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Types of compositions in the literature with examples. Basics of composition: elements and techniques. Compositional structure includes

There are three levels of literary work:

    Subject figurativeness is vital material

    Composition – organization of this material

    Artistic language is the speech structure of a literary work, at all four levels of artistic language: phonics, vocabulary, semantics, syntax.

Each of these layers has its own complex hierarchy.

The apparent complexity of a literary work is created by the hard work of the writer at all three levels of the artistic whole.

Let's get acquainted with several definitions of this concept and its various classifications, when the composition of the text is revealed according to different characteristics and indicators.

A literary text represents a communicative, structural and semantic unity, which is manifested in its composition. That is, this is the unity of communication – structure – and meaning.

The composition of a literary text is a “mutual correlation And location units of depicted and artistic and speech means.” The units of what is depicted here mean: theme, problem, idea, characters, all aspects of the external and internal world depicted. Artistic speech means are the entire figurative system of language at the level of its 4 layers.

Composition is the construction of a work that determines its integrity, completeness and unity.

Composition - represents "system connections" all its elements. This system also has independent content, which should be revealed in the process of philological analysis of the text.

Composition, either structure or architectonics is the construction of a work of art.

Composition is an element of the form of a work of art.

Composition contributes to the creation of a work as an artistic integrity.

The composition unites all components and subordinates them to the idea, the intention of the work. Moreover, this connection is so close that it is impossible to remove or rearrange a single component from the composition.

Types of compositional organization of a work:

    Plot type - that is, plot (epic, lyric, drama)

    Non-plot type - plotless (in lyric poetry, epic and drama created by the creative method of modernism and postmodernism)

The plot type of compositional organization of a work is of two types:

    Event-based (in epic and drama)

    Descriptive (lyrics)

Let's consider the first type of plot composition - event-based. It has three forms:

    Chronological form - events develop along a straight line of time, the natural time sequence is not disrupted, there may be time intervals between events

    Retrospective form - a deviation from the natural chronological sequence, a violation of the linear order of events in life, interruption with memories of the heroes or the author, familiarizing the reader with the background of events and the lives of the characters (Bunin, “Easy Breathing”)

    Free or montage form - a significant violation of spatio-temporal and cause-and-effect relationships between events; the connection between individual episodes is associative-emotional, and not logical-semantic (“Hero of Our Time”, “The Trial” by Kafka and other works of modernism and postmodernism)

Let's consider the second type of composition - descriptive:

It is present in lyrical works, they generally lack a clearly limited and coherently developed action, the experiences of the lyrical hero or character are brought to the fore, and the entire composition is subordinate to the goals of his depiction, this is a description of thoughts, impressions, feelings, pictures inspired by the experiences of the lyrical hero .

The composition can be external and internal

External composition(architectonics): chapters, parts, sections, paragraphs, books, volumes; their arrangement may vary depending on the methods of creating the plot chosen by the author.

External composition- this is the division of a text characterized by continuity into discrete units. Composition, therefore, is the manifestation of a significant discontinuity in continuity.

External composition: the boundaries of each compositional unit highlighted in the text are clearly defined, defined by the author (chapters, chapters, sections, parts, epilogues, phenomena in drama, etc.), this organizes and directs the reader’s perception. The architectonics of the text serves as a way of “portioning” meaning; with the help of... compositional units, the author indicates to the reader the unification, or, conversely, the dismemberment of elements of the text (and therefore its content).

External composition: no less significant is the lack of division of the text or its expanded fragments: this emphasizes the integrity of the spatial continuum, the fundamental non-discreteness of the organization of the narrative, the undifferentiation, and fluidity of the narrator’s or character’s picture of the world (for example, in “stream of consciousness” literature).

Internal composition : this is the composition (construction, arrangement) of images - characters, events, setting, landscapes, interiors, etc.

Internal(meaningful) composition is determined by the system of images-characters, the features of the conflict and the originality of the plot.

Not to be confused: the plot has elements plot, composition has techniques(internal composition) and parts(external composition) composition.

The composition includes in its construction both all the elements of the plot - plot elements and extra-plot elements.

Internal composition techniques:

Prologue (often referred to as the plot)

Epilogue (often referred to as the plot)

Monologue

Character portraits

Interiors

Landscapes

Extra-plot elements in the composition

Classification of compositional techniques by highlighting individual elements:

Each compositional unit is characterized by promotion techniques that provide emphasis the most important meanings of the text and activate the reader's attention. This:

    geography: various graphic highlights,

    repetitions: repetitions of linguistic units of different levels,

    strengthening: strong positions of the text or its compositional part - positions of advancement associated with establishing a hierarchy of meanings, focusing attention on the most important, enhancing emotionality and aesthetic effect, establishing meaningful connections between elements adjacent and distant, belonging to the same and different levels, ensuring the coherence of the text and its memorability. The strong positions of the text traditionally include titles, epigraphs, beginningAndend works (parts, chapters, chapters). With their help, the author emphasizes the most significant structural elements for understanding the work and at the same time determines the main “semantic milestones” of a particular compositional part (the text as a whole).

Widespread in Russian literature of the late 20th century. the techniques of montage and collage, on the one hand, led to increased fragmentation of the text, on the other, it opened up the possibility of new combinations of “semantic plans.”

Composition in terms of its coherence

The architectural features of the text reveal its most important feature, such as coherence. The segments (parts) of the text selected as a result of division are correlated with each other, “linked” based on common elements. There are two types of connectivity: cohesion and coherence (terms proposed by W. Dressler)

Cohesion (from Latin - “to be connected”), or local connectivity, is linear type connectivity, expressed formally, mainly by linguistic means. It is based on pronominal substitution, lexical repetitions, the presence of conjunctions, correlation of grammatical forms, etc.

Coherence(from lat. - “cohesion”), or global coherence, is a coherence of a nonlinear type that combines elements of different levels of text (for example, title, epigraph, “text within text” and main text, etc.). The most important means of creating coherence are repetitions (primarily words with common semantic components) and parallelism.

In a literary text, semantic chains arise - rows of words with common semes, the interaction of which gives rise to new semantic connections and relationships, as well as “incremental meaning”.

Any literary text is permeated with semantic echoes, or repetitions. Words connected on this basis can occupy different positions: located at the beginning and at the end of the text (ring semantic composition), symmetrically, form a gradational series, etc.

Consideration of semantic composition is a necessary stage of philological analysis. It is especially important for the analysis of “plotless” texts, texts with weakened cause-and-effect relationships of components, texts rich in complex images. Identifying semantic chains in them and establishing their connections is the key to interpreting a work.

Extra-plot elements

Inserted episodes

Lyrical digressions,

Artistic advance

Artistic framing,

Dedication

Epigraph,

Heading

Inserted episodes- these are parts of the narrative that are not directly related to the course of the plot, events that are only associatively connected and remembered in connection with the current events of the work (“The Tale of Captain Kopeikin” in “Dead Souls”)

Lyrical digressions- can be lyrical, philosophical, journalistic, express the thoughts and feelings of the writer directly, in the direct author’s word, reflect the author’s position, the writer’s attitude towards the characters, some elements of the theme, problem, idea of ​​the work (in “Dead Souls” - about youth and old age , about Rus' as a bird - troika)

Artistic advance - depiction of scenes that anticipate the further course of events (

Artistic framing – the scenes with which a work of art begins and ends are most often the same scene, given in development, and creating ring composition(“The Fate of Man” by M. Sholokhov)

Dedication – a short description or lyrical work that has a specific addressee to whom the work is addressed and dedicated

Epigraph – an aphorism or quotation from another famous work or folklore, located before the entire text or before its individual parts (proverb in “The Captain’s Daughter”)

Heading- the title of a work, which always contains the theme, problem or idea of ​​the work, a very brief formulation that has deep expressiveness, imagery or symbolism.

The object of literary analysis in the study of composition different aspects of the composition can become:

1) architectonics, or external composition of the text - dividing it into certain parts (chapters, sub-chapters, paragraphs, stanzas, etc.), their sequence and interconnection;

2) a system of images of characters in a work of art;

3) change of points of view in the structure of the text; so, according to B.A. Uspensky, it is the problem of point of view that constitutes "the central problem of composition»; consideration of different points of view in the structure of the text in relation to the architectonics of the work allows us to identify the dynamics of the development of artistic content;

4) a system of details presented in the text (composition of details); their analysis makes it possible to reveal ways to deepen what is depicted: as I.A. subtly noted. Goncharov, “details that appear fragmentarily and separately in the long-term perspective of the general plan”, in the context of the whole “merge in the general structure... as if thin invisible threads or, perhaps, magnetic currents were acting”;

5) correlation with each other and with the other components of the text of its extra-plot elements (inserted short stories, short stories, lyrical digressions, “scenes on stage” in drama).

Composition analysis thus takes into account different aspects of the text.

The term “composition” in modern philology turns out to be very ambiguous, which makes it difficult to use.

To analyze the composition of a literary text, you must be able to:

Identify in its structure repetitions that are significant for the interpretation of the work, serving as the basis for cohesion and coherence;

Identify semantic overlaps in parts of the text;

Highlight markers - separators of different compositional parts of the work;

Correlate the features of the division of the text with its content and determine the role of discrete (individual parts) compositional units within the whole;

Establish a connection between the narrative structure of the text as its “deep compositional structure” (B.A. Uspensky) and its external composition.

Identify all the techniques of external and internal composition in F. Tyutchev’s poem “Silentium” (namely: parts of the composition, type of plot - non-plot, event - descriptive, vision of individual elements, type of their coherence, - NB

Composition (Latin sotrope - to fold, to build) - the construction, arrangement and relationship of parts, episodes, characters, means of artistic expression in a literary work. The composition holds together all the elements of the work, subordinating them to the author’s idea. Component elements of the composition: characters, ongoing events, artistic details, monologues and dialogues, portraits, landscapes, interiors, lyrical digressions, inserted episodes, artistic foreshadowing and framing. V. Khalizev identifies such elements of the composition as repetitions and variations that become motifs, silences and recognitions. There are different types of compositions. Thus, the composition of lyrical works can be linear (the poem “Winter. What should we do in the village? I meet...” by A.S. Pushkin), amoebaic (regular, symmetrical alternation of two voices or themes - Russian folk songs); it can also often be based on the technique of antithesis (the poem “Demon” by A.S. Pushkin); ring (coincidence of beginning and ending - S.A. Yesenin’s poem “Darling, let’s sit next to each other...”); hidden circular (the same theme is given at the beginning and at the end of the work - the theme of a blizzard, both a natural phenomenon and the whirlwind of life in the poem “Snow memory is crushed and pricked...” by S.A. Yesenin). Prose works are characterized by a wide variety of compositional techniques. There is a linear composition (the sequential unfolding of events and the gradual discovery of the psychological motivations for the actions of the heroes - the novel “An Ordinary Story” by I.A. Goncharov), a circular composition (the action ends where it began - the story “The Captain's Daughter” by A.S. Pushkin) , reverse composition (the work opens with the last event, which gradually begins to be explained to the reader - the novel “What is to be done?” by N.G. Chernyshevsky), mirror composition (the images and episodes are symmetrical - the novel in verse “Eugene Onegin” by A.S. Pushkin), associative composition (the author uses the technique of default, the technique of retrospection, the technique of “story within a story” (the story “Bela” in “A Hero of Our Time” by M.Yu. Lermontov, the story “Asya” by I.S. Turgenev), dotted composition (characterized by intermittency in the description of the events and psychological motivations, the narrative suddenly ends, intriguing the reader, the next chapter begins with a different episode - the novel “Crime and Punishment” by F.M. Dostoevsky).

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In literary studies, they say different things about composition, but there are three main definitions:

1) Composition is the arrangement and correlation of parts, elements and images of a work (components of an artistic form), the sequence of introducing units of the depicted and speech means of the text.

2) Composition is the construction of a work of art, the correlation of all parts of the work into a single whole, determined by its content and genre.

3) Composition - the construction of a work of art, a certain system of means of revealing, organizing images, their connections and relationships that characterize the life process shown in the work.

All these terrible literary concepts, in essence, have a rather simple decoding: composition is the arrangement of novel passages in a logical order, in which the text becomes integral and acquires internal meaning.

Just as, following instructions and rules, we assemble a construction set or a puzzle from small parts, so we assemble an entire novel from text passages, be it chapters, parts or sketches.

Writing fantasy: a course for fans of the genre

This course is for those who have fantastic ideas but little or no writing experience.

If you don’t know where to start - how to develop an idea, how to reveal images, how, in the end, to simply present coherently what you came up with, describe what you saw - we will provide both the necessary knowledge and exercises for practice.

The composition of a work can be external and internal.

External composition of the book

External composition (aka architectonics) is a breakdown of the text into chapters and parts, highlighting additional structural parts and an epilogue, introduction and conclusion, epigraphs and lyrical digressions. Another external composition is the division of the text into volumes (separate books with a global idea, a branching plot and a large number of heroes and characters).

External composition is a way of dosing information.

A novel text written on 300 pages is unreadable without a structural breakdown. At a minimum, he needs parts, at a maximum - chapters or meaningful segments, separated by spaces or asterisks (***).

By the way, short chapters are more convenient for perception - up to ten pages - after all, we, as readers, having overcome one chapter, no, no, let’s count how many pages are in the next - and then read or sleep.

Internal composition of the book

Internal composition, unlike external composition, includes many more elements and techniques for arranging text. All of them, however, come down to a common goal - to arrange the text in a logical order and reveal the author's intention, but they go towards it in different ways - plot, figurative, speech, thematic, etc. Let's analyze them in more detail.

1. Plot elements of the internal composition:

  • prologue - introduction, most often - backstory. (But some authors use a prologue to take an event from the middle of the story, or even from the ending - an original compositional move.) The prologue is an interesting, but optional element of both external and external composition;
  • exposition - the initial event in which the characters are introduced and a conflict is outlined;
  • plot - events in which the conflict begins;
  • development of actions - course of events;
  • climax - the highest point of tension, a clash of opposing forces, the peak of the emotional intensity of the conflict;
  • denouement - the result of the climax;
  • epilogue - the summary of the story, conclusions about the plot and assessment of events, outlines for the future life of the characters. Optional element.

2. Figurative elements:

  • images of heroes and characters - advance the plot, are the main conflict, reveal the idea and the author's intention. The system of characters - each individual image and the connections between them - is an important element of the internal composition;
  • images of the setting in which the action develops are descriptions of countries and cities, images of the road and accompanying landscapes, if the heroes are on the way, interiors - if all the events take place, for example, within the walls of a medieval castle. Images of the setting are the so-called descriptive “meat” (the world of history), atmosphere (the feeling of history).

The figurative elements work mainly for the plot.

So, for example, the image of a hero is assembled from details - an orphan, without a family or tribe, but with magical powers and a goal - to learn about his past, about his family, to find his place in the world. And this goal, in fact, becomes a plot goal - and a compositional one: from the search for the hero, from the development of the action - from progressive and logical progress - the text is formed.

And the same goes for images of the setting. They create the space of history, and at the same time limit it to certain boundaries - a medieval castle, a city, a country, a world.

Specific images complement and develop the story, making it understandable, visible and tangible, just like correctly (and compositionally) arranged household items in your apartment.

3. Speech elements:

  • dialogue (polylogue);
  • monologue;
  • lyrical digressions (the author’s word that does not relate to the development of the plot or images of the characters, abstract reflections on a specific topic).

Speech elements are the speed of text perception. Dialogues are dynamic, and monologues and lyrical digressions (including descriptions of action in the first person) are static. Visually, a text that has no dialogue appears cumbersome, inconvenient, and unreadable, and this is reflected in the composition. Without dialogues, it is difficult to understand - the text seems drawn out.

A monologue text - like a bulky sideboard in a small room - relies on many details (and contains even more), which are sometimes difficult to understand. Ideally, in order not to burden the composition of the chapter, monologue (and any descriptive text) should take no more than two or three pages. And in no case are there ten or fifteen, just few people will read them - they will skip them, look diagonally.

Dialogue, on the other hand, is emotional, easy to understand, and dynamic. At the same time, they should not be empty - just for the sake of dynamics and “heroic” experiences, but informative, and revealing the image of the hero.

4. Inserts:

  • retrospective - scenes from the past: a) long episodes revealing the image of the characters, showing the history of the world or the origins of the situation, can take several chapters; b) short scenes (flashbacks) - from one paragraph, often extremely emotional and atmospheric episodes;
  • short stories, parables, fairy tales, tales, poems are optional elements that interestingly diversify the text (a good example of a compositional fairy tale is Rowling’s “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows”); chapters of another story with the composition “a novel within a novel” (“The Master and Margarita” by Mikhail Bulgakov);
  • dreams (dreams-premonitions, dreams-predictions, dreams-riddles).

Insertions are extra-plot elements, and if you remove them from the text, the plot will not change. However, they can frighten, make you laugh, disturb the reader, suggest the development of the plot if there is a complex series of events ahead. The scene should flow logically from the previous one, each next chapter should be connected with the events of the previous one (if there are several plot lines, then the chapters are held together by events lines);

– arrangement and design of text in accordance with the plot (idea)– this is, for example, the form of a diary, a student’s course work, a novel within a novel;

– theme of the work- a hidden, cross-cutting compositional device that answers the question - what is the story about, what is its essence, what main idea does the author want to convey to readers; in practical terms, it is decided through the choice of significant details in key scenes;

– motive- these are stable and repeating elements that create cross-cutting images: for example, images of the road - the motive of travel, the adventurous or homeless life of the hero.

Composition is a complex and multi-layered phenomenon, and it is difficult to understand all its levels. However, you need to understand it in order to know how to structure the text so that it is easily perceived by the reader. In this article we talked about the basics, about what lies on the surface. And in the following articles we will dig a little deeper.

Stay tuned!

Narration is a verbal depiction of a sequence of interconnected events that together constitute a specific fact of reality..

The subject of the story is action. It can be depicted “from the third person”, when the narrator seems to see the event from the outside. Sometimes the narration is constructed in the first person. In this case, the narrator appears as a participant in the events, its center. But this technique allows the writer to speak on behalf of a fictitious person, who himself becomes the subject of the image.

The composition of a story is usually three-part: beginning, middle and end. However, this is only a general outline. In fact, stories can be constructed in different ways, and also have different construction options within the three parts.

The beginning of the story has the following options:

1) Appeal to the reader (listener): Listen, guys, to what I'm going to tell you; Do you know what Ukrainian night is?

2) General idea of ​​the story: It’s true what they say is that you can’t escape fate; In the fall they go to the forest to pick mushrooms, and in the spring they go to the dentist for their teeth. Here is the beginning of one of Teffi's stories: Man only imagines that he has unlimited power over things. Sometimes the most inconspicuous little thing will rub itself into life, twist it and turn your entire destiny in the wrong direction where it was supposed to go...

3) The most common beginning option: place, time, character. Example from A.P. Chekhov: One fine evening, the no less wonderful executor Ivan Dmitrievich Chervyakov was sitting in the second row of seats and looking through binoculars at “The Bells of Corneville”...

The middle of the story may follow different principles of plot movement. The most common way to develop an action is the natural course of events. In this case, events move towards the most intense moment, called in plot composition culmination after which it begins denouement actions.

The end of the story contains the ending of the story: a briefly and strongly expressed moral thought, a conclusion from the story, for which it is built. An example of such an ending can be fables with a so-called “moral”: For the powerful, the powerless is always to blame; When there is no agreement among the comrades, things will not go well for them.

However, narrators do not always make this conclusion, leaving the reader to “figure it out” for the author. The denouement itself may not be presented. In short, there are a lot of options. The narrator's task is to choose the best compositional drawing for a given story. Stories can also be lengthy or short.

Here is an example of a miniature story, the master of which was M.M. Zoshchenko:

ROOSTER

Yard Sun. Big flies are flying.



I'm sitting on the steps of the porch. I'm eating something. Must be a bun.

I throw the pieces to the chickens.

A rooster approaches me. He turns his head and looks at me.

I wave my hand for the rooster to go away. But he doesn't leave. Coming closer to me. And suddenly, jumping up, he pecks at my bun.

I run away screaming in horror.

This story conveys the feelings of a three-year-old boy and is as if written by a child. The story is a necessary part of a large book (Before Sunrise) with a very serious and complex topic. But the miniature itself is a complete story, including the main elements of the plot.

The ability to choose an interesting, instructive or funny event from one’s personal life is not common to everyone, nor is the ability to tell stories simply, clearly and vividly. Anyone who wants to learn how to tell a good story should learn from the masters of this craft, analyzing their stories, including their construction.

Composition of a work of art

Composition- this is the construction of all elements and parts of a work of art in accordance with the author’s intention (in a certain proportion, sequence; the figurative system of characters, space and time, and the sequence of events in the plot are formed compositionally).

Compositional and plot parts of a literary work

Prologue- what led to the emergence of the plot, previous events (not in all works).
Exposition- designation of the original space, time, heroes.
The beginning- events that give development to the plot.
Development of action- development of the plot from beginning to climax.
Climax- the moment of the highest tension of the plot action, after which it moves towards the denouement.
Denouement- termination of action in a given conflict area when contradictions are resolved or removed.
Epilogue- “announcement” of further events, summing up.

Composition elements

Compositional elements include epigraphs, dedications, prologues, epilogues, parts, chapters, acts, phenomena, scenes, prefaces and afterwords of “publishers” (created by the author’s imagination of extra-plot images), dialogues, monologues, episodes, inserted stories and episodes, letters, songs (Oblomov’s dream in Goncharov’s novel “Oblomov”, letters from Tatyana to Onegin and Onegin to Tatyana in Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin”); all artistic descriptions (portraits, landscapes, interiors).

Compositional techniques

Repeat (refrain)- the use of the same elements (parts) of the text (in poems - the same verses):
Protect me, my talisman,
Keep me in the days of persecution,
In days of repentance and excitement:
You were given to me on the day of sorrow.
When the ocean rises
The waves are roaring around me,
When the clouds burst into thunder -
Protect me, my talisman...
(A.S. Pushkin “Keep Me, My Talisman”)

Depending on the position, frequency of appearance and autonomy, the following compositional techniques are distinguished:
Anaphora- repeat at the beginning of the line:
Past the lists, temples,
past temples and bars,
past gorgeous cemeteries,
past the big markets...
(I. Brodsky “Pilgrims”)

Epiphora- repeat at the end of the line:
My horse, don’t touch the earth,
Don’t touch my star’s forehead,
Don't touch my sigh, don't touch my lips,
The rider is a horse, the finger is a palm.
(M. Tsvetaeva “The Khan is full”)

Simploca- the next part of the work begins in the same way as the previous one (usually found in folklore works or stylizations):
He fell on the cold snow
On the cold snow, like a pine
(M.Yu. Lermontov “Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich ...”)

Antithesis- opposition (works at all levels of text from symbol to character):
I swear by the first day of creation,
I swear by his last day.
(M.Yu. Lermontov “Demon”)
They got along. Wave and stone
Poetry and prose, ice and fire...
(A.S. Pushkin “Eugene Onegin”)

Compositional techniques related with time shifts(combination of time layers, retro jump, insert):

Retardation- stretching a unit of time, slowing down, braking.

Retrospection- returning the action to the past, when the reasons for the narrative taking place at the present moment were laid (the story about Pavel Petrovich Kirsanov - I.S. Turgenev “Fathers and Sons”; the story about Asya’s childhood - I.S. Turgenev “Asya”).

Changing “points of view”- a narration about one event from the point of view of different characters, character and narrator (M.Yu. Lermontov “Hero of Our Time”, F.M. Dostoevsky “Poor People”).

Parallelism- the arrangement of identical or similar in grammatical and semantic structure of speech elements in adjacent parts of the text. Parallel elements can be sentences, their parts, phrases, words.
Your mind is as deep as the sea
Your spirit is as high as the mountains
(V. Bryusov “Chinese poems”)
An example of compositional parallelism in a prose text is the work of N.V. Gogol "Nevsky Prospekt".

Main types of composition

  1. Linear composition: natural time sequence.
  2. Inversion (retrospective) composition: reverse chronological order.
  3. Ring composition: repetition of the initial moment in the finale of the work.
  4. Concentric composition: plot spiral, repetition of similar events as the action progresses.
  5. Mirror composition: a combination of repetition and contrast techniques, as a result of which the initial and final images are repeated exactly the opposite.