Fiction. What is fiction? Definition, examples of works What fiction

What is fiction? We learn about it with early childhood when mom reads a bedtime story. If we ask this question seriously and talk about literature in general, about its types and genres, then, of course, we will also remember scientific literature, and about documentary prose. Anyone, even without a philological education, will be able to distinguish fiction from other genres. How?

Fiction: definition

First, let's define what fiction is. As textbooks and reference books say, this is an art form that, with the help of the written word, expresses the consciousness of society, its essence, views, mood. It is thanks to books that we find out what people thought about at one time or another, how they lived, what they felt, how they talked, what they were afraid of, what values ​​they had. You can read a history textbook and know the dates, but it is fiction that will describe in detail the everyday life and life of people.

Fiction: features

To answer the question of what fiction is, you need to know that all books are divided into fiction and non-fiction. What is the difference? Here are examples of sentences from fiction.

"The second I decided for myself that I didn't want to be here to death, the lock rattled on the door behind me and Fred, tired after the night shift, appeared. He stared at the strangers who filled his house with terrible stench and unwound paper napkins everywhere. ". This is an excerpt from Danny King's first book, The Diary of a Robber. He shows us the main features of fiction - description and action. There is always a hero in fiction - even if it is a story written in the first person, where the author himself seems to fall in love, rob or travel. Well, without descriptions, too, nowhere, otherwise how can we understand in which environment the heroes operate, what surrounds them, where they go. The description gives us the opportunity to imagine what the hero looks like, his clothes, his voice. And we form our own idea of ​​the hero: we see him the way our imagination helps us to see him in conjunction with the desire of the author. We paint a portrait, the author helps us. That's what fiction is.

Fiction or truth?

What conclusion do we come to? Fiction is fiction, these are characters invented by the author, invented events, and sometimes non-existent places. The writer is given complete freedom of action - he can do whatever he wants with his heroes: send them to the past or the future, to the ends of the earth, kill, resurrect, take offense, steal a million from the bank. If you dig deeper, then, of course, everyone understands that heroes have prototypes. But often they are so far from the book people that it is almost impossible to draw a parallel. The author can only borrow the manner of speaking, walking, and describe the habit. It happens that a real man pushes the writer to create a hero and a book. Thus, Alice Lindell encouraged Lewis Carroll to write the favorite book of many children "Alice in Wonderland", and one of the sons of Arthur and Sylvia Davis, friends of Barry James, became the prototype of Peter Pan. Even in historical novels, the boundaries of fiction and truth are always blurred, what can we say about fantasy then? If we take an excerpt from a news feed, from a newspaper, we will know that these are facts. But if we read the same passage on the first page of the novel, it would not even occur to us to believe in the reality of what is happening.

What are the goals of fiction?

Literature teaches us. Ever since childhood, the poems about Moidodyr teach us to observe hygiene, and the story about Tom Sawyer - that punishment follows a misconduct. What does literature teach adults? For example, courage. Read Vasil Bykov's secret story about two partisans - Sotnikov and Rybak. Sotnikov, sick, emaciated by the hard road, crippled during interrogations, staunchly holds on to the last and does not even betray his comrades out of fear of death. And there is a lot to learn from Rybak's example. Having betrayed his comrade and himself, he goes over to the side of the enemy, which he regrets later, but the way back is cut off, the way back is only through death. And, perhaps, he is more punished than the hanged comrade. Everything is like from childhood: there is no offense without punishment.

So, the goals of fiction are clearly defined: to show by the example of heroes how to act and how not to; tell about the time and place where events take place, and pass on the accumulated experience to the next generation.

De gustibus non est disputandum, or there is no dispute about tastes

Remember at the end of each class before the summer break, the teacher gave us a list of fiction, books from which to read by September? And many suffered all summer, barely moving up this list. Indeed, reading what you don't like is simply not interesting. Everyone chooses for himself - "one loves a watermelon, the other a pork cartilage", as Saltykov-Shchedrin said. If a person says that he does not like to read, he simply has not found his book. Someone loves to travel in time with science fiction writers, someone to solve crimes in detective novels, someone is thrilled by love scenes in novels. There is no single recipe, just as there is no author who would be liked by everyone and perceived in the same way, because we perceive fiction subjectively, starting from our age, social status, emotional and moral component.

How many people - so many opinions?

The question of what is fiction can be answered like this: it is literature outside of time and place. It does not have clearly limited functions, like a dictionary or instructions for a washing machine, but it has a more important function: it educates, criticizes, gives us a rest from reality. Fiction books are ambiguous, they cannot be interpreted in the same way - this is not a recipe for carrot cake, when a dozen people follow the instructions step by step and end up with the same baked goods. Everything here is purely individual. The book "Schindler's Ark" by the author Kenilly Thomas Michael cannot be assessed in the same way: someone will condemn the German who saved people, someone will keep this image in their hearts as an example of dignity and humanity.

Fiction (prose) is one of the types of art that differs from the rest only in the material from which the works are created - these are only words and artistic language. The result of creativity in fiction is works that reflect epochs, have high artistic value and bring aesthetic pleasure.

Old Russian literature has 2 sources - church books (the Bible, Lives of the Saints) and folklore. It existed from the moment of the introduction of writing in Cyrillic (XI century) until the appearance of individual works of authorship (XVII century). Original works: "The Tale of Bygone Years" (a sample of chronicles), "A Word about Law and Grace", "Teachings to Children" (codes of laws), "A Word about Igor's Campaign" (by genre it resembles a story, with a logical development of events and artistic style).
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Peter's transformations were reflected not only in scientific and technical achievements Russia XVIII century, but also made a huge contribution to the development of national culture and art. Rather, they gave the latter a significant acceleration and radically changed the vector of development of Russian art. Until the 18th century, the development of Russian culture took place in isolation, even in isolation, which led to the development of authentic trends and genres closely related to the national and church trends. In the countries of Europe at the same time, literature finally separated from the church and became secular. It was this secularity - the creative freedom and breadth of genres inherent in the European era of the Enlightenment - that was lacking in Russia.

Russian literature during the 18th century developed under the influence of European literature, lagging behind it by about 100 years and going through the following stages:

• early XVIII century- panegyric, hagiographic literature,
• ser. XVIII century- classicism, sentimentalism (Lomonosov, Karamzin, Radishchev),
• end of XVIII century- the dominance of sentimentalism, preparation for romatism.

« Golden age» domestic literature... Into the history of Russian Literature XIX century inscribed many names that have received worldwide recognition: A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy, A. Chekhov. During this period, the formation of the Russian literary language takes place, such literary trends as sentimentalism, romanticism, critical realism, writers and poets are mastering new literary forms and techniques. Drama and the art of satire reach unprecedented heights.

The development of romanticism (until the 1840s) and realism (from the 1850s to the end of the century), since the 1890s, the directions of the Silver Age have been developing. The most important functions of literature are considered critical, morally formative, socio-political, the most important genre is the novel. Romantics: Lermontov, Pushkin, realists: Gogol, Turgenev, Lev Tolstoy, Chekhov.

Russian literature of the XX century is represented by three brightest periods: the epoch " silver age"with its contradictions and innovations, the war era, with its deep patriotism, and the huge period of the second half of the century, when socialist realism flourished.

• In the beginning. XX century romanticism is reborn - for the poeticization of revolutionary events.
• 30-40s of XX century- active interference of the party in culture leads to stratification of writers. Some in emigration develop a realistic genre, others create in socialist realism (a direction that depicts a working person on the path to communism).
• 40-50s of the middle of XX century- "trench", lieutenant or military prose. A realistic depiction of the 1941-45 war, where the author is an eyewitness to the events.
• 60-80s of XX century- the period of the "thaw", the development of "village" prose.
• 90th years of the end of XX century- avant-garde, post-Soviet realism, gravitation towards "chernukha" - deliberately exaggerated cruelty, uncensoredness.

Foreign literature

Foreign literature originated in Greece during antiquity and became the basis for all existing types of literature. Formulated principles artistic creation Aristotle.

With the advent of Christianity, church texts spread, all medieval literature Europe (IV-XIII centuries) - the processing of church texts, and the Renaissance (from the XIV century, Dante, Shakespeare, Rabelais) - their rethinking and repulsion from the church, the creation of secular literature.

The Literature of the Enlightenment is a celebration of the human mind. Sentimentalism, romanticism (Rousseau, Diderot, Defoe, Swift).

XX century - modernism and postmodernism. Glorification of the mental, sexual in man (Proust, Hemingway, Marquez).

Literary criticism

Criticism is an organic and inseparable part of all literary art as a whole, and a critic must definitely have a bright talent for both a writer and a publicist. Truly talentedly written critical articles can force the reader to look at a previously read work from a completely new angle, draw completely new conclusions and discoveries, and can even radically change their assessments and judgments on a particular topic.

Literary criticism has close ties with modern life society, with its experiences, philosophical and aesthetic ideals of a certain era, contributes to the development of the literary creative process, and has a powerful influence on the formation of social consciousness ..

Literary directions

Unity creative features writers who create within a certain historical period are usually called literary direction, a variety of which can be individual currents and movements. The use of identical artistic techniques, the similarity of the worldview and life priorities close aesthetic views allow attributing a number of masters to specific branches of literary art of the XIX-XX centuries.

What is fiction? What are its features, why is literature considered art? The huge number of books in the home library of most people suggests that reading and perception plays in our life. important role... We suggest that you familiarize yourself with the definition of the concept of "fiction", learn about what kinds, types and genres it is divided into, what makes its language remarkable. You will learn about all this and much more from the material below.

Definition of fiction

Almost all literary theorists define it as art, comparing it with painting, music, theater. The bottom line is that in literature, as in any other art, there is an organization of empty material into a new form with a specific ideological content. The types of art differ only in material: in music - sounds, in painting - paints, in architecture - building materials. In this vein, literature is special in that its material is only word and language.

Thus, literature is all written texts, which in turn are divided into groups. This is popular science, reference, educational, scientific, technical and, finally, fiction. We come across the latter from the first years of life, at school, when we get acquainted with the classics of fiction, during adulthood when a person consciously refers to the book of interest to him. Books are the mirror of society. In a broader interpretation, fiction is those written works that have artistic value and aesthetic value.

Interestingly, this view was finally formed in the 19th century thanks to the representatives of romanticism. They viewed artistic reality as aesthetically unique, and writers as special people.

When and how did literature appear?

They have been trying to find the answer to this question for quite some time. How did it all start? In search of answers, people spent great amount researches, refuted and proved a myriad of hypotheses, analyzed the material and the people who created it. As it turned out, classical - Roman and Greek - fiction is not the most ancient. There were also Sumerian, and Egyptian, and Babylonian - refined and developed literature... Oral forms of literature, beliefs of ancient peoples, mythology of entire civilizations play a very important role. It is with myths or similar forms that the study of any literature begins.

Childbirth of fiction

There are three kinds: epic, lyrical and dramatic. This division is based on how the content of the work is presented to the reader. If the events are told in detail, the position of the author is removed, there are various characters, their appearance is described in detail, and the leading type of speech is narration, then we are talking about an epic kind of literature. In other words, about prose. It includes stories, novels, essays, novels and other similar works.

If the author wants to tell not so much about the events as about the feelings that they caused, he creates works related to the lyrics. Within this kind of literature, many genres of different sizes and forms are distinguished, most of which are characterized by the presence of rhyme, rhythm and other elements characteristic of the lyrics. In simple words, lyrics - and their variations.

If an object is depicted in action, it is possible to play it out on stage, show it to the viewer and the reader, we are talking about a dramatic kind of literature. Here the author's voice sounds only in the directions - the author's explanations of the actions and remarks of the main characters. Various plays, tragedies, and comedies belong to the dramatic genus.

Division into genres

As mentioned above, the types of literature, in turn, include various genres - historically established groups of works that are united by certain common features... These are, for example, novels, stories, stories, comedies, poems, poems. There is also such a thing as a species. For example, the epic type of the novel will be divided into the genres of the utopian novel, the parable novel, historical novel etc. The number is very large. It is interesting that the combination of different genres is popular, and the bolder the combination is, the more original the "creation" of the writer will be.

Language as the main feature of works of art

To better understand what fiction is and what its features are, one should consider the specifics of its language. Today in literary criticism there is no clear distinction between the concepts of "artistic speech" and " art style". It's easier to simply combine them into the concept of "artistic language".

Artistic speech is multi-style. Exists different styles with their own characteristics and rules, in which different ones are used. Their choice depends on the author and his ideas. Each style has its own "face" - a set of elements characteristic only of it. Interestingly, in fiction words and phrases can be used that are not included in " literary language", - argot, slang words, lexical units from various dialects. Some writers deliberately violate the norm. Anyone performs an aesthetic function. Words-concepts are translated by writers into words-images. Features of fiction also include vivid emotionality and expression. It should be noted that one more important function of literature, in addition to the aesthetic one, is communicative. Words in not only provide information, but also affect readers emotionally.

What is the role of the author's main tool?

What is fiction? Let's try to answer this question in an accessible way. Fiction is a collection best images, ideas, thoughts, words. By the way, words are the main tool of the author. With their help, the author's idea, the content of the book, is realized, an image is created and the addressee is influenced.

The value of fiction

World fiction influences the formation of the personality and worldview of readers. It is very difficult to exaggerate the effect that it has on the mind of the reader. Verbal art has long been a part of our life. What role does it play? What is fiction? First of all, this is history. It is passed down from generation to generation, carrying the experience and values ​​of our predecessors. Great writers have turned to human consciousness and they probably counted on the fact that this appeal applies not only to their contemporaries, but also to people in the future.

The fact that literature is capable of influencing consciousness is supported by many examples. Often the artistic word played the role of an ideological weapon. In the history of literature, there are many cases when works were used for propaganda and the formation of a certain opinion. Fiction is a powerful tool with which you can convey to a person the norms, rules, principles, vision of the world, attitude to the information received.

Conclusion

Reading fiction is an essential component of the personal development of every person. From books, be they novels, poems or plays, readers learn about life, take lessons, draw inspiration. Fiction is a treasure trove historical facts, the experience of previous generations, the thoughts of the main philosophers of the past and present. It is not for nothing that literature is considered an art that, with the help of simple words affects consciousness. In addition, the love of books is instilled from birth also because reading develops imagination, teaches you to imagine situations and draw images. All books that are recognized as classical, develop and teach, give knowledge, and Russian fiction is no exception.

All books are divided into two categories - fiction and non-fiction. Fiction is understood as all works that have a fictional plot and fictional characters. Fiction is novels, stories, stories, plays and poetry (for both children and adults) ...

Usually non-fiction literature is called non-fiction (from the English non-fiction - non-fiction, non-fictional literature) - these are textbooks, encyclopedias, dictionaries, monographs, biographies, memoirs, journalism, etc.

Fiction is categorized into genre literature, mainstream, and intellectual prose.

In genre literature, the main thing is the development of the plot, which fits into certain predefined frameworks. For example, any detective develops according to the "crime - investigation - exposure of the offender" scheme; any ladies' novel - “heroes meet - fall in love - fight for love - unite hearts”. This does not mean that all genre novels must have a predictable plot. The skill of the writer lies precisely in creating his own unique world within the given framework.

Genre literature is action and a quick change of scenery. All that worries the reader: "What's next?"

Fiction genres:

Avant-garde literature is characterized by violation of the canons and by language and plot experiments. As a rule, the avant-garde comes out in very small editions. It is closely intertwined with intellectual prose.

Action - focused primarily on the male audience. The plot is based on fights, chases, saving beauties, etc.

Detective - the main storyline - solving the crime.

Historical novel - time of action - past. The plot, as a rule, is tied to significant historical events.

Love story - heroes find love.

Mysticism is the basis of the plot - supernatural events.

Adventure - heroes get involved in an adventure or go on a risky journey.

Thriller / Horror - the heroes are in mortal danger, from which they are trying to get rid of.

Fantasy - the plot is twisted in a hypothetical future or in parallel world... One of the varieties of fiction is alternative history.

Fantasy / Fairy Tales - the main features of the genre are fairy worlds, magic, unseen creatures, talking animals, etc. Often based on folklore.

What is mainstream? There is no place for canons and templates in books of this genre. Readers expect unexpected solutions from them. The most important thing in the mainstream is moral development heroes, philosophy and ideology. Therefore, the professional requirements for a mainstream author are much higher: he must be not only an excellent storyteller, but also a good psychologist and a serious thinker. If a writer swings into the mainstream but doesn't hold the bar or slips into stereotypes, the reader will be disappointed.

The term "mainstream" originated from American writer and critic William Dean Howells (1866-1920). As the editor of one of the most popular and influential literary magazines of his time, The Atlantic Monthly, he had a clear preference for works written in a realistic manner and emphasizing moral and philosophical issues. Thanks Howells realistic literature came into vogue, and for some time it was she who was called "mainstream".