How to use stories and plays content Introduction

The relevance of the course work lies in the fact that recently the development of interest in the problem of the development of individual genera and genres. Now comedy is experiencing a period of maturity and is characterized by a variety of genre forms.
Object of study : A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit"
Subject of study: genre specificity and direction features of the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov "Woe from Wit".
The purpose of the work defines the following tasks:

1. 
   Reveal the content and meaning of the comedy genre
   
2. 
   To identify the features of the genre and direction of the comedy by A.S. Griboyedov
   
3. 
   To analyze the content of the work on the comedy by A.S. Griboedov "Woe from Wit"
   
4. 
   Compare the traditions of Griboedov's genre
   

The research methodology is based on the structural-semantic method - the selection of keywords from the topic that characterize the subject and aspects, as well as the subsequent identification of their semantic content, the work was carried out within the framework of an integrated approach. In our work, we use the principle of a holistic study of a literary text. Standard procedures of literary analysis are applied: observation, comparison, description, generalization.
The structure of the work : the term paper consists of an introduction, two chapters, a conclusion, a bibliography.


Chapter I. The Origin and Evolution of the Comedy Genre

1. 
   Beginnings of the comedy genre
   

Comedy depicts everyday life. Her attention at all times was directed to the negative phenomena of reality. Her heroes were morally inferior people. The inferiority of their contradiction with the "norm", "ideal" was revealed in comedy with the help of laughter. Laughter could be cheerful, but it could also be merciless, depending on what phenomena it was aimed at. Putting its characters in certain conditions, portraying them as funny, the comedy sought to have a moral impact on the viewer. The history of comedy provides examples of how the understanding of laughter changed, how funny in one era ceased to be funny in another, how laughter grew into a social force. Genre comes from a French word meaning kind or type. As a literary device, genre refers to the form, class, or type of literary work. The main genres in literature are poetry, drama/play, essay, short story and novel. The term "genre" is quite often used to refer to literary subclasses or specific types of literature such as comedy, tragedy, epic poetry, thriller, science fiction, romance, etc. It is important to note that genre as a literary device is closely related to readers' expectations. This is especially true for literary subclasses. In terms of literature, fiction is prose, consisting of short stories, novellas, and novels in which the story originated from the imagination of the writer. These fictional literary forms are often classified into genres, each with a specific style, tone, and storytelling devices and elements. “It denotes the literary form or type by which works are classified according to what they have in common: either in their formal structures, or in their treatment of the subject matter, or in both cases. The study of genres can have three meanings. At the simplest level, the grouping of works offers us an orderly way of talking about a bewildering array of literary texts. More importantly, if we recognize the genre of a text, we can also better understand its intended general structure and/or subject matter. Finally, a genre approach can deepen our understanding of the value of any single text by allowing us to consider it in comparison with many other texts of the same type. The term "comedy" consists of two Greek words: komos , which translates as "a merry procession" or "feast in honor of Dionysus", and " ode " - "song". This term appeared in the VI century BC in ancient Greece. The first comedian was the poet Susarion. Comedies became very popular in Athens in the 5th – 4th centuries BC thanks to the work of Aristophanes. He often competed with other poets at the annual feasts in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine. They chose the best humorous works and showed comedy theatrical performances. In comedies, as a rule, there were many songs and dances, and the actors performed in masks. In Europe, comedies appeared in the Renaissance, in the XIV - XVI centuries. In Italy, even a special type of such works arose - the commedia dell'arte. This was the name of theatrical performances, which consisted of funny skits, dances, musical and acrobatic numbers. The actors who participated in them wore special masks. These productions were based on reworked comedies by Italian writers. ¹The plot of the works often changed right during the performances: the artists improvised a lot. Since the 17th century, comedy has become one of the main genres of European literature. Various types of comedies developed. The high ones were devoted to important social and philosophical problems. And in the low ones, the plot was built around funny everyday situations, curious cases. Comedies were also divided into lyrical and satirical. The authors of the first usually treated their heroes with sympathy. And in satirical comedies, writers denounced the vices of society, so their characters were often presented in an unattractive way. In Russia, national, and not translated, comedies appeared only in the middle of the 18th century. The authors of the first works in this genre were Alexander Sumarokov, Denis Fonvizin and Vasily Kapnist. Almost all of their comedies were satirical. In them, the authors wrote about the key problems of Russia in those years: the low level of education, bribes of officials, serfdom. The genre of Russian comedy finally took shape in the 19th century thanks to the work of Alexander Griboyedov, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, Alexander Ostrovsky and Anton Chekhov. National flavor and psychologism appeared in their works. And the heroes of such comedies were often typical residents of Russia. The beginning of a new stage is connected with the second comedy of Fonvizin. Unlike "Brigadier", in "Undergrowth" the action is transferred directly to the stage. It is given in motion, in changing relationships, embraces all the characters, acquires an independent interest. Although the comedy contained an unusually sharp assessment of Russian reality in its most important aspects, it chose the private life of the nobility as its immediate subject. At the end of the century, family relations remained the sphere that made it possible to reveal the behavior of heroes in private life to the greatest extent. The main question that occupied Fonvizin in this comedy was the question of what a true nobleman should be like, and whether the Russian nobility meets its purpose. This topic has received satirical coverage. Now the action in a comedy unites all the characters and at the same time divides them into "evil-minded" and "virtuous". The difference between heroes is not limited to their moral qualities. The introduction to comedy outside the plot scenes expanded and deepened its content. The comedy clearly contrasts two "breeds of people": ignorant, unenlightened nobles, and educated, "enlightened" nobles. The subject of the comedy was "funny". The comedy character was based on depicting only the funny in a person and excluded, of course, the complexity and completeness of his psychological depiction. However, in the comedy of classicism, in addition to negative characters, positive ones were introduced. Their meaning is to clarify only the author's attitude to what is happening. At the same time, they were correlated with negative characters in terms of their basic moral and psychological properties. The method of direct correlation of characters - positive and negative - will be one of the features of the Russian comedy of classicism. The first Russian comedies, connected mainly with the name of Sumarokov, were characterized by "external comedy". It went back to the traditions of the folk theater and was based on fights between the heroes, accompanied by blows of sticks, flight, falling, etc. The movement of Russian comedy of the 18th century is on the path of ousting external comedy, interest will gradually mix from external entertainment to the image of a comic character. Comedy after Fonvizin developed in line with his traditions. In accordance with the interests of society, the comedy of the 4th century develops the themes of love and family relationships. The comedy is divided into 5 acts, between which the choir performed, the lyrics of which were not included in the text of the comedy. A new understanding of the differences between tragedy and comedy is being established. In tragedy, according to Aristotle, “the vicissitudes of a heroic fate” are depicted, and the heroes are gods, kings, generals, but if the heroes are ordinary people with ordinary experiences, then this is a comedy, even in the absence of humor, satire, parody, laughter. Unlike tragedy, in comedy the ending is prosperous, even touching. The plots of comedies are rather monotonous, this is the love of a young man and a girl, the obstacles that they overcome, learned in adulthood of children thrown in childhood. The monotony of the plots was also matched by the uniformity of the masks: a young man, a girl, a pimp, a servant (or a nurse), fathers (boys or girls) and images of a parasite and hetaera, new in literature. Chekhov's early one-act plays (The Bear, Proposal, Wedding, Anniversary, etc.) were written entirely in line with the vaudeville tradition, enriched at the same time by the psychological development of the characters' characters. However, Chekhov's multi-act plays led the Russian theater into bewilderment - it was not for nothing that the first performance of The Seagull at the Alexandrinsky Theater (1896) failed, despite the brilliant performance of VF Komissarzhevskaya (Nina). It is believed that Chekhov was discovered for the stage by K.S.Stanislavsky, having staged the Seagull, Uncle Vanya, and the Cherry Orchard in the young Moscow Art Theater. The performances enjoyed extraordinary success and laid the foundation for the stage tradition of interpreting Chekhov's plays. However, at the same time, K.S. Stanislavsky completely rethought the author's genre, persistently defined by Chekhov as "comedy". The productions of Chekhov's plays at the Moscow Art Theater were subtle, extraordinarily rich psychologically, touching, tragic, but not at all funny (by the way, it was this circumstance that upset Chekhov himself). More than a decade passed until it became clear that Chekhov's stunningly innovative dramaturgy practically opened a new genre of comedy - tragicomedy, with its own special artistic techniques and means of expression, not amenable to stage interpretation by means of traditional realistic directing and acting. Only in the middle of the 20th century. Theatrical and cultural studies singled out tragicomedy not as an intermediate, but as the main theatrical genre, exploring its structure and architectonics. However, the history and traditional comedy in the 20th century. has many interesting and varied directions. It is difficult to enumerate all the varieties of comedy of the 20th century: socially accusatory, eccentric, political, "gloomy", romantic, fantastic, intellectual, etc. and so on. And, as befits this genre, comedy has always responded vividly to the most topical and current trends in social life. Comedy always fulfills a "social order" in the broadest sense, regardless of whether this order is "launched" from "above" or originated in the very depths of society. And then everything rests on the talent and worldview of the playwright; it depends only on this whether his comedy will remain a topical trifle, or will enter the golden fund of classics, remaining relevant for many years. So, in Russia, in the first post-revolutionary years, when a new ideology was actively introduced, associated with the predominance of the public over the personal, these trends were immediately reflected in comedy. In the plays Mystery-Buff, and later Bedbug and Banya, V. Mayakovsky caustically ridiculed the former ideals proclaimed by the “philistinism”, and proposed a new type of positive hero, immersed in work with his head. N. Pogodin writes the comedy Aristocrats, in which he talks with great sympathy about the camp re-education of "socially close" criminals opposed to political prisoners. N. Erdman in the comedy Mandat ridicules the townspeople and NEPmen; and also writes the script for G. Alexandrov's film Merry Fellows, a musical lyrical comedy in which the search for the character of the heroes of the new time continues. However, harmless lyrical comedy, imbued with sympathy for the characters, where the simplest funny situations concern exclusively moral, but not social problems, becomes the main comedy genre at that time. Playwrights V. Kataev (Square of a circle), V. Gusev (Glory, Spring in Moscow), V. Shkvarkin (A simple girl, Someone else's child) and others worked in this genre. "social order" of the mass audience. This was the predominantly official comedy throughout the 1950s and early 1980s. The names of Soviet comedians A.Sofronov, V.Minko, M.Slobodsky, V.Mass and M.Chervinsky, L.Lench, B.Laskin, Ts.Solodar are now remembered only by specialists. Also forgotten are the numerous comedies by V. Konstantinov and B. Ratser, who for several decades were the undisputed leaders of the Soviet theater repertoire. Rare satirical comedies of the Soviet period (Pena S. Mikhalkov, Tablet under the tongue of A. Makaenka, etc.) denounced only individual shortcomings. However, even under conditions of censorship, fontanelles of social satirical comedy made their way. The authors often "camouflaged" it in one way or another. So, E. Schwartz clothed his plays in the form of fairy tales, carefully avoiding any specific realities (Shadow, Dragon, Ordinary miracle, etc.). Other playwrights addressed their comedies to the young audience (S. Lungin, I. Nusinov - Goose Pen, R. Pogodin - Step from the Roof, etc.). And yet, the main successes of the comedy dramaturgy of the Soviet and post-Soviet period are mainly associated with the formation and development of the tragicomedy genre. It is significant that tragicomic notes by the mid-1970s clearly sounded in the work of the most repertory Soviet playwright - A. Arbuzov. Such bright names as A. Vampilov, M. Roshchin, E. Radzinsky, A. Sokolova, A. .Chervinsky, L.Petrushevskaya, Gr.Gorin, A.Shipenko and many others, continuing the traditions of A.Chekhov's drama at a new level.