How is a novella different from a short story? Short story and short story: common and different. The main difference between a novel and a short story

The story is a large literary form of written information in literary and artistic design. When recording oral retellings, the story stood apart as an independent genre in written literature.

The story as an epic genre

The distinguishing features of the story are the small number actors, little content, one storyline. The story does not have interweaving in events and it cannot contain the diversity of artistic colors.

Thus, the story is a narrative work, which is characterized by a small volume, a small number of characters and the short duration of the events depicted. This type of epic genre goes back to folklore genres of oral retelling, to allegories and parables.

In the 18th century, the difference between essays and stories was not yet defined, but over time, the story began to be distinguished from the essay by the conflict of the plot. There is a difference between the story of "large forms" and the story of "small forms", but this distinction is often arbitrary.

There are stories that show character traits novel, and there are also small-scale works with one storyline, which are still called a novel, and not a story, despite the fact that all signs point to this type of genre.

The novel as an epic genre

Many people think that a short story is a certain kind of short story. But still, the definition of a short story sounds like a kind of small prose work. The short story differs from the story in the plot, which is often sharp and centripetal, in the severity of the composition and volume.

The novel most often reveals an acute problem or question through one event. As an example of a literary genre, the short story arose during the Renaissance - the most famous example is Boccaccio's Decameron. Over time, the short story began to depict paradoxical and unusual incidents.

The heyday of the short story, as a genre, is considered the period of romanticism. Famous writers P. Merimee, E.T.A. Hoffman, Gogol wrote short stories, the central line of which was to destroy the impression of familiar everyday life.

Novels that depicted fateful events and the game of fate with a person appeared at the beginning of the 20th century. Such writers as O. Henry, S. Zweig, A. Chekhov, I. Bunin paid considerable attention to the short story genre in their work.

The story as an epic genre

Such a prose genre as a story is an intermediate place between a short story and a novel. Initially, the story was a source of narration about any real, historical events("The Tale of Bygone Years", "The Tale of the Battle of Kalka"), but later it became a separate genre for reproducing the natural course of life.

A feature of the story is that at the center of its plot is always the protagonist and his life is a revelation of his personality and the path of his destiny. The story is characterized by a sequence of events in which the harsh reality is revealed.

And such a theme is extremely relevant for such an epic genre. Famous stories are Stationmaster" A. Pushkin, "Poor Liza" N. Karamzin, "The Life of Arseniev" I. Bunin, "Steppe" A. Chekhov.

The value of artistic detail in the story

For the full disclosure of the writer's intention and for a complete understanding of the meaning of a literary work, an artistic detail is very important. It can be a detail of an interior, landscape or portrait, the key here is that the writer emphasizes this detail, thereby drawing the attention of readers to it.

This serves as a way to highlight some kind of psychological trait of the protagonist or mood that is characteristic of the work. Notably, the important role artistic detail lies in the fact that it alone can replace many narrative details. Thus, the author of the work emphasizes his attitude to the situation or to the person.

Need help with your studies?

Previous topic: O'Henry's The Last Leaf: Reflections on the Purpose of the Artist and Art
Next topic:   Krylov's fables: "Crow and Fox", "Cuckoo and Rooster", "Wolf and Lamb", etc.

To designate a story created on some newly processed traditional material, the word nova. Hence the Italian novella(in the most popular collection of the end of the 13th century, Novellino, also known as the Hundred Ancient Novels), which has been distributed throughout Europe since the 15th century.

The genre was established after the appearance of the book Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (c.), the plot of which was that several people, fleeing the plague outside the city, tell each other short stories. Boccaccio in his book created the classic type of Italian short story, which was developed by his many followers in Italy itself and in other countries. In France, under the influence of the translation of the Decameron, around 1462, the collection One Hundred New Novels appeared (however, the material was more due to the facets of Poggio Bracciolini), and Margarita Navarskaya, modeled on the Decameron, wrote the book Heptameron ().

Description of the novel

The short story is characterized by several important features: extreme brevity, a sharp, even paradoxical plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism and descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement. The plot structure of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler.

Goethe spoke about the action-packed nature of the novel, giving it the following definition: “an unheard-of event that has taken place”.

The story emphasizes the meaning of the denouement, which contains an unexpected turn (pointe, "falcon turn"). According to the French researcher, "ultimately, one can even say that the whole short story is conceived as a denouement". Viktor Shklovsky wrote that the description of a happy mutual love does not create a short story; a short story needs love with obstacles: “A loves B, B does not love A; when B loves A, then A no longer loves B. He singled out a special type of denouement, which he called "false ending": it is usually made from a description of nature or weather.

Among the predecessors of Boccaccio, the short story had a moralizing attitude. Boccaccio retained this motif, but his morality followed from the short story not logically, but psychologically, and often was only a pretext and a device. The later short story convinces the reader of the relativity of moral criteria.

novella, short story, short story

Quite often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish: for example, A. S. Pushkin's Belkin's Tale is, rather, five short stories.

The story is similar to the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the emphasis on the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and the inclination towards detailed psychological characteristics.

The story is distinguished by the fact that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero's life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried.

Novella and novel

The collection of short stories was the forerunner of the novel.

Novella in Chinese literature

China is a classic country of the novel, which developed here on the basis of the constant interaction of literature and folklore from the 3rd to the 19th century: in the 3rd-6th centuries. mythological bylichki were widespread, mixed with excerpts from historical prose and partly designed according to its canons (later, in the 16th century, they were called the term "zhiguai xiaosho", that is, stories about miracles). They were the most important source of the classic literary novel of the Tang and Song era (8th-13th centuries), the so-called "chuanqi", written in the classical literary language. Since the Song era, information has appeared about the folk tale "huaben" (literally, "the basis of the story"), which widely used both the legacy of the classical Tang Chuanqi and the folklore sources proper, democratizing the genre of the short story both in language and in subject matter. Huaben gradually moved completely from folklore to literature and reached higher development in writing ("imitative huaben") at the end XVI-early XVII century

Thomas Hardy is considered to be the oldest of the English novelists (although he was neither the very first nor the oldest). Hardy was closely associated with the realist tradition of the Dickensian school. Another great English novelist - Oscar Wilde - was more of an aesthete, denied realism. His short stories were alien to the problems of sociology, politics, social struggle, etc. A separate place in English short stories is occupied by such a trend as naturalism. A characteristic trend of naturalism was the so-called "literature of the slums" (Arthur Morrison's collection of short stories "Tales of the Slums", 1894; George Moore's short story "Theater in the Wilderness", etc.). Another trend in English literature that opposed itself to aesthetes and naturalists is considered "neo-romanticism". The English novelists of the "late romantics" were Robert Stevenson, and later Joseph Conrad and Conan Doyle. At the beginning of the 20th century, the English short story becomes more "psychological". It is worth noting here Katherine Mansfield, whose novels were often almost "plotless". All attention in them was riveted to the inner experiences of a person, his feelings, thoughts, mood. In the first half of the 20th century, the English short story was characterized by psychologism, aestheticism and "stream of consciousness". The brightest representatives English Literature eras of modernism were Virginia Woolf, Thomas Eliot, James Joyce, Aldous Huxley.

Among the English writers who at different times created works in the genre of short stories are such remarkable authors as Jerome K. Jerome, John Galsworthy, Somerset Maugham, Dylan Thomas, John Sommerfield, Doris Lessing, James Aldridge and others.

Links

Definitions and characteristics

  • "'Hard' and 'free' forms in the epic: novella, tale, short story". In: “Theoretical Poetics. Concepts and definitions. Reader". Compiled by N. D. Tamarchenko
  • M. Yunovich. "Novella" - an article from the "Literary Encyclopedia" (1929-1939)
  • Ludmila Polikovskaya. "Story" - an article from the encyclopedia "Round the World"
  • M. Petrovsky. "The Tale" - an article from the "Literary Encyclopedia" (1925)
  • B. A. Maksimov. "Features of the plot structure in the author's fairy tale and fantasy novel of the era of romanticism"
  • O. Yu. Antsiferova. "The Detective Genre and the Romantic Art System"

Individual authors and works

  • V. I. Tyup. "Aesthetic Analysis of a Literary Text (Part One: The Plot of M. Lermontov's Fatalist)"
  • Yu. V. Kovalev. "Edgar Allan Poe" - article from "The History of World Literature"

Notes


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010 .

See what "Novella (literature)" is in other dictionaries:

    - (Italian novella, Spanish novela, French nouvelle, German Novelle) a term denoting in the history and theory of literature one of the forms of narrative artistic creativity. Along with the name N., which has become international, ... ... Literary Encyclopedia

    1. NOVELLA, s; well. [ital. novella] A short story that is characterized by a clear composition, intense action and a dramatic plot that gravitates towards the unusual. ◁ Novelistic, oh, oh. New literature. N. genre. N th composition. 2. NOVELLA, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

    - (in Bologna, date unknown, died in 1333) Italian jurist and professor of law in University of Bologna. As the daughter of Giovanni di Andrea, she received a good education at home and often lectured instead of her father. According to Christine... Wikipedia

A novella is a small narrative prose, a special literary genre, close to the story, essay, essay. Is different this work well-defined plot with a climax and an ending. Another difference between the novel and other genres is the limited number of characters. If in a novel or story there are usually up to two dozen characters, then in a short story there are only two or three. The art of the short story is precisely to convey to the reader the content of a fairly broad topic, presented in a concise manner.

Novella as a literary genre

Usually, the novels are combined by the author into small cycles, as was the custom with one of the most famous novelists, the American writer O. Henry. O'Henry's novels were divided into separate categories. "Noble Rogue" was composed of short stories-novels about two swindlers named Andy Tucker and Jeff Peters, and the series "Business People" included several short stories on the theme of the adventures of criminal characters - "Redskin Leader", "Bolivar Can't Take Two Down", other.

Russian novels

Russian writers, unlike French ones, did not put the short story at the forefront of their work, but used a short story from case to case. The work of A. S. Pushkin "Tales of Belkin", written in 1830, is an example of this. However, a brief theme does not mean that the narrative is less significant than a voluminous novel or short story. Even such a fundamental writer as Dostoevsky, at the dawn of his work, wrote short stories ("The Mistress", "Double").

Russian novelists

Russian short stories in the classical sense of this genre came from the pen of Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol, who in some cases wrote extensively - "Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka", and in others more concisely - "The Overcoat". In both cases, the plot was fully revealed, which means that the artistic value of the work is undeniable.

Russian playwright Anton Pavlovich Chekhov wrote short stories in a manner peculiar only to him, which can be defined as "Chekhovian". The bottom line is that the writer was able to short story lay down the whole life of the character, sometimes quite long and eventful. Separate short stories by Chekhov, with a limited volume, look like mini-novels. In the story "Ionych" the writer managed to reflect human life in full, all its tragicomic content, on 15 pages. Similar examples"compressed" creativity are also found in Leo Tolstoy, and one of them is short story"Alyosha Gorshok".

Novel and plot

Since the short story is the one that suggests the sharpness of the plot, it can be used when writing unusual works. If the story describes a slow development of events with a predictable end, then the short story necessarily contains elements of tension, mystery and a spectacular final surprise. At the beginning and in the middle of the narrative, a neutral style dominates, a complete lack of psychologism, and then the ending follows, unexpected and often illogical. In a story or a short story, on the contrary, the author tries to reveal precisely the psychological nuances of the story, much attention is paid to the character of the character, his deep essence.

Writer and scholar Edgar Allan Poe

The novel is also a literary genre that is ideal for "dark" plots, detective and graveyard horrors. The American Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) is deservedly recognized as an outstanding novelist. The genres in which the writer worked are unique and extremely unusual: literary hoax, horror literature. Edgar Poe was not only a writer. He also wrote a book-research "The First Book of the Conchiologist". This is the work of a mature scientist dedicated to the study of mollusk shells. Based on the study, a complete illustrated guide to conchiology was created.

Writer, poet, scientist Edgar Allan Poe wrote for his short life about a hundred short stories, each of which can be considered a masterpiece literary art, despite the unusual content. These are "Gold Bug", "Murder on the Rue Morgue", "Raven". The poetic works of Poe did not receive due recognition during his lifetime. As the poet James Lowell figuratively noted, Poe skillfully hewn a pile of poetic stones, but they remained lying on the site, the foundation of them was not built.

Here are some short stories by Edgar Allan Poe, selected:

  • Year 1832 - "Bon-bon", "Without breathing", "Merzengerstein", "On the walls of Jerusalem".
  • Year 1833 - "Folio Club", "Buried Alive", "Manuscript in a Bottle", "Four Beasts in One".
  • Year 1835 - "King Plague", "Shadow", "Morella", "Pages from the Life of a Celebrity", "Berenice".

A short story is a literary genre that combines almost all the possibilities of prose, which has great potential for expressing the writer's creative thoughts.

Stories interspersed in the "Dialogue about Pope Gregory", apologists from the "Lives of the Church Fathers", fables, folk tales. In 13th-century Occitan, the term nova. Hence the Italian novella(in the most popular collection of the end of the 13th century, Novellino, also known as the Hundred Ancient Novels), which has been distributed throughout Europe since the 15th century.

The genre was established after the appearance of the book Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (c.), the plot of which was that several people, fleeing the plague outside the city, tell each other short stories. Boccaccio in his book created the classic type of Italian short story, which was developed by his many followers in Italy itself and in other countries. In France, under the influence of the translation of the Decameron, around 1462, the collection One Hundred New Novels appeared (however, the material was more indebted to the facets of Poggio Bracciolini), and Margarita Navarskaya, modeled on The Decameron, wrote the book Heptameron ().

Description of the novel

The short story is characterized by several important features: extreme brevity, a sharp, even paradoxical plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism and descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement. The action of the novel takes place in the author's modern world. The plot structure of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler.

Goethe spoke about the action-packed nature of the novel, giving it the following definition: “an unheard-of event that has taken place”.

The story emphasizes the meaning of the denouement, which contains an unexpected turn (pointe, "falcon turn"). According to the French researcher, "ultimately, one can even say that the whole short story is conceived as a denouement". Viktor Shklovsky wrote that the description of a happy mutual love does not create a short story; a short story needs love with obstacles: “A loves B, B does not love A; when B loves A, then A no longer loves B. He singled out a special type of denouement, which he called "false ending": it is usually made from a description of nature or weather.

Among the predecessors of Boccaccio, the short story had a moralizing attitude. Boccaccio retained this motif, but his morality followed from the short story not logically, but psychologically, and often was only a pretext and a device. The later short story convinces the reader of the relativity of moral criteria.

novella, short story, short story

Quite often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish: for example, A. S. Pushkin's Belkin's Tale is, rather, five short stories.

The story is similar to the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the emphasis on the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and the inclination towards detailed psychological characteristics.

The story is distinguished by the fact that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero's life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried.

Novella and novel

The collection of short stories was the forerunner of the novel.

Novella in Chinese literature

China is a classic country of the novel, which developed here on the basis of the constant interaction of literature and folklore from the 3rd to the 19th century: in the 3rd-6th centuries. mythological bylichki were widespread, mixed with excerpts from historical prose and partly designed according to its canons (later, in the 16th century, they were called the term "zhiguai xiaosho", that is, stories about miracles). They were the most important source of the classic literary novel of the Tang and Song era (8th-13th centuries), the so-called "chuanqi", written in the classical literary language. Since the Song era, information has appeared about the folk tale "huaben" (literally, "the basis of the story"), which widely used both the legacy of the classical Tang Chuanqi and the folklore sources proper, democratizing the genre of the short story both in language and in subject matter. Huaben gradually moved completely from folklore to literature and reached its highest development in writing ("imitative huaben") in the late 16th-early 17th century

Thomas Hardy is considered to be the oldest of the English novelists (although he was neither the very first nor the oldest). Hardy was closely associated with the realist tradition of the Dickensian school. Another great English novelist - Oscar Wilde - was more of an aesthete, denied realism. His short stories were alien to the problems of sociology, politics, social struggle, etc. A separate place in English short stories is occupied by such a trend as naturalism. A characteristic trend of naturalism was the so-called "literature of the slums" (Arthur Morrison's collection of short stories "Tales of the Slums", 1894; George Moore's short story "Theater in the Wilderness", etc.). Another trend in English literature that opposed itself to aesthetes and naturalists is considered "neo-romanticism". The English novelists of the "late romantics" were Robert Stevenson, and later Joseph Conrad and Conan Doyle. At the beginning of the 20th century, the English short story becomes more "psychological". It is worth noting here Katherine Mansfield, whose novels were often almost "plotless". All attention in them was riveted to the inner experiences of a person, his feelings, thoughts, mood. In the first half of the 20th century, the English short story was characterized by psychologism, aestheticism and "stream of consciousness". The brightest representatives of English literature of the era

Genre features of short stories distinguish it from the entire existing system of genres. Scientists note the coincidence of the burst of short stories, its coming to the fore in the era of dynamic upheavals, changes, in situations of spiritual crisis, in the period of breaking socio-cultural stereotypes. Due to its special mobility, conciseness and sharpness, it is the short story that is able to accumulate barely emerging trends, declaring a new concept of personality.

The sources of the novel are primarily Latin exempla, as well as fablios, fables, folk tales. In the Occitan language of the 13th century, the word nova appears to denote a story created from some newly processed traditional material. Hence the Italian novella (in the most popular collection of the end of the 13th century, Novellino, also known as the Hundred Ancient Novels), which has been spreading throughout Europe since the 15th century.

The short story is characterized by several important features: extreme brevity, a sharp, even paradoxical plot, a neutral style of presentation, a lack of psychologism and descriptiveness, and an unexpected denouement. The plot structure of the novel is similar to the dramatic one, but usually simpler. The novel emphasizes the significance of the denouement, which contains an unexpected twist

The genre of the short story was established after the appearance of the book by Giovanni Boccaccio "The Decameron" (1353), the plot of which was that several people, fleeing the plague outside the city, tell each other stories. Boccaccio in his book created the classic type of Italian short story, which was developed by his many followers in Italy itself and in other countries. In France, under the influence of the translation of the Decameron, around 1462, the collection One Hundred New Novels appeared (however, the material was more indebted to the facets of Poggio Bracciolini), and Margarita Navarskaya, modeled on the Decameron, wrote the book Heptameron (1559).

In the era of romanticism, under the influence of Hoffmann, Novalis, Edgar Allan Poe, a short story with elements of mysticism, fantasy, fabulousness spread. Later, in the works of Prosper Mérimée and Guy de Maupassant, this term began to be used to refer to realistic stories.

In the second half of the 19th-20th centuries, the traditions of the short story were continued by such different writers as Ambrose Bierce, O. Henry, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, Gilbert Chesterton, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, Karel Capek, Jorge Luis Borges, etc.

Often the short story is identified with the story and even the story. In the 19th century, these genres were difficult to distinguish. The story is similar to the short story in volume, but differs in structure: the emphasis on the figurative and verbal texture of the narrative and the inclination towards detailed psychological characteristics.

The story is distinguished by the fact that in it the plot focuses not on one central event, but on a whole series of events covering a significant part of the hero's life, and often several heroes. The story is more calm and unhurried.

The genre of the short story in Russian literature, in our opinion, has a number of specific features, but is still on the way of its formation. On the one hand, some researchers seek to expand the temporal space, referring the appearance of the short story to the 15th-16th and 17th centuries, on the other hand, they extend the genre features of the short story to works that have never belonged to this genre. In fact, these are two sides of one phenomenon, and it should be considered in the unity of these principles.

It is well known that the novel genre is genetically related to the classical Renaissance, the Italian Renaissance. Given the commonality of the development of European literatures, with asynchrony, which is determined not by ethnic, but by socio-historical factors, one should expect the emergence of the Russian Renaissance, and, as a result, the emergence of a short story on Russian literary soil. But, as D.S. Likhachev notes, due to a number of socio-historical reasons, “the Russian Pre-Renaissance did not turn into a Renaissance” [Likhachev, D.S., 1987: V.1, p. 156]. Thus, the 15th century was not marked by the emergence of the Russian Renaissance and the emergence of the genre of the short story in Russian literature.

Renaissance ideas can be found in the literature of the first half of the 16th century, but these ideas were reflected only in journalism. The development of fiction during this period slowed down, because the centralized state demanded help from writers in support of political, church, social and economic reforms, took away all the spiritual forces that were aimed at creating the lives of Russian saints, political legends, generalizing works. In the manuscripts of this time, the entertainment theme disappears. A certain spiritual background was needed, psychological condition society to give rise to the novel genre. The literary life of Russia in the 16th century, despite all the changes that had taken place in it (strengthening of the author's principle, individualization of literature, interest in inner world man), was rigidly determined by socio-historical factors and did not contribute to the emergence of the novel genre. Works of the short story genre did not penetrate Russian literary soil as a result of borrowing. All this proves that the 16th century was not marked by the appearance of the short story.

The literature of the 17th century, the literature of the "transitional period", was characterized by such phenomena as the emancipation of culture and its social stratification, the emergence of new types and genres of literature, the identification of fiction as a type fiction, the birth of a new literary direction- baroque, the strengthening of Western influences on the development of Russian literature, the enrichment of literature with new themes, characters, plots.

The singling out of fiction as an independent type of fiction, the emergence of fictional plots, and an orientation toward Western European literature to one degree or another could contribute to the emergence of the short story genre in Russian literature. A number of researchers consider The Tale of Karp Sutulov, The Tale of Frol Skobeev and other works to be the most striking examples of the original Russian short story of the 17th century.

Among researchers, references to the works of O.A. Derzhavina are popular as evidence of the penetration of the translated short story into the Russian literary soil of the 17th century. But the observations made by O.A. Derzhavina testify, rather, to the opposite: in a number of translations, only the plot remains from the classic Boccaccio short story (and there are most of such short stories in the collection), the short story turns into, as it were, a simplified other being of the short story, designed for oral transmission .

But the novels were not just subject to translation. They underwent transformation both at the level of content and form. The translated classical short story was presented only by separate, significantly reworked samples - plot schemes, and most of the translated works, attributed to the genre of the short story, are not such.

Only in literature early XIX century, the short story was formed as a genre. A number of factors contributed to this circumstance: the displacement of the boundaries of the Russian Renaissance, the influence of Western European literature, translation activities and the creative practice of Russian writers.

It should be noted that the first sample of the translated short story was “Griselda” by K.N. Batyushkov. At the same time, in a letter to N.I. Gnedich dated July 10, 1817, the writer noted that "he did not translate very slavishly and not very freely, he" wanted to guess Boccaccio's style. It is thanks to K.N. Batyushkov, the Russian reader was able to get acquainted with a genuine sample of the short story by Giovanni Boccaccio, and not a free arrangement by an anonymous author of the 17th century.

The introduction of the novelistic structure into the Russian national soil with a centuries-old narrative tradition led to the creation of what the researchers called the "Russian short story". And here it is appropriate to say about the double transformation of the novel. The classic novella of the Renaissance, which goes back to an everyday anecdote, has changed under the pen of romantic writers. The reason for this lies in the aesthetic views of the romantics, with their focus on unfixed, blurred, fragmented genre forms, and in the change of the subject of the image. The romantic short story, in turn, underwent another transformation in Russian literature, turning into a story rich in descriptions and reasoning. In the complex literary process of the first third of the 19th century, when the romantics (A. Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, A. Pogorelsky, V. Odoevsky, E. Baratynsky) were still writing short stories in which “one unheard-of incident was diluted with reasoning, descriptions and outpourings, as a result of which the plot in a romantic short story lost its self-contained meaning, the short story turned into a story, A.S. Pushkin managed to find a place for his Belkin Tales.

It was the genius of Pushkin that was needed to transform the story into a short story, that is, to free it from everything superfluous, to write "accurately and briefly" and create true samples of the Russian short story.

We are only interested in one particular aspect - the genre specificity of Belkin's Tales. They are connected with the classical short story by the plot, separated by Pushkin's introduction of an epic trend, which is hardly compatible with the classical short story. But the epic trend did not have such a destructive effect on the structure of A.S. Pushkin, which she had on the short stories of his contemporaries.

In fact, the development of the Russian short story on Belkin's Tales stops. The further development of small prose followed the path of departure from the short story tradition. Thus, representatives of the "natural school" preferred the physiological essay. Undoubtedly, the physiological essay could interact with other genre forms, in particular, short stories. In the process of such interaction, an intergenre form appeared, which V.M. Markovich calls the "natural" short story (essay-short story). This type of short story written by N.V. Gogol (“The Overcoat”) turned into a complex genre form that absorbed “traditions of an oral anecdote, features of a romantic fairy tale, medieval hagiography, bylichka, legends and ballads”, which gave the short story “a novelistic multidimensionality of meaning”. This is the last quality of Gogol's short story, V.M. Markovich, was lost by other representatives of the "natural" school.

With the development of the Russian novel - the second half of the 19th century - the genre of the short story moved into a number of peripheral genres of Russian prose; a convenient and free story becomes a small prose form.

A new appeal to the genre of the short story is associated with the literature of the turn of the century. It was during the period of the "Silver Age" that samples of neo-romantic, symbolist and acmeist short stories were created. Here it is necessary to single out the work of authors such as F. Sologub (“Hide and Seek”, “Hoop”, “Two Gothic”, “Perina”, “Ivan Ivanovich”), Z. Gippius (“Boar” and “On the Ropes”), V . Bryusova ("Minuet", "Eluli, son of Eluli"), N. Gumilyov ("Forest Devil", "The Last Court Poet"), etc.

Conscious orientation - up to elegant stylization - to the best examples of Western European and Russian short stories, heightened interest in the sensual, erotic side of human life, poetic understanding and development of the short story structure - this is an incomplete list of the components of the Silver Age short stories. It was the “bright, but somewhat prodigal” era of the “Silver Age” that returned the genre of the short story to Russian literature. Thus, the questions of both the fate of the short story as a whole and the fate of the short story in Russian literature at the turn of the century and the first decades of the 20th century remain unresolved.

Read also: