thinks for the character. Example: But here is his room. Nothing and no one, no one looked. Even Nastasya did not touch. But, Lord! How could he have left all these things in this hole just now? He rushed into a corner, put his hand under the wallpaper and began to pull out things and load their pockets with them. F. Dostoevsky. Improperly direct speech refers to the author, all pronouns and verb face forms are presented from the position of the author (as in indirect speech), but, on the other hand, there is an essential lexical, syntactic and stylistic specificity inherent in direct speech.

There are groups of works where the non-author's word reigns supreme. These are styling, intentionally and clearly imitating the features and properties of any folklore or literary style. Let us recall Lermontov's "Song of<„.>merchant Kalashnikov ", ballads by A.K. Tolstoy, the story "The Fiery Angel" by V.Ya. Bryusov, focused on the style of Western European medieval prose.

Tale, also operating with a non-author's word, in contrast to stylizations and parodies, is focused on oral, everyday, colloquial speech. Here there is “an imitation of a“ live ”conversation, which is born, as it were, this very minute, here and now, at the moment of its perception” 2. The main thing is that skaz, much more than traditional forms of written narration, attracts our attention to the bearer of speech - storyteller, highlighting his figure, his voice, his inherent vocabulary and phraseology. “The principle of the tale requires,” noted B.M. Eichenbaum, - so that the narrator's speech was colored not only with intonation-syntactic, but also lexical shades ”3. Samples of the tale - "Evenings on a farm near Dikanka" by N.V. Gogol, much in V.I. Dahl, N.S. Leskov.

SKAZ is a form of presentation of folklore works, specific in its intonation and style; hence, by S. they mean such a character of presentation in literary works, which reproduces the speech of works of oral literature, and in a broader sense - oral speech in general and even unusual forms written speech.

The most common forms of C... - this: a) imitation of the fabulous, epic and song structure. Wed “Beyond the Volga, in the woods, in Black Ramen, there lived a peasant, a rich man. That peasant's daughter grew up. My daughter grew up, filled with red ( Melnikov-Pechersky, "In the woods" - fabulous S.); b) imitation of local and professional dialects of the peasantry: “He was tired of it to death, he was angry like a fierce serpent; and in the evenings he went to Prokudin's. They began to pour the hemp on the highways, and Prokudin poured the carts from their heels ( Leskov, "The Life of a Woman"); c) imitation of the vernacular and professional dialects of the urban population, mainly of those groups of it, to-rye who do not quite speak the literary language: “I thank him and say that I have no desires and I will not invent, except for one, - if his mercy is , to tell me..." ( Leskov, "Darning"); d) imitation of outdated and unusual forms of written speech: “And with such a peaceful spirit, as I presented to you, we lived for almost three years. Arguing against us all, all successes poured out on us as if from the Horn of Amalpheus, when suddenly we saw that there were two vessels of God's chosen ones in our midst for our punishment ”( Leskov, "The Sealed Angel" - S. Old Russian instructive books).

As is clear from the above examples, S.'s character is achieved in written speech by selecting vocabulary different types oral speech(and in the last of the above cases - archaic vocabulary, alien to the modern literary language) and specific forms syntax and morphology, allowed only in oral speech (or in ancient writing): imitations of folklore genres are characterized by eg. rhythmization, recitative or melodious warehouse, transferring into written speech typical of folklore figures, imitation in common parlance - the introduction of a significant number dialectisms, violation of grammar. structure of written speech - incomplete sentences, their inconsistency, an abundance of exclamation and interrogative phrases.

In rare cases, S. is maintained throughout the entire work: more often the author alternates it with the usual literary presentation, motivating this by the need to shorten the story.

The introduction of S.'s forms is usually motivated by the author's will, which characterizes the situation and the narrator (cf. the construction of most of Leskov's stories - "The Warrior", "Midnight Office", "The Enchanted Wanderer", "The Dumb Artist", etc. Cf. "Framing"). Another very common form of introducing S. is the monologic nature of the narrative - Ich-Erzählung, diary, letter (compare the construction of Dostoevsky's novels and stories - Notes from the Underground, Demons, etc.). Sometimes S.'s introduction characterizes the feelings and train of thought of any of the characters. Wed: "Mother Manetha is standing in the prayer room in front of the icons, crying with bitter, burning tears ... The vain, sinful world has again begun to speak into Manetha's spiritual ears" - follows S. about a rich man and his beautiful daughter as an exposition of the heroine's memories ( Melnikov-Pechersky, "In forests"). Here S.'s introduction is one of the cases of the so-called. "Direct indirect speech" (style indirect libre) - the characteristics of the thoughts of the actor, set forth on behalf of the author.

S. forms become truly artistic when the entire content of a work is presented from the angle of view that is characteristic and possible for an imaginary storyteller; Such are the images of the simple-minded seedy landowner Belkin, the chatty Ukrainian beekeeper Rudy Panka, the curious "progressist" - the inhabitant of the provincial towns of Dostoevsky, the St. .d.

Allowed in the literal styles of classicism only in direct speech to characterize comic characters, S. is widely used in the literal styles of romanticism (the predominance of folklore and ancient written S., as well as peasant S.) and realism of the 19th century. (the inclusion of the everyday vernacular of the city and the widespread use of territorial peasant dialects in the regional literature). In modern Soviet literature, S. forms achieve, on the one hand, greater sophistication (the tale of Babel, Tynyanov, Sholokhov, and many others), but on the other hand, sometimes they appear insufficiently substantiated, acquiring the character of aimless destruction of the norms of the literary language and provoking a protest from the side the best masters words (M. Gorky's speeches against the spoilage of the literary language in 1934).

The fairy tale narration (skaz) is conducted in a manner that is sharply different from the author's, and is guided by the forms of oral speech. The tale became widespread in Russian literature of the 19th century, starting in the 30s. For example, in the slightly parody "Tales of Belkin" by Pushkin, a sympathetic and ironic characterization is given not only of the characters, but also of the storytellers. Gogol and Leskov used a similar form of storytelling. The tale allows writers to more freely and more broadly capture various types of verbal thinking, to resort to parodies. It is built in the manner of speaking, focused on a modern, lively, sharply different from the author's, monologue speech of the narrator, who came from any exotic for the reader (everyday, national, folk) environment. In skaz, vernacular, dialectic, and also professional speech are widely used. The most common two forms of the tale: the first, conducted in the first person of a well-defined narrator. It is especially close to the lively intonation of oral speech. the second form dispenses with the introduction of a real storyteller. Problems of the author: Turning to the tale is most often associated with the desire of writers to break the established conservative literary tradition, to bring a new hero and new life material onto the stage. (Tales of Bazhov)

19. The objective world of a work of art: landscape, interior, portrait, thing.

Let's start with the properties of the depicted world. The depicted world in a work of art means that picture of reality, conditionally similar to the real world, which the writer draws: people, things, nature, actions, experiences, etc. In a work of art, a kind of model of the real world is created. This model is unique in the works of each writer; the worlds depicted in different works of art are extremely diverse and can, to a greater or lesser extent, be similar to the real world. But in any case, it should be remembered that before us is an artistic reality created by the writer, not identical to the primary reality.

We now turn to a specific consideration of the varieties of artistic details.

Portrait. A literary portrait means the image in a work of art of the entire appearance of a person, including here the face, and physique, and clothing, and demeanor, and gesticulation, and facial expressions. The acquaintance of the reader with the character usually begins with a portrait. Every portrait to one degree or another characterological- this means that by the external features we can at least briefly and approximately judge the character of a person. In this case, the portrait can be provided with an author's commentary revealing the relationship between the portrait and the character (for example, a commentary on the portrait of Pechorin), or it can act on its own (the portrait of Bazarov in Fathers and Children). In this case, the author, as it were, relies on the reader to draw conclusions about the character of a person himself. Such a portrait requires closer attention. In general, a full-fledged perception of a portrait requires somewhat enhanced work of the imagination, since the reader must imagine a visible image from a verbal description.

The correspondence of the features of the portrait to the character traits is a rather conditional and relative thing; it depends on the views and beliefs accepted in a given culture, on the nature of the artistic convention. In the early stages of the development of culture, it was assumed that spiritual beauty corresponds to a beautiful external appearance; good characters were often portrayed as beautiful in appearance, negative ones as ugly and disgusting. In the future, the connections between external and internal in a literary portrait become significantly more complicated. In particular, already in the 19th century. a completely opposite relationship between portrait and character becomes possible: the positive hero can be ugly, and the negative one beautiful. An example is Quasimodo V. Hugo and Milady from The Three Musketeers by A. Dumas. Thus, we see that the portrait in literature has always performed not only a depicting, but also an evaluative function.

If we consider the history of a literary portrait, then we can see that this form of literary depiction moved from a generalized abstract portrait characteristic to an ever greater individualization. Early stages of literary development heroes are often endowed with a conditionally symbolic appearance; so, we can hardly distinguish from the portrait of the heroes of Homer's poems or Russian military stories. Such a portrait carried only very general information about the hero; this happened because literature had not yet learned at that time to individualize the characters themselves. Over time the portrait was more and more individualized, that is, it was filled with those unique features and lines that no longer allowed us to confuse one hero with another and at the same time indicated not the social or other status of the hero, but individual differences in characters. The literature of the Renaissance already knew a very developed individualization of the literary portrait (an excellent example is Don Quixote and Sancho Panza), which was further strengthened in literature.

An individualized detail, attaching itself to a character, can become his permanent feature, a sign by which a given character is identified; such are, for example, Helen's shiny shoulders or Princess Mary's radiant eyes in War and Peace.

The simplest and at the same time the most frequently used form of portrait characterization is portrait description . In it, consistently, with varying degrees of completeness, a kind of list of portrait details is given, sometimes with a generalizing conclusion or the author's commentary on the character of the character that appeared in the portrait; sometimes with special emphasis on one or two leading details. Such, for example, is the portrait of Bazarov in Fathers and Children, and Natasha's portrait in War and Peace.

Others, more complex view portrait characteristics is portrait-comparison . In it, it is important not only to help the reader more clearly imagine the hero's appearance, but also to create in him a certain impression of the person, his appearance.

Finally, the most difficult type of portrait is portrait-impression . Its peculiarity lies in the fact that there are no portrait features and details as such at all, only the impression made by the appearance of the hero on an outside observer or on one of the characters in the work remains. So, for example, Chekhov characterizes the appearance of one of his heroes as follows: "His face seems to be pinched by a door or nailed with a wet rag" ("Two in one"). It is almost impossible to draw an illustration based on such a portrait characteristic, but Chekhov does not need the reader to visualize all the portrait features of the hero, it is important that a certain emotional impression of his appearance has been achieved and it is easy enough to draw a conclusion about his character.

Scenery. A landscape in literature is an image in a work of animate and inanimate nature. Not in every literary work we come across landscape sketches, but when they appear, as a rule, they perform essential functions. The first and simplest function of a landscape is to indicate a scene. However simple at first glance this function may be, its aesthetic impact on the reader should not be underestimated. Often the place of action is of fundamental importance for of this work meaning. So, for example, many Russian and foreign romantics used the exotic nature of the East as a scene of action: bright, colorful, unusual, it created in the work a romantic atmosphere of the exceptional, which was necessary.

Often times, the relationship to nature shows us some essential aspects of the character or worldview of the character. So, Onegin's indifference to the landscape shows us the extreme degree of disappointment of this hero. The discussion about nature, taking place against the background of a beautiful, aesthetically significant landscape in Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons", reveals the differences in the characters and worldviews of Arkady and Bazarov.

The city often becomes the scene of action in the literature of modern times. Moreover, in recent years, nature as a place of action is more and more inferior in this quality to the city, in full accordance with what is happening in real life. The city as a scene has the same functions as the landscape; even an imprecise and oxymoronic term appeared in the literature: "City landscape". As well as natural environment, the city has the ability to influence the character and psyche of people. In addition, the city in any work has its own unique look, and this is not surprising, since each writer does not just create a topographic scene of action, but in accordance with his artistic tasks builds a certain image cities. Thus, Petersburg in Eugene Onegin by Pushkin is, first of all, “restless”, vain, secular. But at the same time, it is a complete, aesthetically valuable integral city that you can admire. And finally, St. Petersburg is a repository of high noble culture, primarily spiritual.

Returning to the actual literary depiction of nature, I must say about one more function of the landscape, which can be called psychological... For a long time it was noticed that certain states of nature in one way or another correlate with certain human feelings and experiences: the sun - with joy, rain - with sadness; Wed See also expressions like "mental storm". Therefore, landscape details from the most early stages development of literature were successfully used to create a certain emotional atmosphere in the work (for example, in "The Lay of Igor's Campaign" a joyful ending is created with the help of the image of the sun) and as a form of indirect psychological depiction, when the state of mind of the characters is not described directly, but, as it were, is transmitted to the surrounding nature, and often this technique is accompanied by psychological parallelism or comparison ("It is not the wind that tends the branch, Not the oak tree is noisy. That my heart groans. Like an autumn leaf trembles"), further development In literature, this technique became more and more sophisticated, it becomes possible not directly, but indirectly to correlate mental movements with this or that state of nature. At the same time, the mood of the character can correspond to him, and maybe vice versa - contrast with him.

Special mention should be made of the infrequent case when nature becomes, as it were, an actor in a work of art. This does not mean fables and fairy tales, because the animal characters taking part in them are in fact only masks of human characters. But in some cases, animals become actual characters in the work, with their own psychology and character. Most famous works of this kind are the stories of Tolstoy "Kholstomer" and Chekhov's "Kashtanka" and "White-fronted".

The world of things. In the early stages of development, the world of things did not receive a wide reflection, and the material details themselves were little individualized. The thing was depicted only insofar as it turned out to be a sign of a person's belonging to a certain profession or a sign of social status. The indispensable attributes of the royal dignity were the throne, crown and scepter, the things of a warrior are, first of all, his weapon, the farmer's - plow, harrow, etc. The kind of thing we'll call accessory, did not yet correlate in any way with the character of a particular character, that is, the same process was going on here as in portrait detailing: a person's individuality was not yet; was mastered by literature, and therefore there was still no need to individualize the thing itself. Over time, although an accessory item remains in literature, it loses its meaning, does not carry any significant artistic information.

Another function of a thing detail develops later, starting approximately from the Renaissance, but it becomes the leading one for this type of detail. The detail becomes a way of characterizing a person, an expression of his individuality.

A proprietary detail can sometimes extremely expressively convey the psychological state of a character; Chekhov especially liked to use this method of psychologism. This is how, for example, psychosis is portrayed with the help of a simple and ordinary thing detail, the logical state of the hero in the story “Three Years”: “At home, he saw an umbrella on a chair, forgotten by Yulia Sergeevna, grabbed it and kissed it greedily. The umbrella was silk, no longer new, intercepted by an old elastic band; the handle was plain, white bone, cheap. Laptev opened it above himself, and it seemed to him that he even smelled of happiness around him. "

A thing detail has the ability to both characterize a person and express the author's attitude to the character. For example, here is a thing in Turgenev's novel "Fathers and Sons" - an ashtray in the form of a silver bast shoe, standing on the table of Pavel Petrovich, who lives abroad. This detail not only characterizes the ostentatious love of the people, but also expresses a negative assessment of Turgenev. The irony of the detail is that the coarsest and at the same time perhaps the most vital object of peasant life here is made of silver and serves as an ashtray. Studying the world of things as such, the material environment of a person, one can understand a lot - not about the life of this or that person, but about lifestyle in general.

The smallest unit of the objective world of the work is traditionally called artistic detail , which is in good agreement with the etymology of the word: "detail" (fr. detail) - "small component something (for example, a car) "; "Detail", "particular". Principled is the assignment of a detail to the meta-word, objective world of the work:"The figurative form of a literary work contains three sides: a system of details of subject depiction, a system of compositional techniques and a verbal (speech) structure ..."; “... Usually, the details of the subject in a broad sense are referred to the artistic detail: details of everyday life, landscape, portrait ...<...> Poetic techniques, stylistic paths and figures are usually not referred to as artistic details ... " 3. When analyzing a work, it is important to distinguish between verbal and meta-verbal, the actual subject levels (for all their natural connection).

The detailing of the objective world in literature is not just interesting, important, desirable, but inevitable; in other words, this is not a decoration, but the essence of the image... After all, the writer is not able to recreate an object in all its features (and not just mention), and it is a detail, a set of details that “replaces” the whole in the text, causing the reader to associate the author with the necessary associations. The author is counting on the imagination, the experience of the reader, adding mentally missing elements. This "elimination of places of incomplete certainty" R. Ingarden calls fleshing out works by the reader. What was not included in the text is obvious and insignificant for understanding the whole (in this case, the image of the heroine). In the story of A.P. Chekhov's "The Kiss," a stranger who mistakenly kissed Ryabovich in a dark room, remains unidentified by him. The signs that he remembered are too vague: “Ryabovich stopped in thought ... At this time, unexpectedly for him, hurried steps were heard in the rustle of his dress, a woman's breathless voice whispered“ finally! ”, And two soft, odorous, undoubtedly female hands embraced his neck; a warm cheek pressed against his cheek and at the same time there was the sound of a kiss. But at once the woman who kissed gave a slight cry and, as it seemed to Ryabovich, jumped away from him in disgust. Who exactly was she- it doesn't matter in the context of the story. After all, this is an accidental episode from a lonely life, only emphasizing the futility of the hero's dream of happiness and love, and not entertaining story with dressing up.

Often, in one form or another, the idea is expressed about the gradual development of the skill of detailing in the history of literature and about the special virtuosity of modern writing in this regard (meaning, of course, the authors of the "first row"). So, Yu. Olesha, who highly appreciated the language of the new art - cinema, found a "close-up" in Pushkin, considering it a breakthrough in the poetics of the future: "... there are some lines, the presence of which in the poet of that era seems simply incomprehensible:

From point of view theoretical poetics, clarifying the properties of the artistic image as such, the taste for detail, for delicate (not clumsy) work unites artists, no matter what time they live (what kind of detail is another question). Therefore, to confirm the theses, a variety of materials can be cited. A.A. Potebnya, developing the theory of the image by analogy with the "inner form" of the word, turned to Ukrainian folklore and Russian classics of the 19th century. ("From Notes on the Theory of Literature"). V.B. Shklovsky discovered the methods of "defamiliarisation" and "obstructed form" (which he considered attributes of poetic language) in the novels and stories of L.N. Tolstoy and in folk riddles, fairy tales ("On the theory of prose"). In both of these works, there is no detail as a term, but the problem itself is in the focus of attention.

In the works of folklorists, antiquities, medievalists, no less is said about detailing than in studies of, say, the work of L.N. Tolstoy, N.V. Gogol, A.P. Chekhov, IA Bunin, V.V. Nabokov. Thus, F. I. Buslaev notes the heroic epic's addiction to trifles: “The always calm and clear gaze of the singer stops with equal attention both on Olympus, where the gods sit, and on the bloody battle that decides the fate of the world, and on subtle details, when describing household utensils or weapons ". Epic poetry is unhurried and teaches “patience with its constant repetitions, which seemed as impossible and unnatural to miss as throwing a day of waiting in front of joy out of life, or - from the path of a monotonous; different field in front beautiful view"2. Homer “every little thing ... is dear. He often resorts to such descriptions, not embarrassed by the fact that they j delay the development of the action. This results in a deliberate delay - retardation...<...>Most ... remarkable is the description of the scar on Odysseus's leg in Canto XIX of The Odyssey. The wealth of not only comparisons that introduce new images (in particular, descriptions of nature) is surprising, but also epithets, with all the gravitation of the epic to permanent epithets. Homer's Achilles is not only "swift-footed": he "has 46 epithets, Odyssey - 45" 3. The poetics of the heroic epic sovse "does not resemble the individual styles of" slow "novels - the favorite reading of Ortega y Gasset (where a completely different psychological detailing, retardations perform other functions). But everywhere we have the language of art - language details.

The classification of details repeats the structure of the objective world, composed of "different-quality components" - events, actions of characters, their portraits, psychological and speech characteristics, landscape, interior, etc. given a work of some kind (s) of details may be absent, which emphasizes the conventionality of its world.

With a literary description stylerelated details are often combined... A successful experience of this typology was suggested by A.B. Esin, who identified three large groups: details plot, descriptive, psychological. The predominance of one type or another gives rise to the corresponding property, or dominant, style:"Plot" ("Taras Bulba" by Gogol), "descriptiveness" ("Dead Souls"), "psychologism" ("Crime and Punishment" by Dostoevsky); the named properties "may not be mutually exclusive within the same work."

So, the details can be given in opposition, "dispute" with each other. But they can, on the contrary, form an ensemble, creating in the aggregate a single and holistic impression - for example, luxury items that adorned the “cabinet / Philosopher at the age of eighteen” (in the first chapter of “Eugene Onegin”). E.S. Dobin proposed a typology of details based on the criterion: singularity / set, and used different terms to denote the selected types: "Detail affects in a multitude. Detail tends to singularity. It replaces a number of details. Let us recall Karenin's ears, the curls of hair on Anna's neck, the short upper lip with the mustache of the little princess, the wife of Andrei Bolkonsky, the radiant eyes of Princess Marya, the invariable tube of Captain Tushin, the significant folds on the forehead of the diplomat Bilibin, etc. The detail is intense. The details are extensive. " Further, the researcher stipulates that the difference between detail and detail "only in the degree of laconicism and compaction" and that it is "not absolute" are "transitional forms" 1.

There are transitional forms, of course, in any classification, but its essence is not in them. In our opinion, the very attraction to "singularity" or to "many" requires an explanation, is a consequence of the various functions of detail and detail (in Dobin's terms). If you think about the examples of "details" he gave, a regularity can be traced: not just the characteristic features that represent the whole through its part (the principle of synecdoche) are highlighted. Named what hints at a certain contradiction in the subject, which, it would seem, is not necessary for him at all: therefore, the detail is both noticeable and not lost in the multitude of "details." And it is expressive, that is, if you read it correctly, the reader is introduced to the author's system of values.

Detail that brings to the image dissonance, or, to use the well-known Shklovsky term, "Defamatory" detail has a huge cognitive meaning. She kind of invites the reader to take a closer look at the subject, not to slide over the surface of phenomena. Falling out of the line, out of the ensemble, she draws attention to herself- like two armchairs in the Manilovs' living room, covered with “just matting” and betraying a non-owner in it, a person playing the role of a host: Manilov “for several years, every time warned his guest with the words:“ Don't sit on these chairs, they are not ready yet ” ... When introducing a defamatory detail, writers often resort to hyperbole. " The visibility of a detail, to one degree or another contrasting with the general background, contributes to compositional techniques: repetitions, "close-up", "editing", retardations, etc.... Repeating and acquiring additional meanings, item becomes motive (leitmotif ), often grows into symbol . If at first she surprises, then, appearing in new "clutches", already explains character. In Dostoevsky's The Idiot, the reader (as well as General Yepanchin) may at first find it strange Myshkin's ability to imitate handwriting. However, after reading the entire novel, it becomes clear that Myshkin's main talent is an understanding of different characters, different styles of behavior, and the reproduction of writing styles (in the old sense of the word) - hints to this

A symbolic detail can be rendered in title works(usually small forms): "Gooseberry" by A.P. Chekhov, "Light Breathing" by I.A. Bunin, "Snow" by K.G. Paustovsky. The details(in Dobin's understanding) closer to sign, rather than to the symbol, its appearance in the text causes, first of all, the joy of recognition, arousing a stable chain of associations. Details-signs are designed for a certain horizon of the reader's expectation, for his ability to decipher this or that cultural code. Thus, the reader of Eugene Onegin, getting together with Tatyana in the fashionable cell of her idol, can confidently judge Onegin's hobbies and moods on the basis of the decoration of his office. Several strokes-signs replace the long description: "... and Lord Byron's portrait, / And a column with a cast-iron doll / Under a hat, with a gloomy brow, / With hands clenched in a cross."

When a literary historian reconstructs life, everyday life, and the tastes of a society that is already far from us, such signs are systematized, they are the "bread" of commentators. And, perhaps more than the classics, the details-signs are supplied by fiction, keeping pace with its times (and not overtaking it), quickly responding to the news of the day, fashion in all areas, "cultural news".

Artistic detail

Detail - (from the French cie1a) detail, particular, trifle.

An artistic detail is one of the means of creating an image, which helps to represent the embodied character, picture, object, action, experience in their originality and uniqueness. The detail fixes the reader's attention on what seems to the writer to be the most important, characteristic in nature, in a person or in the objective world around him. The detail is important and meaningful as part of the artistic whole. In other words, the meaning and power of the detail is that the infinitely small reveals the whole.

There are the following types of artistic details, each of which carries a certain semantic and emotional load:

a) verbal detail. For example, by the expression “no matter what happens,” we recognize Belikov, by the address “falcon” - Platon Karataev, by one word “fact” - Semyon Davydov;

b) the detail is portrait. The hero can be identified by a short upper lip with a mustache (Liza Bolkonskaya) or a white small beautiful hand (Napoleon);

c) an object detail: Bazarov's robe with tassels, Nastya's book about love in the play At the Bottom, Polovtsev's saber - a symbol of a Cossack officer;

d) psychological detail, expressing an essential feature in the character, behavior, actions of the hero. Pechorin did not wave his arms when walking, which testified to the secrecy of his nature; the clatter of billiard balls changes Gaev's mood;

e) a landscape detail, with the help of which the color of the situation is created; gray, leaden sky over Golovlev, landscape “requiem” in “ Quiet Don", Strengthening the inconsolable grief of Grigory Melekhov, who buried Aksinya;

f) detail as a form of artistic generalization (the "case" existence of the bourgeoisie in the works of Chekhov, the "mule bourgeoisie" in Mayakovsky's poetry).

Special mention should be made of such a variety of artistic detail as household, which, in essence, is used by all writers. A striking example is Dead Souls. Gogol's heroes cannot be torn away from their everyday life, surrounding things.

Everyday detail indicates the setting, dwelling, things, furniture, clothing, gastronomic preferences, customs, habits, tastes, inclinations of the character. It is noteworthy that in Gogol's work, everyday detail never acts as an end in itself, is given not as a background and decoration, but as an integral part of the image. And this is understandable, for the interests of the heroes of the satirical writer do not go beyond the bounds of vulgar materiality; the spiritual world of such heroes is so poor, insignificant, that a thing may well express their inner essence; things seem to grow together with their owners.

A household item performs primarily a characterological function, that is, it allows you to get an idea of ​​the moral and psychological properties of the heroes of the poem. So, in the Manilov estate, we see a manor house standing "alone in the Jura, that is, on a hill open to all winds", a gazebo with a typically sentimental name "Temple of Solitary Reflection", "a pond covered with greenery" ... These details indicate to the impracticality of the landowner, to the fact that mismanagement and disorder reign in his estate, and the owner himself is capable only of senseless projection.

Manilov's character can also be judged by the furnishings of the rooms. "There was always something missing in his house": there was not enough silk to upholster all the furniture, and two armchairs "were simply covered with matting"; next to a dandy, richly decorated bronze candlestick stood "some simple brass invalid, lame, curled up to the side." Such a combination of objects of the material world in a lordly estate is bizarre, absurd, illogical. In all objects, things one feels some kind of disorder, inconsistency, fragmentation. And the owner himself matches his things: Manilov's soul is as flawed as the decoration of his home, and the claim to "education", sophistication, grace, refinement of taste further enhances the hero's inner emptiness.

Among other things, the author especially emphasizes one, singles it out. This thing carries an increased semantic load, growing into a symbol. In other words, a detail can acquire the meaning of a polysemantic symbol that has a psychological, social and philosophical meaning. In Manilov's office, one can see such an expressive detail as piles of ash, "arranged not without effort in very beautiful rows" - a symbol of empty pastime, covered with a smile, cloying politeness, the embodiment of the idleness, idleness of the hero, giving himself up to fruitless dreams ...

For the most part, Gogol's everyday detail is expressed in action. So, in the image of things that belonged to Manilov, a certain movement is captured, in the process of which the essential properties of his character are revealed. For example, in response to a strange request from Chichikov to sell dead souls, “Manilov immediately dropped the shank with the pipe on the floor and, as he opened his mouth, remained with his mouth open for several minutes ... face ... but I could not think of anything else but to blow the remaining smoke out of my mouth in a very thin stream. " In these comic poses of the landowner, his narrow-mindedness and mental limitation are splendidly manifested.

An artistic detail is a way of expressing an author's appreciation. The county dreamer Manilov is incapable of any business; idleness became part of his nature; the habit of living off the serfs developed features of apathy and laziness in his character. The landlord's estate is ruined, decay and desolation is felt everywhere.

The artistic detail complements the character's inner appearance, the integrity of the revealed picture. It gives the depicted extreme concreteness and at the same time generalization, expressing the idea, the main meaning of the hero, the essence of his nature.

Functions of the artistic part

A detail can perform important ideological and semantic functions and give an emotional load to the entire text. The functions of details can be psychological, plot and descriptive. An artistic detail is not only able to convey necessary information... With the help of a detail in a literary work, you can get the most vivid idea of ​​the character, his appearance, psychological state, or the environment around the hero.

The detail can also act as a means of figurative expressiveness. For example:

“The forest stood motionless, quiet in its dull pensiveness, just as rare, half-naked, completely coniferous. Only here and there were frail birches with sparse yellow leaves could be seen. " (V.P. Astafiev)

In this sentence, for example, epithets are an artistic detail, with the help of which a picture of an uncomfortable forest is drawn. The role of their use is to emphasize the frightened, tense state of the literary hero. For example, how Vasyutka sees nature in Astafiev's story when he realizes his loneliness.

"... Taiga ... Taiga ... Endlessly she stretched in all directions, silent, indifferent ...".

“From above, it seemed like a huge dark sea. The sky did not break off immediately, as it happens in the mountains, but stretched far, far, getting closer and closer to the tops of the forest. The clouds overhead were rare, but the further Vasyutka looked, the thicker they became, and finally the blue openings disappeared altogether. Clouds of compressed cotton wool fell on the taiga, and it dissolved in them. "

The landscape indicates a large internal anxiety boy, and also describes the cause of this anxiety. He sees the "silent" and "indifferent" taiga, similar to a dark sea, a low sky that has sunk almost to the forest itself. The combinations in the text of the epithet and comparison (“pressed cotton wool”), personification and metaphor (“lay down”, “dissolve”), which is an artistic detail, help the reader to imagine more vividly the heavy sky hanging over the dark taiga and at the same time conveys the idea that nature is indifferent to the fate of man. And here the function of the part is semantic.

Consider another example of a detail from the text of the writer V.P. Astafieva: "With a sinking heart, he ran to the tree to feel with his hand the notch with droplets of resin, but instead he found a rough fold of bark." This descriptive and plot detail enhances the drama of the situation in which the hero of the story finds himself.

Also, in the text of a work of art, a sound-descriptive detail or a metaphorical detail can be found. For example, this is a description of a helpless fly stuck in the snare of a cobweb from the same work:

“An experienced hunter - a spider stretched a web over a dead bird. The spider is no longer there - it must have gone to winter in some hollow, and threw the trap. A well-fed, large spitting fly fell into it and beats, beats, buzzes with weakening wings. Something began to bother Vasyutka at the sight of a helpless fly stuck in its snare. And then it seemed to knock him: why, he got lost! ".

For the same purpose, to convey the inner discomfort of his hero, the writer uses the technique of an internal monologue more than once in the text, and this is also a vivid artistic detail. For instance:

“- Ffu-you, damn it! Where are the holes? - Vasyutka's heart sank, sweat appeared on his forehead. - All this capercaillie! I rushed like a goblin, now think about where to go, ”Vasyutka spoke aloud to drive away the approaching fear. - Nothing, now I'll figure it out and find the way. So-ak ... The almost bare side of the spruce means north in that direction, and where there are more branches - south. So-ak ... ".

It's no secret that to get high score on part C (composition) on the United state exam on literature preparatory work is necessary, either independently or with a tutor. Often, success depends on the initially well-chosen exam preparation strategy. Before starting preparation for the exam in literature, it is worth answering important questions. How can a tutor systematize topics so that they don't have to start all over again with each new piece? What "pitfalls" are hidden in the wording of the topic? How to plan your work correctly?

One of the time-tested principles of preparatory work for an essay is to break down a variety of topics into specific types. If necessary, subgroups can be distinguished within a type. Careful work with one type of topic for different writers (four or six) allows you to better understand the originality of each person's creativity and at the same time learn how to work with a similar topic, not be afraid of it and recognize it in any formulation. One should strive to be able to identify the type of topic for Part C and to formulate it both orally and in writing. The main task of such training is to develop the ability to reason one's thoughts and draw conclusions necessary to reveal the topic. Any form of preparation can be chosen: an essay for 1-2 pages, selection of material on a given topic, drawing up an essay plan, parsing a short text, drawing up a quotation portrait of a hero, analyzing a scene, even free reflections on a quotation from a work ...

Experience shows that the more a tutor assigns homework to a certain type of topic, the more successful the exam will be. Instead of writing an essay, we find it helpful to think about one type of topic and develop a plan for building several essays that can be used in the exam.

This article will focus on one type of topic - "Peculiarity of details ...". At the exam, the topic can be formulated in different ways ("Artistic detail in the lyrics ...", "Psychological details in the novel ...", "The function of household details ...", "What does Plyushkin's garden tell us?" subtly, like Anton Chekhov, the tragedy of the little things of life ... "etc.), the essence of this does not change: we got a theme associated with a certain literary concept - an artistic detail.

First of all, let us clarify what we mean by the term "artistic detail". A detail is a detail that the author has endowed with a significant semantic load. An artistic detail is one of the means of creating or revealing an image of a character. An artistic detail is a generic concept that is split into many particulars. An artistic detail can reproduce features of everyday life or surroundings. Details are also used by the author when creating a portrait or landscape (portrait and landscape detailing), actions or states (psychological detailing), the hero's speech (speech detailing), etc. Often, an artistic detail can be at the same time portrait, and everyday, and psychological. Makar Devushkin in Dostoevsky's Poor People invents a special gait so that his holey soles are not visible. The hole in the sole is the real thing; as a thing, it can cause trouble to the owner of the boots - wet feet, a cold. But for attentive reader a torn sole is a sign, the content of which is poverty, and poverty is one of the defining symbols of St. Petersburg culture. And Dostoevsky's hero evaluates himself within the framework of this culture: he suffers not because he is cold, but because he is ashamed. After all, shame is one of the most powerful psychological levers of culture. Thus, we understand that the writer needed this artistic detail in order to visually represent and characterize the heroes and their environment, the life of St. Petersburg in the 19th century.

The saturation of a work with artistic details is determined, as a rule, by the desire of the author to achieve an exhaustive completeness of the image. Particularly significant from an artistic point of view, a detail often becomes a motive or leitmotif of a work, an allusion or reminiscence. So, for example, Varlam Shalamov's story "To the Presentation" begins with the words: "We played cards at the horse-man Naumov." This phrase immediately helps the reader to draw a parallel with the beginning of The Queen of Spades: “... they played cards with the horse guard Narumov”. But apart from the literary parallel, the real meaning of this phrase is given by the terrible contrast of the everyday life that surrounds Shalamov's heroes. As conceived by the writer, the reader should assess the extent of the gap between the Horse Guards officer - an officer of one of the most privileged Guards regiments - and the Horse Guards belonging to the privileged camp aristocracy, where access to the "enemies of the people" and which consists of criminals is closed. The difference, which may elude an uninformed reader, is also significant between the typically noble surname Narumov and the common people Naumov. But the most important thing is the terrible difference in the very nature of the card game. Playing cards is one of the everyday details of the work, in which the spirit of the era and the author's intention are reflected with particular sharpness.

Artistic detail may be necessary or, on the contrary, excessive. For example, a portrait detail in the description of Vera Iosifovna from the story of A.P. Chekhova "Ionych": "... Vera Iosifovna, a thin, pretty lady in pence-nez, wrote stories and novels and read them aloud to her guests." Vera Iosifovna wears pence-nez, that is, men's glasses, this portrait detail emphasizes the author's ironic attitude to the heroine's emancipation. Chekhov, speaking about the heroine's habits, adds "read aloud to the guests" her novels. The hypertrophied enthusiasm of Vera Iosifovna for her work is emphasized by the author as if in a mockery of the heroine's "education and talent". IN this example the heroine's habit of “reading aloud” is a psychological detail that reveals the character of the heroine.

Items belonging to the heroes can be a means of revealing character (Onegin's office in the estate) and a means of social characterization of the hero (Sonya Marmeladova's room); they can correspond to the hero (Manilov's estate), and even be his doubles (Sobakevich's things), or they can be opposed to the hero (the room in which Pontius Pilate lives in The Master and Margarita). The situation can affect the psyche of the hero, his mood (Raskolnikov's room). Sometimes the objective world is not depicted (for example, the significant absence of a description of Tatyana Larina's room). For Pushkin's Tatyana, a significant absence of subject details is the result of the technique of poetry, the author, as it were, elevates the heroine above everyday life. Sometimes the meaning of subject details is reduced (for example, in the "Pechorin's Journal"), this makes it possible for the author to focus the reader's attention on the hero's inner world.

When preparing an applicant for Part C, the tutor should remember that the wording of the topic may not include the term artistic (everyday, subject, etc.) detail, but this, nevertheless, should not confuse and distract from the topic.

The tutor must deal with non-standard formulations of the topic in the form of a question or unexpected detail in preparation for Part C, since the purpose of such exercises is to help better remember information and achieve a free expression of thoughts. We recommend that both the tutor and the student use some of the topics from our list:

  1. What do we know about Onegin's uncle? (mini-composition)
  2. The estate and its owner. (essay on "Dead Souls")
  3. What does Korobochka's clock show? (mini-composition)
  4. The world of communal apartments in the stories of M. Zoshchenko. (writing)
  5. Turbines and their home. (essay on the "White Guard")

The type of theme we have chosen - "The originality of details ..." - is more conveniently divided into two subgroups: the originality of details in the works of one author and in works different authors... Below is a work plan for each of the subgroups, which explains not what to write, but how to write, what to write about.


I. The originality of details in the works of one author:

  1. What is meant by a household item?
  2. The degree of saturation of the work with household details.
  3. The nature of household items.
  4. Systematization of household details.
  5. The degree of specificity of everyday parts and the functions that the parts perform for the time of creation of the work.

Household parts can be characterized as follows:

  • the degree of saturation of the space in the work with everyday details (“She clenched her hands under a black veil ...”, A. Akhmatova);
  • combining details into a certain system (System of significant details in Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment");
  • a detail of an expansive nature (in The Bathhouse, Zoshchenko's coat of the narrator with the only surviving top button indicates that the narrator is a bachelor and goes to public transport at rush hour);
  • the juxtaposition of details to each other (the furnishings of Manilov's study and the furnishings of Sobakevich's, the clatter of knives in the kitchen and the singing of a nightingale in the Turkins' garden at Ionych);
  • repetition of the same detail or a number of similar ones (cases and cases in "Man in a Case");
  • exaggeration of details (the men in The Wild Landowner did not have a rod to sweep the hut);
  • grotesque details (deformation of objects when depicting Sobakevich's house);
  • endowing objects with an independent life (Oblomov's Persian robe becomes almost acting character novel, we can trace the evolution of the relationship between Oblomov and his robe);
  • color, sound, texture, noted when describing details (color detail in Chekhov's story "The Black Monk", grey colour in "The Lady with the Dog");
  • perspective of the details ("Cranes" by V. Soloukhin: "Cranes, you probably don't know, // How many songs have been composed about you, // How many up when you fly, // Looks foggy eyes!");
  • the attitude of the author and the characters to the described everyday objects (subject-sensual description by N.V. Gogol: "the head is radish down", "a rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper ...").

The originality of the details in the work of one author can be consolidated in the preparation of the following assignments:

  1. Two eras: Onegin's study and his uncle's.
  2. Room of the man of the future in Zamyatin's dystopia "We".
  3. The role of household items in the early lyrics of Akhmatova.

One of the arts of a professional tutor is the ability to create complex work with a type of topic. A full-fledged work for part C must necessarily contain an answer to the question of what functions are performed by household items in the work. We will list the most important ones:

  • characterization of the character (French sentimental novel in the hands of Tatiana);
  • disclosure technique inner peace hero (pictures of hell in a dilapidated church, amazing Katerina);
  • means of typification (the furnishings of the Sobakevich house);
  • a means of characterizing the social status of a person (Raskolnikov's room, similar to a coffin or wardrobe);
  • detail as a sign of a cultural and historical nature (Onegin's office in Chapter I of the novel);
  • an ethnographic detail (the depiction of the Ossetian sakli in Bela);
  • details designed to evoke certain analogies in the reader (for example, Moscow – Yershalaim);
  • a detail designed for the emotional perception of the reader (“Farewell to the New Year tree” by B.Sh. Okudzhava, “Khodiki” by Y. Vizbor);
  • detail-symbol (the dilapidated church in the "Thunderstorm" as a symbol of the collapse of the foundations of the house-building world, a gift to Anna in II Kuprin's story "Garnet Bracelet");
  • characteristics of living conditions (life in the house of Matryona from "Matryona's yard" by AI Solzhenitsyn).

As a workout, we suggest that you think over a plan for the following topics:

  1. The function of everyday details in the novel in verse "Eugene Onegin".
  2. Functions of household parts in the "Overcoat".
  3. The researchers called the heroes of the "White Guard" "a community of people and things." Do you agree with this definition?
  4. In Bunin's poem "The whole sea is like a pearl mirror ..." there are more signs, colors and shades than specific objects. It is all the more interesting to think about the role of object details, for example, the legs of a seagull. How would you define this role?
  5. What is the role of the subject details in Bunin's poem "The old man sat meekly and sadly ..." (cigar, clock, window - your choice)? (According to Bunin's poem "The old man sat, submissively and sadly ...").

II. The originality of details in the works of different authors. For example, an essay on the topic “Subject and everyday detail in the prose of A.S. Pushkin, M. Yu. Lermontov and N.V. Gogol "can be written according to the following plan:

  1. What is meant by a household item.
  2. The difference in author's tasks and the differences in this regard in the selection of household parts.
  3. The nature of household details in comparison for all authors.
  4. The functions of household items that they perform in the work.

To answer questions C2, C4, the tutor must explain to the student how the literary tradition connected the works, show the similarities and differences in the use of artistic detail in the works of different authors. IN USE assignments according to the literature, the formulations of tasks C2, C4 can be different:

  • In what works of Russian literature do we come across a description of everyday life and how does life interact with a person in them?
  • In what works of Russian classics does Christian symbolism (description of cathedrals, church services, Christian holidays) play an important role, as in the text of the story "Clean Monday"?
  • What role does artistic detail play in Chekhov's stories? In which works of Russian literature does the artistic detail have the same meaning?

For tasks C2, C4, a small answer of 15 sentences will be enough. But the answer must necessarily include two or three examples.

For many years before his death, in house number 13 on Alekseevsky Spusk, a tiled stove in the dining room warmed and raised little Elena, the elder Alexei and very tiny Nikolka. As was often read by the hot-tiled Saardam Plotnik square, the clock played the gavotte, and at the end of December there was always a smell of pine needles, and multi-colored paraffin burned on the green branches. In response, the bronze ones with the gavotte that are in the mother's bedroom, and now Yelenka, beat the black walls in the dining room with a tower battle. Their father bought them a long time ago, when women wore funny, bubble sleeves at the shoulders. Such sleeves disappeared, time flashed like a spark, the father-professor died, everything grew, but the clock remained the same and struck with a tower strike. Everyone is so used to them that if they somehow miraculously disappeared from the wall, it would be sad, as if their own voice had died and nothing could be shut up. But the clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, both the Saardam Carpenter and the Dutch tile, like a wise rock, are life-giving and hot in the most difficult time.

This tile, and the furniture of old red velvet, and beds with shiny bumps, shabby carpets, variegated and crimson, with a falcon on Alexei Mikhailovich's hand, with Louis XIV, lounging on the shore of a silk lake in the Garden of Eden, Turkish carpets with wonderful curls in the east the field that little Nikolka dreamed of in the delirium of scarlet fever, a bronze lamp under a lampshade, the best bookcases in the world with books smelling of mysterious old chocolate, with Natasha Rostova, Captain's Daughter, gilded cups, silver, portraits, curtains - all seven dusty and full rooms that raised the young Turbins, all this mother left the children in the most difficult time and, already panting and weakening, clinging to the weeping Elena's hand, said:

Amicably ... live.

But how to live? How to live?

M. Bulgakov.

"White Guard".


According to this text, it is proposed to complete two tasks:

  • C1. Researchers have called the home of the heroes of the "White Guard" "a community of people and things." Do you agree with this definition? Argument your answer.
  • C2. In what other works of Russian literature do we come across a description of everyday life and how life interacts with a person in them? Confirm your answer with examples.

The specificity of both questions is that they are closely related, which facilitates the task of the teacher preparing for the exam. So, answering the questions proposed in these tasks, students can remember that the image of everyday life often helps to characterize the person around whom this life is built ( typical example- the first chapter of "Onegin"). The relationship between man and life is different. Life can absorb a person or be hostile to him. This is the case, for example, with Gogol in Dead Souls, with Chekhov in Gooseberry. Everyday life can emphasize the special cordiality of a person, as if spreading to the surrounding things - let us recall the "Old World Landowners" by Gogol or Oblomovka. Everyday life may be absent (reduced to a minimum), and thereby emphasize the inhumanity of life (the image of the camp by Solzhenitsyn and Shalamov).

Life can be declared war ("About rubbish", Mayakovsky). The image of the Turbins' house is built in a different way: before us is really a "community of people and things." Things, the habit to them, do not make Bulgakov's heroes petty bourgeois; on the other hand, things, from a long life next to people, seem to become alive. They carry the memory of the past, warm, heal, feed, raise, educate. Such are the Turbins' stove with tiles, watches, books; the images of a lampshade and cream curtains are filled with a symbolic meaning in the novel. Things in Bulgakov's world are spiritualized.

They create the beauty and comfort of the house and become symbols of the eternal: "The clock, fortunately, is completely immortal, both the Saardam carpenter and the Dutch tile, like a wise rock, are life-giving and hot in the most difficult time." Let us remind you that citing the text when answering the exam is only encouraged.

Such a theme as an artistic detail, infinitely broad, presupposes a creative attitude towards the literary heritage. In this article, we were able to highlight only a few aspects of this broad and very interesting topic... We hope that our recommendations will help both the high school student in preparing for the literature exam, and the teacher in preparing for classes.

Detail - from fr. dеtail - detail, particular, trifle.

An artistic detail is one of the means of creating an image, which helps to represent the embodied character, picture, object, action, experience in their originality and uniqueness.

The detail fixes the reader's attention on what seems to the writer to be the most important, characteristic in nature, in a person or in the objective world around him. The detail is important and meaningful as part of the artistic whole. In other words, the meaning and power of the detail is that the infinitely small reveals the whole.

There are the following types of artistic details, each of which carries a certain semantic and emotional load:

a) verbal detail. For example, by the expression “no matter what happens,” we recognize Belikov, by the address “falcon” - Platon Karataev, by one word “fact” - Semyon Davydov;

b) the detail is portrait. The hero can be identified by a short upper lip with a mustache (Liza Bolkonskaya) or a white small beautiful hand (Napoleon);

c) an object detail: Bazarov's robe with tassels, Nastya's book about love in the play At the Bottom, Polovtsev's saber - a symbol of a Cossack officer;

d) psychological detail, expressing an essential feature in the character, behavior, actions of the hero. Pechorin did not wave his arms when walking, which testified to the secrecy of his nature; the clatter of billiard balls changes Gaev's mood;

e) a landscape detail, with the help of which the color of the situation is created; the gray, leaden sky over Golovlev, the requiem landscape in The Quiet Don, reinforcing the inconsolable grief of Grigory Melekhov, who buried Aksinya;

f) detail as a form of artistic generalization (the "case" existence of the bourgeoisie in the works of Chekhov, the "mule bourgeoisie" in Mayakovsky's poetry).

Special mention should be made of such a variety of artistic detail as household, which, in essence, is used by all writers. A striking example is Dead Souls. Gogol's heroes cannot be torn away from their everyday life, surrounding things.

Everyday detail indicates the setting, dwelling, things, furniture, clothing, gastronomic preferences, customs, habits, tastes, inclinations of the character. It is noteworthy that in Gogol's work, everyday detail never acts as an end in itself, is given not as a background and decoration, but as an integral part of the image.

And this is understandable, for the interests of the heroes of the satirical writer do not go beyond the bounds of vulgar materiality; the spiritual world of such heroes is so poor, insignificant, that a thing may well express their inner essence; things seem to grow together with their owners.

A household item performs primarily a characterological function, that is, it allows you to get an idea of ​​the moral and psychological properties of the heroes of the poem. So, in the Manilov estate, we see a manor house standing "alone in the Jura, that is, on a hill open to all winds", a gazebo with a typically sentimental name "Temple of solitary reflection", "a pond covered with greenery" ...

These details point to the impracticality of the landowner, to the fact that mismanagement and disorder reign on his estate, and the owner himself is only capable of senseless projection.

Manilov's character can also be judged by the furnishings of the rooms. "There was always something missing in his house": there was not enough silk to upholster all the furniture, and two armchairs "were simply covered with matting"; next to a dandy, richly decorated bronze candlestick stood "some simple brass invalid, lame, curled up to the side."

Such a combination of objects of the material world in a lordly estate is bizarre, absurd, illogical. In all objects, things one feels some kind of disorder, inconsistency, fragmentation. And the owner himself matches his things: Manilov's soul is as flawed as the decoration of his home, and the claim to "education", sophistication, grace, refinement of taste further enhances the hero's inner emptiness.

Among other things, the author especially emphasizes one, singles it out. This thing carries an increased semantic load, growing into a symbol. In other words, a detail can acquire the meaning of a polysemantic symbol that has a psychological, social and philosophical meaning.

In Manilov's office, one can see such an expressive detail as piles of ash, "arranged not without effort in very beautiful rows" - a symbol of empty pastime, covered with a smile, cloying politeness, the embodiment of the idleness, idleness of the hero, giving himself up to fruitless dreams ...

For the most part, Gogol's everyday detail is expressed in action. So, in the image of things that belonged to Manilov, a certain movement is captured, in the process of which the essential properties of his character are revealed. For example, in response to a strange request from Chichikov to sell dead souls, “Manilov immediately dropped the shank with a pipe on the floor and, as he opened his mouth, remained with his mouth open for several minutes ...

Finally Manilov picked up the pipe with a shank and looked from below into his face ... but he could not think of anything else but to blow the remaining smoke out of his mouth in a very thin stream. " In these comic poses of the landowner, his narrow-mindedness and mental limitation are splendidly manifested.

An artistic detail is a way of expressing an author's appreciation. The county dreamer Manilov is incapable of any business; idleness became part of his nature; the habit of living off the serfs developed features of apathy and laziness in his character. The landlord's estate is ruined, decay and desolation is felt everywhere.

The artistic detail complements the character's inner appearance, the integrity of the revealed picture. It gives the depicted extreme concreteness and at the same time generalization, expressing the idea, the main meaning of the hero, the essence of his nature.

Introduction to literary criticism (N.L. Vershinina, E.V. Volkova, A.A.Ilyushin, etc.) / Ed. L.M. Krupchanov. - M, 2005

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