Do we wonder how the author of a satirical story, a humorous story or a feuilleton manages to make the reader laugh, or at least an ironic smile? “Well,” we say, “that’s why he is a writer, this is the secret of his talent.” But after all, every person must own the secret of a clever joke, laughter. Let's remember what an awkward feeling a person who does not understand jokes or jokes rudely, vulgarly, causes in a company. And how good it is sometimes to amuse comrades with wit, how necessary it is sometimes to ridicule with a caustic word an idler, a liar, a sycophant!

It is possible and necessary to learn to joke, to make fun of what interferes with our lives. Of course, for this, first of all, it is necessary to have a sense of humor, observation, the ability to see shortcomings.

Here is how Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary interprets the meaning of funny:

Humor - 1. Understanding the comic, the ability to see and show the funny, condescendingly - a mocking attitude towards something. Sense of humor. Talk about something with humor. 2. In art: a depiction of something in a funny, comic way. Humor and satire. Newspaper humor section. 3. Mocking and playful speech. Subtle humor.

Satire - 1. A work of art that sharply and mercilessly denounces negative phenomena. 2. Convicting, scourging ridicule.

Laughter - 1. Short characteristic voice sounds expressing fun, joy, pleasure, as well as mockery, gloating and other feelings. Laughter through tears (sad laughter). Roll with laughter (laugh). 2. Something funny, worthy of ridicule.

Joke - 1. What is said or done in earnest, for the sake of entertainment, fun; words that are not trustworthy. 2. A small comic play. 3. Expression of disapproval, doubt, surprise.

Irony is a subtle, hidden mockery.

So, laughter is cheerful, kind, and then we call it humorous. The well-known poems by S. V. Mikhalkov about Uncle Styopa can be attributed to humorous works. We laugh at how Uncle Styopa "looked for the greatest shoes on the market", "looked for pants of the greatest width." We find it funny, for example, when N.V. Gogol’s Taras Bulba begins to “fistfight” with his sons who have just returned home after a long separation, that is, at a moment that, according to our ideas, should be solemn and touching.

And sometimes laughter is angry, angry - satirical. He calls people to protest, awakens contempt for a character or phenomenon. A satirical work in a thoughtful reader always causes not only laughter, but also a sad feeling, because the satirist writer exposes phenomena that interfere with people's happiness. Such are the fables of Krylov, the tales of Saltykov-Shchedrin, the stories of Zoshchenko.

Share of joke - share of truth

Every joke, like the truth, has a hard fate. Although they respect the truth, many do not like it. And everyone loves a joke, although they don’t have much respect for it. This is where love and respect come together, which has long been used by humorous and satirical literature. A joke is a favorite of society and is kept in it easily and naturally, but the truth is that an elephant is in china shop: wherever you turn, something flies everywhere. That's why she often appears accompanied by a joke.

It would seem that a fairy tale, a joke, but what is the truth behind it! For example, in fairy tales Saltykov-Shchedrin the truth and the joke exist, as it were, separately from each other: the truth recedes into the background, into the subtext, and the joke remains the rightful mistress in the text.

Such is mathematics: we write a joke, the truth is in the mind.

And in the stories of the mature Chekhov, the joke dissolves into the truth and becomes almost invisible. Let's try to laugh at the stories "Vanka" or "Tosca". If we succeed, it's bad!

“Brevity is the sister of talent” (A.P. Chekhov.)

A feature of a humorous story is that it is a small work that tells about one event with a small number of characters.

So, a humorous story should be, first of all, short, concise. Such are the works-sketches of A.P. Chekhov. Let's try to find out what are the features of the style of early Chekhov - Antosha Chekhonte, the Man without a spleen?

At the time of Chekhov's creative debut, according to the conditions of humorous magazines, the story should not exceed one hundred lines. In fulfilling these requirements, Chekhov learned to write concisely. “Brevity is the sister of talent” is one of the writer’s favorite phrases. short stories were very rich in content. This was achieved by a striking title; meaningful names and surnames; a plot that was built on an unusual situation or event; dynamic development of action; expressive detail; scenic dialogue; simple, clear speech of the author.

Recall the story "Horse name". Why do we find it funny every time we listen to it, read it? What makes a work funny?

Firstly, the plot is ridiculous: the whole family is busy searching for the “horse name” of an official who knows how to speak a toothache. Secondly, it is ridiculous because an educated person is so superstitious that he is ready to believe in conspiracies, that a tooth can be cured by telegraph. Thirdly, the ways in which the retired general is trying to calm the pain are ridiculous: vodka, cognac, tobacco soot, turpentine, iodine Fourthly, ambiguous phrases: “Now he only feeds on his teeth”, “He lives not with his wife, but a German woman” and others - make you smile. Fifth, the “horse” surnames themselves are ridiculous: Zherebtsov, Zherebchikov, Loshadkin, Kobylin, Kobylitsyn, Kobylyatnikov, Kobylkin, Loshadevich. And finally, the denouement of the story is ridiculous: the “horse” was the simple surname Ovsov. It is also funny that efforts to find a surname were in vain: "a doctor came and pulled out a bad tooth." Chekhov's laughter is good-natured, cheerful, he achieved a good laugh by brevity, conciseness of presentation.

An artistic detail that carries a huge semantic load

Chekhov is rightfully considered a master of the short humorous work. In a small story, extensive ones are impossible, detailed descriptions, long monologues. That is why in the works of Chekhov, the artistic detail. Artistic detail is one of the means of creating artistic image, which helps to present the picture, object or character depicted by the author in a unique individuality. A detail can reproduce the features of appearance, features of clothing, furnishings, nuances of experiences or actions of the hero.

Consider the role of the artistic detail in Chekhov's story "Chameleon". It is about how a police officer, considering the case of a puppy that bit a jeweler, changes his mind several times about the outcome of the case. Moreover, his opinion directly depends on who owns the dog - a rich general or a poor person. Only by hearing the names of the characters, we can imagine the heroes of the story. Policeman Ochumelov, master Khryukin, policeman Eldyrin - the names correspond to the characters, the appearance of the heroes. The name "Chameleon" also conveys the main idea of ​​the story. Ochumelov's opinion changes as quickly and often, depending on the circumstances, as a chameleon lizard changes skin color, corresponding to natural conditions. It is thanks to Chekhov's masterful use of artistic details in his works that the writer's work is understandable and accessible to every person.

Chekhov's mastery lies in the fact that he was able to select material, saturate a small work with capacious content, highlight an essential detail that is important for characterizing a character or object. Precise and capacious artistic detail created by creative imagination the author directs the reader's imagination. Chekhov gave details great importance, believed that it "excites the reader's independent critical thought", therefore we still read short and witty stories of this brilliant writer today.

A.P. Chekhov greatly appreciated the sense of humor and those who quickly caught the joke. “Yes, sir, this is the surest sign: a person does not understand a joke - write wasted! - said the comedian. From the memoirs of K. I. Chukovsky about Chekhov, we know that the comedian loved to work with people, but most of all he loved to have fun, play pranks, laugh with them. “The laughter was not at all unreasonable, because Chekhov was its cause.”

Pig under the oak

I. A. Krylov in his fables also talks about comic situations and comic characters, but the nature of laughter is different. Krylov's fables are allegorical: people and their actions are hidden under the masks of animals. The fable is written in free verse, it contains a moral - a brief and clear conclusion from the lesson contained in it. Krylov's fables reflected experience, consciousness and moral ideals of our people, features national character. This was expressed not only in the original interpretation of traditional plots, but above all in the language in which the fables are written. In the language of Krylov's fables, live folk speech was clearly manifested. Each class in his works has its own language: the Wolf’s rude language, the Lamb’s obedient (“The Wolf and the Lamb”), the Hare’s boastful speech (“The Hare is catching”), the thoughtful reasoning of the stupid Rooster (“The Rooster and the Pearly Seed”), the snobby Geese's speech about their ancestors ("Geese"), stupidly self-satisfied with the Pig ("Pig under the oak").

Krylov broadly and freely introduced folk vocabulary into his fables: snout, peasant, dung, fool, cattle, booby. By what means does the fabulist achieve the rejection of the Pig, for example, in this passage?

Pig under the ancient oak

I ate acorns to the full, to satiety,

Having eaten, slept under it,

Then, tearing her eyes, she got up

And she began to undermine the roots of the oak with her snout.

Of course, you will say that the pig does not cause any good feelings - it is gluttonous, nasty, stupid. The author achieved a similar effect by drawing the image of the Pig with the help of rude, colloquial words and expressions: she ate to satiety, her eyes were pierced, her snout. The pig is shown in actions, the last of which is not only absurd, meaningless, but also harmful - "and began to undermine the roots of the oak."

Let us recall another Krylov's fable "The Donkey and the Nightingale". By what means does the fabulist create the image of a stupid, narcissistic judge? Let's answer this question with an example passage:

The donkey saw the Nightingale

And he says to him: “Listen, my friend!

You, they say, sing a great master:

I would very much like

Judge for yourself, hearing your singing,

How great is your skill?

The choice of a donkey as a judge, and not another animal, is in itself absurd: the donkey is a symbol of stupidity, stubbornness, ignorance. In addition, the cry of this animal is the most anti-musical in nature, so you can immediately guess that it is beyond the power of a donkey to appreciate the singing of a nightingale. The arrogance, narcissism of this character is shown in the manner of speaking: the familiar appeal “buddy”, the combination of incompatible words “great craftsman” - give the whole combination a dismissive coloring. The colloquial language of the fable contributes to the fact that it can be presented as a small comedy. The comic of the situation is often complemented by the comic of the language.

Let's talk about some of the features of Krylov's fables. An indispensable condition of a fable is that the action is emphasized by frequent verbal rhymes. Rhyme in Krylov carries a semantic load. Consider in this connection the fable "Two Barrels". The beginning is already ridiculous: "Two barrels were driving, one with wine, the other Empty." Here the rhyme connects precisely those words that determine the subject of consideration in the fable. The story presents us with a fantastic picture: two barrels are driving around the city on their own, one smoothly, the other rushing and rattling. If we accept the conditionality of the situation, then everything looks quite natural: a column of dust, a passer-by huddles to the side. But in the second part of the fable it is directly spoken about people who "shout about their deeds." Then morality is clearly formulated: "Whoever is truly deeds is often quiet in words." And further: “Great man. he thinks his strong thought ∕ No noise. Returning to the beginning of the story, we comprehend it on a different level. Barrels turn out to be conditional objects denoting human qualities. But this allegorical statement contains an additional metaphorical element, which we become aware of after reading the entire fable. Metaphorical meaning empty barrels in this context, it is comprehended in relation to an empty person, a talker. The whole fable is built on similar comparisons.

So, the images of animals, which are sometimes depicted in Russian costumes in the illustrations, carry a satirical typification of the features of the Russian national character. Krylov accurately expressed the people's faith in good and evil. And the people willingly accepted as their dozens of Krylov's humorous and satirical poems and "moralizing", including them in proverbs during the life of the fabulist: "Ay, Pug! She is strong to know That she barks at the elephant”, “They even laugh at the braggarts, and often they get shares in the division”, “They bark and leave behind”, “And Vaska listens and eats”, “I didn’t even notice the elephant”, “ A helpful fool is more dangerous than an enemy "Even the names of fables have become proverbs, for example: "Trishkin's caftan",

Demyanov's Ear, Elephant and Pug.

Comic speech means

In addition to an interesting humorous plot, a bright speech of a character, the writer needs to remember about the speech means of the comic. There are special words and expressions that give brightness, emotionality to speech, serve as an expression of the author's attitude to the depicted. They are called speech means of comic or speech means of humor. First, it is a monologue and dialogue. A monologue is a detailed statement of one character. Dialogue is a conversation between two or more characters. To this it should be added that there is a so-called "internal monologue", when the author seems to be talking to himself. For example: “It must have happened! Dunno has never been in a similar situation. It was the first time." "Blimey! Was I right? Conversational speech is, first of all, oral, unprepared, free speech. This is how we talk to friends and parents. That's what the heroes say humorous stories. They do not "talk", but "talk", do not shout, but "yell" and often make some speech errors. But the author needs to accurately reproduce this free, colloquial speech in order to create a comic effect so that we “believe” him.

Secondly, it is imperative to name as a means of creating a humorous work - both a fable and a story - expressively colored words. They make speech bright, interesting, and most importantly - immediate. Speech in this case, of course, is called expressive. It can be particles: Wow! Yah! Oh what is this?; words and expressions: The cat jumped - and onto the closet; Try to get it out of the closet! What could we do!

Thirdly, not only expressively colored words, but also comparisons give brightness, figurativeness of speech. Comparison is a technique based on comparing one phenomenon or object with another. When we play, we also compare our friends to someone or something. For example: "Petka puffs like a steam locomotive"; “The bow on Button’s head looked like a butterfly. It seemed that she was about to fly away”, “They, like donkeys, did not want to give way to each other.” And finally - this is hyperbolization as one of the speech means of the comic. Hyperbolization - “exaggeration”, that is, “above the usual, familiar”. She often causes a smile: "I'm about to die of laughter" - this is an exaggeration. We often say: "Fear has big eyes." The eyes of laughter are just as big.

Let us turn to the story of V. Dragunsky "The Enchanted Letter" and try to determine what features of the humorous story the author implements in his work. This story can be called funny, since the guys' misunderstanding of each other and everyone's confidence in their own rightness cause a smile. The comic effect is created due to the fact that the guys incorrectly pronounce the word bumps. The children are still small, and they do not know how to pronounce all the letters correctly. This happens because each of them “does not hear himself from the outside” and considers his “pronunciation” to be correct.

Language and humor are so closely related

So, we are convinced that satirists and humorists have their own completely accurate and definite speech means and techniques. Let's dwell on some of them. Let's compare for reception the words warrior and warrior, soul and little soul. It is quite obvious that the suffixes -yak - and -onk - give these words a disparaging, mocking connotation, causing an ironic smile in relation to what they mean: Oh, you warrior! Or Petty, cowardly little soul! Here are some more suffixes of this kind: - ishk - (people, passions), - nya (squabble, cooking), - shin-a (storming), - il-a (thug, boss), - yag-a (dealer, dude ) and etc.

There are also prefixes that, under certain conditions, give an ironic or playful connotation of speech: once - (ras -): beautiful (in A. Gaidar's story "Chuk and Gek" the mother calls the boys who have been in trouble her beautiful sons), cheerful (too, overly cheerful and therefore cheeky), for example: a cheerful company, etc.; by - + suffix - willow - (-yva -): pee, read (jokingly - ironically about a frivolous attitude to writing or reading), etc.; pre-: much (for example, ironically: thank you very much), etc.

A large group of words with an ironic or humorous tinge is formed by word composition. They are created in lively folk speech: rotozey (onlooker or idler), scoffer (mockery), stingy (mean, petty person), windbag, empty talker (chatterer), etc. There are many such words in colloquial and literary book speech: high-flown (pompous ), base (of low quality), scribbler (prolific, but a bad writer), sentimental (sentimental, overly sensitive), new-found, newly minted (recently, just created, appeared), etc.

There are also lexical means. Let us recall Igor's characterization from A. Rybakov's story "The Adventures of Krosh": "Igor works in an office, rubs himself near his superiors, loves to hang around among his elders." Let's try to replace the highlighted words (colloquial and colloquial) with neutral, general literary ones: "Igor is often near his superiors, he likes to be among his elders." As you can see, the dismissive, mocking coloring of the characteristic has disappeared. This means that irony is achieved in these phrases by the selection of colloquial everyday and colloquial words that aptly characterize Igor as a sycophant seeking an easy life.

So, one of the means for giving irony and humor to a speech is apt and figurative colloquial and colloquial words-synonyms for neutral words: instead of talking, rant (to rant or be pompous, pompous); instead of drawing - to paint (about inept, mediocre drawing); instead of a picture - daub (about a bad picture); instead of writing - scribbling, scribbling (he scribbled a slander, sprinkled verses, that is, bad poems); place like-minded person - sang along, (about someone who dutifully repeats other people's words); instead of an assistant - an accomplice (usually - in an unseemly deed, in a crime). Some words of this kind (for example, accomplice) were originally taken from common speech (where help means “help”), and then entered the general literary language, firmly establishing a negative connotation.

To give speech an ironic or playful tone, archaisms are also used, most often from the Old Slavonic language. For example: instead of sitting - sit; instead of wanting - deign; instead of said - spoke; instead you are your grace; instead of coming, appearing - welcome; instead of inventing - inventing; instead of the fault of someone - by grace.

For the same purpose, some words of foreign origin are also used opus (jokingly - ironically about an unsuccessful, poor-quality work), chimera (an unrealizable, strange dream, unrealizable fantasy), sentiments (inappropriate, excessive sensitivity), maxim (ironically about thoughts with a claim to wisdom ), battle (jokingly about a fight, quarrel), fanfaron (braggart, braggart).

To give the statement a touch of irony, ridicule, the figurative meaning of words and the technique of metaphorization are widely used. So, the location of the enemy is called the lair (in the literal sense, the lair is the dwelling of the beast); a group of criminal elements - a pack (cf .: a pack of dogs); decomposed, anti-social elements - scum (in the literal sense - the remains of the liquid at the bottom along with the sediment); about the one who became dissolute, lost all restraint, they say - unbelted (literally - took off his belt); about having reached the extreme limits of self-will, arbitrariness - unbridled (unbridled initially - free the horse from the bridle, then give full rein to something).

One of the most common subjects of irony and humor is the juxtaposition of disparate words, in which there is a discrepancy between form and content. This achieves a comic effect. On such a comparison, such ironic expressions as pearls of illiteracy, a certified philosopher, and others are built.

An important means of humor and irony is the use of humorous and ironic phraseological expressions in speech. Many of them are nothing more than frozen expressions built using the above means, as well as well-aimed comparisons, hyperbolas. Here are some humorous phraseological units: flies are dying, dying (about the unbearable boredom caused by something), a week without a year (most recently), on their own for two (that is, on foot), your money was crying (about a missing debt, wasted money) , not everyone is at home (out of their mind), the nose has not grown up (it’s too early to do something), history is silent about this (something remains unknown, they prefer not to talk about anything), etc. Ironic phraseological units can be attribute: in person (himself, personally), from the height of his greatness (with excessive importance, with disdain for others), hide in the bushes (cowardly, dodge something), filkin's letter (illiterate or invalid document), veal delight (too violent delight), veal tenderness (excessive or inappropriate expression of endearment).

Weapon of laughter M. M. Zoshchenko

M. M. Zoshchenko is a writer not only of a comic style, but also of comic situations. Not only his language is comical, but also the place where the story of the next story unfolded: a commemoration, a communal apartment, a hospital - everything is so familiar, its own, everyday habitual. And the story itself: a fight in a communal apartment because of a scarce hedgehog, a scandal at the wake because of a broken glass.

Some of Zoshchenko’s phrases remained in Russian literature as aphorisms: “as if suddenly I smelled the atmosphere”, “they will rob me like a sticky and throw them away for their kind, even if they are my own relatives”, “disturbs the riots”. Zoshchenko, while writing his stories, laughed himself. So much so that later, when I read stories to my friends, I never laughed. He sat gloomy, gloomy, as if not understanding what he could laugh at. Having laughed while working on the story, he then perceived it with longing and sadness. I took it as the other side of the coin. If you listen carefully to his laughter, it is not difficult to catch that the carefree-joking notes are just a background for the notes of pain and bitterness.

The hero Zoshchenko is a layman, a man with poor morals and a primitive outlook on life. This inhabitant personified the whole human layer of the then Russia. The writer ridiculed not the man himself, but the philistine features in him.

Consider some of the writer's works. The story “Case History” begins like this: “Frankly, I prefer to be sick at home. Of course, there are no words, in the hospital, perhaps, it is brighter and more cultured. And the calorie content of food, maybe they have more provided. But, as they say, houses and straw are eaten. A patient with a diagnosis of typhoid fever is brought to the hospital, and the first thing he sees in the room for registering new arrivals is a huge poster on the wall: “Issue of corpses from 3 to 4”. Having barely recovered from the shock, the hero tells the paramedic that "the patients are not interested in reading this." In response, he hears: “If you get better, which is unlikely, then criticize, otherwise we will really betray you from three to four in the form of what is written here, then you will know.” an old woman is bathing.

It would seem that the nurse should apologize and postpone the “bathing” procedure for a while. But she was used to seeing patients, not people, in front of her. And what to stand on ceremony with patients? She calmly invites him to get into the bath and not pay attention to the old woman: “She has a high temperature, and she does not react to anything. So you undress without embarrassment. The tests of the patient do not end there. First, he is given a dressing gown that does not fit. Then, a few days later, having already begun to recover, he falls ill with whooping cough. All the same nurse tells him: "You must have inadvertently ate from the device on which the whooping cough child ate." When the hero finally recovers, he can’t escape from the hospital walls in any way, since they forget to write him out, then “someone didn’t come, and it was impossible to celebrate,” then the entire staff is busy organizing the movement of the wives of the sick. At home, the last test awaits him: his wife tells how a week ago she received a notice from the hospital demanding: "Upon receipt of this, urgently appear for your husband's body."

“The Case History” is one of those stories by Zoshchenko in which the image of rudeness, extreme disrespect for a person, spiritual callousness is brought to the limit. Together with the author, we laugh merrily, and then we become sad. This is called “laughter through tears.”

A reminder for a beginner to write a humorous story.

In order to determine how a humorous story differs from a regular story, we will turn to the "Reminder for a beginner to write a humorous story."

First of all, consider the plot of your story;

Do not forget that a humorous story is based on a comic situation or a funny misunderstanding (they are created due to the appearance of participants in events unexpected for the hero of the story, due to an unexpected turn of events, due to an unexpected denouement, the nature of the events that took place).

Remember that the title is of great importance in the story: the title is the key to unraveling the plot; the title can express the author's attitude;

Use language tools for creating humor in the story: interesting dialogues, funny names (nicknames), characters' names, author's humorous assessments;

The situation of the game is the next feature of the humorous story at the story level. The game is always laughter, cheerful mood. The game is always putting on some kind of mask, attributing to oneself someone's role. Daniil Kharms says this beautifully in the poem "Game".

It is the presence of funny characters that is another feature of a humorous story at the plot level. Always those characters that are presented in the story cause a kind smile or grin.

For example, in the story Chicken bouillon» V. Dragunsky, by chance, the boy and his dad are forced to cook food, that is, to do the work that they never did. In N. Nosov's story "Knock-knock-knock", the unexpected appearance of a crow, which was mistaken for a robber, led to the "creation of a protective structure" in order to avoid a collision with the robber. In the story of V. Dragunsky "Glory to Ivan Kozlovsky" main character believes that good singing is loud. “I sang well, you can probably even hear it on the other street.”

Conclusion

M Twain wrote that humorous stories require "the same ability to see, analyze, understand, which is necessary for the authors of serious books."

So, we think that we have proved that you can learn to ridicule what interferes with our lives. Of course, for this, first of all, it is necessary to have a sense of humor, observation, the ability to see shortcomings.

“Brevity is the sister of talent” is one of the writer’s favorite phrases. The short stories were very capacious in content. This was achieved by a striking title; meaningful names and surnames; a plot that was built on an unusual situation or event; dynamic development of action; expressive detail; scenic dialogue; simple, clear speech of the author.

Thus, summing up the analysis of Krylov's fables, we can conclude: a prerequisite for the funny in them is a comic situation, based on an unexpected twist in the plot, a comic hero, a discrepancy between something, a caricature display of some character trait of a character or a situation in which based on allegory, hyperbole, metaphor, personification, comparison.

In the “Reminder for a beginner to write a humorous story”, we tried to highlight the main artistic techniques creating a humorous story. Using this "Memo" and "Scheme-sun", the guys composed stories. Of course, it is impossible to include all the details of the funny, the rays of the “merry sun” in one work. In order for the story to turn out to be funny, humorous, training is needed, as in any business, you need to hone your skills. How this is done, we tried to show on the example of the works of satirical writers, humorous writers.

We wish our peers not to stop there - to write - to write funny, with humor, with a share of irony, and even satire. And then, perhaps, our own Saltykov-Shchedrins, Chekhovs, Zoshchenkos, Zhvanetskys will appear in our life and literature.

Sections: Literature

TOPIC: Satire and humor in Russian literature, or Laughter is the best medicine.

• to introduce students to the perception of satire and humor, to teach them to identify the genres of satirical and humorous works;
• identify the means used by the author to create a satirical or humorous work;
• aesthetic and moral education of students through highly artistic literary works;
• psychologically tune in to the positive, that is, the creation of a good mood.

EQUIPMENT: portraits of Pushkin, Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Zoshchenko; recording of music by J. S. Bach “Joke”; parody illustrations; epigraph posters; notes on the board.

Mens sana in corpore sano. (A healthy mind in a healthy body.)

Humor is a wonderful healthy quality.
M. Gorky

Laugh, right, it's not a sin
Over everything that seems funny.
N. Karamzin

All genres are good, except boring.
Voltaire

Business time and fun hour.
Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich

Laughter is often a great mediator in distinguishing truth from falsehood.
V. Belinsky

Laughter is joy, and therefore in itself is good.
Spinoza

During the classes

:

Sounds like a joke. S. Bach. Against the background of music, Andrey Dmitriev's poem "Spring has come" is performed.

Spring came! Spring came!
And all nature blossomed!
Flowers bloomed everywhere
Trees, flower beds and bushes,
As well as roofs and bridges,
And alleys, and cats ...
(Though, to be honest,
The cats bloomed, of course, in vain).
A copper basin blooms under the elm,
A porcupine blooms in a hole,
And old grandmother's chest
And grandfather's old frock coat,
And an old chair, and old table,
And the old grandfather blossomed.
Spring came! Spring came!
And all nature blossomed!

Word of the teacher: And we have spring outside the window. And your faces bloom with beautiful smiles.

Today we have a fun lesson - “Smehopanorama”, where we will talk about humor and satire as a separate area of ​​​​literature. I invite you to make sure that LAUGHTER is the best medicine needed for our spiritual health, and according to the ancient Greeks, “Mens sana in corpore sano”, which means: “A healthy mind in a healthy body”.

Our lesson motto:

Today we are in the country
Where is the joy and laughter
Where are the good smiles
Enough for everyone!

• "Laughter is the best medicine."
• "The Secret of the Laughing Words"
• “Hems, and more!”
• "Jog" through "funny" literature .
• "Epilogue"

1. “Laughter is the best medicine”

Some ancient thinkers believed that a person can be defined as "an animal that knows how to laugh." And, I think, to some extent they were right, because not only the ability to walk on two legs and labor activity singled out people from the animal world, helped to survive and go through all conceivable and unthinkable trials of thousands of years of history, but also the ability to laugh. That is why those who knew how to laugh were popular in all ages and among all peoples.

Poem by V. Khlebnikov “Oh, laugh, laughers”

What word is taken as the basis of this poem?

What is "laughter"?

They say that 1 minute of laughter in its “calorie content” replaces a glass of sour cream. Laugh - and be healthy!

The paradox has long been noticed that in crisis, difficult periods of history, when hands seem to give up, a humorous direction suddenly begins to loudly declare itself in literature. Perhaps this reflects the still not lost mental health of mankind or the Christian memory that despondency is one of the seven deadly sins.

2. “The Secret of Laughing Words”

Humor is a life-affirming force. A real humorous gift is the rarest ability to comically evaluate and thereby expose this or that phenomenon.

“The secret of laughing words” is known to very few, so humor should not be confused with vulgar scoffing, mocking laughter at everything in a row, reaching blasphemy, which today can be seen in abundance on television and in print.

Humor is different: good-natured, sad (“laughter through tears”), funny (“laughter to tears”), intellectual, rude, cruel, black.

Once upon a time, when you were not yet in the world, in the popular play “Love for Three Oranges” by the Leningrad Theater of Miniatures, this definition of laughter was given: “Laughter happens: ideological - unprincipled, optimistic - pessimistic, necessary - unnecessary, ours - not ours, ironic, sarcastic, spiteful, muffled, guttural, spiteful and... ticklish.”

- What is HUMOR? (from the English Humor - mood). This is a mild form of the comic, good-natured laughter, not aimed at exposing a person, a phenomenon.

- What is SATIRE? (a kind of comic, most mercilessly ridiculing human imperfection, angry, denouncing the image of the vices of a person or society).

What are humorous and satirical works for?

Poem-sketch by Pyotr Sinyavsky “Strange Ishtoria”

I met a beetle in the same forest
cute wasp:
- Oh, what a fashionista!
Let me get acquainted.
- Dear passer-by,
Well, what is it for?!
You can't imagine
How do you sepel -
And the beautiful wasp flew into the sky.
- Strange citizen...
Probably a foreigner.
Beetle with annoyance pretzels
Runs across the meadow:
- It should have been
Goof off!
How not to be again
In such a position?
Need to be urgent
Foreign yoke!

Igor Shevchuk's poem "In the Zoo"

Under the bench, two dogs are starving.
Two old women are sitting on a bench.
An old woman gnaws a pie - with meat and onions,
The second one has a cracker in the hands - for small grandchildren.
That would be, - the dogs think, - a feast-horn!
Discussed the plan of attack: - Take it and that's it!
Two dogs ran away - grab their teeth ...
You guessed what happened next:
The first one actually ate
And the second one stuttered for two weeks!

Did we listen to humorous or satirical poems? Justify your answer.

- What is humor? (small joke)

A. S. Pushkin. "Humoresque".

V. Firsov. Humoresque "Kaif".

- Guys, when the teacher calls me in the lesson, I trudge ...

- What are you running from?

- From the desk to the board I trudge, trudge, trudge ... and then back - from the board to the desk I trudge, trudge, trudge ...

- Are there satirical poems? What are their names? (An epigram is a short poem that makes fun of someone)

A.S. Pushkin. Epigrams.

- What is a parody? (ridicule in the style of any author)

Kozma Prutkov. “Shepherd, Milk and Reader”

Boris Zakhoder. "Literary Paths"

- Now we will open the “mystery of laughing words” of the writer M. Zoshchenko. M. Gorky once told him: “You have developed an excellent language, Mikhail Mikhailovich, and you have a wonderful command of it. You have a lot of humor."

It really is. Zoshchenko was endowed with absolute pitch and a brilliant memory. He managed to penetrate the secret of the language ordinary people and speak in their everyday, understandable language. The author spoke in a Russian language unknown to literature, alive, not invented, albeit incorrect by literary standards, but still - too! - Russian language. If he had not been able to speak this language of the masses, we would not have known today such a writer, about whom readers said: “he writes competently, does not play smart”, “everything is purely Russian”, “he has natural, understandable words”.

Let's listen to Zoshchenko?

Prepared students perform the stories “Amateur”, “Hypnosis” by M. Zoshchenko.

3.” Hems, and more!”

- Who can guess how to translate this incomprehensible word?

The new time is a new language, not at all similar to the language of Zoshchenko, it is much more incomprehensible and “cooler”. Let's listen to the modern interpretation of the text of the 2nd chapter of the novel by A. S. Pushkin "Dubrovsky" by the writer V. Trukhin, translated into the language of youth slang

Having gone to the town, Andrey Gavrilovich hung out with his friend, the balabuz, stumbled upon him and, in the morning, threw the bones into the mentor. It was all purple in there. Then Kirill Petrovich taxied. All sixes immediately jumped up and put their handles behind the locators. The hillocks hung out with him according to the laurel, as the coolest authority, pissed off the chair, in short a paragraph. And Andrey Gavrilovich dutifully nestled against the wall. Then an awesome kochum came, and the secretary uncovered his noodle gun and drove the pontyar that both the bungalow and the whole estate should be unfastened to the bull Troyekurov.

The secretary shut up and, on the tsirsli, came to Troekurov, gave him a wave, and Troekurov waved with a delay. It's time to follow up Dubrovsky and wave, and he roams.

Suddenly he raised the dundel, popped it out, stomped on the blank, and so marred the secretary that he naturally made a layer, scooped up the inkwell and pushed it into the assessor. All naturally perestremilis. And he overlaid everyone with a multi-party, ran into Troekurov, in short, screwed everyone up. Throwers ran in, put out Dubrovsky, packed him up and threw him into a sleigh. Troekurov with his sixes also taxied out of the office. The fact that Dubrovsky immediately lost his mind strained him to the fullest and broke off the whole buzz.

4. And now "Jog" through the literature is funny and interesting.

1. What is the name of the type of drama in which the depicted life circumstances and characters cause laughter?
2. What book are these quotes from?

• “After all, we live on this in order to pluck the flowers of pleasure.”
• "The non-commissioned officer's widow flogged herself."
• “Soup in a saucepan arrived right on the boat from Paris.”
• “With Pushkin on a friendly footing”?

1. What funny moments of the comedy "The Government Inspector" do you remember?
2. “They write from Vyatka: one of the local old-timers invented the following original method of cooking fish soup: take a live burbot, first carve it; when his liver will swell from grief...” Where do these lines come from?
3. What newspaper did Mark Twain's character edit?
4. In which book was a face with a long nose and horns drawn, and below - the signature: “You are a picture, I am a portrait, you are a beast, but I am not. I am your muzzle.” “I don’t know who wrote it, but I’m a fool to read.” “Even though you are the seventh, but a fool”?
5. Why did the deacon Vonmiglasov shout: "Lousy devil... They planted you Herods here to our death"?
6. How do the stories of A.P. Chekhov differ from the works of M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin?

5. "Epilogue"

Only real humorous and satirical works live for a long time, delight readers and are often perceived as if they were written about modern situations, that is, they make many generations of readers smile, although they were published in bygone times.

The stories told by Fonvizin, Gogol, Saltykov-Shchedrin, Chekhov, Zoshchenko, Averchenko, Ilf and Petrov and other writers whose names are associated with the healing of the nation are still interesting.

A.P. Chekhov has long been a recognized master domestic literature, who combined in his work soft lyricism, love for a person, pedagogy and good humor. The funny and the sad in Chekhov's stories are intertwined. On the one hand, the reader often laughs at the behavior of the writer's characters, and on the other hand, he sees in their actions a reflection of his own vices and shortcomings.

"Laughter through tears" in the early stories of the writer

soft and sad humor- this characteristic almost all of Chekhov's works. She showed up in his early stories.

For example, the famous story “The Horse Name”, which makes the reader sincerely laugh, watching how the negligent father of the family, along with all the household members, is trying to unravel the “horse name” of the dentist. However, even behind this cheerful scene there is some authorial sadness: people waste their time, being interested not in a person, but only in his ridiculous surname.

We meet the same thing in the story "The Death of an Official". It conveys the fate of the petty official Chervyakov, who made a mistake (he sneezed on the general's bald head in the theater) and died from worries about this. The very atmosphere of the story is humorous, but at the end of the work the reader experiences a feeling of bitterness: the main character dies from his own fear, the reasons for which are actually insignificant.

Funny and sad as a reflection of the imperfection of the human world

The funny in Chekhov's stories always comes to the fore, and the sad is hidden behind this facade. This happens at least famous story"Chameleon". Its main character gives diametrically opposite orders about a small dog that causes inconvenience to passers-by, depending on the assumptions of people from the crowd, to whom this dog belongs: a poor person or a rich and noble person. The subservience of the "chameleon" causes sincere laughter from readers, but this is also laughter through tears. After all, many people also behave duplicitously, obsequiously and deceitfully.

We observe a similar scene in the story "Thick and Thin". A chance meeting of two comrades who once studied together at the gymnasium, at first looks very sincere, until it comes to the official position of the "thin" and "fat" gentlemen. It turns out that the “fat” comrade occupies a post much higher than the “thin” one. After this circumstance is clarified, no spiritual conversation is possible anymore. Former friends diverge from each other, because in a world of falsehood and false glory, they cannot communicate on an equal footing. Readers of this story cannot help but smile when studying such a scene, however, it is a sad smile.

We meet the same plot collisions in the story "Intruder". Readers are well aware that a peasant who removed nuts from a railway track in order to use them to catch fish is not at all a dangerous criminal. The scene of his interrogation looks ridiculous. However, the reader laughs and pities this illiterate hero, who can suffer greatly for his forced ignorance. This story revealed another characteristic feature of Chekhov's works: they very often say that people from the intelligentsia, who have power and are educated, are not ready to listen and understand what ordinary people live in. Estates share the abyss that interferes with human relationships.

The reception of sad irony as the basis of the composition of Chekhov's works

The sadness in Chekhov's stories is confirmed by the fact that life itself is imperfect. However, the writer teaches us to overcome this imperfection by turning to kind and gentle humor. Chekhov himself, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, joked a lot, however, his jokes also turned out to be sad.

It is the writer who owns such an aphoristic, but filled with melancholy phrase: “A wonderful day today. Either go to drink tea, or hang yourself. True, he was not always so uncompromising. There are other lighter sayings of his. “It smells like autumn,” Chekhov wrote in one of his letters to a friend. – I love Russian autumn. Something unusually sad, friendly and beautiful. I would take it and fly away somewhere with the cranes.

Chekhov often uses the technique of sad irony in his works, but this irony is healing in itself: it helps the reader to look at the world of human relationships as if from the outside, teaches to think, feel and love.

Literary critics often compare Chekhov's funny and sad stories with fragments of a broken mirror, whose name is life itself. Reading these works, we see in them a reflection of ourselves, so we ourselves become wiser and more patient.

An analysis of some of Chekhov's works showed that "sad" and "funny" are often side by side in the author's work. These conclusions will be useful for students in grades 6-7 when preparing an essay on the topic "Funny and sad in Chekhov's stories."

February's most popular materials for your class.

Textbook for grade 5

Literature

About the funny literary work. Humor

Let's talk about the funny in the work, about the role that laughter plays...

But can laughter "play a role"? After all, laughter is just when it's funny!

Right. However, laughter is different from laughter, and the writer is not at all indifferent to what kind of laughter the reader will laugh with. When creating a story, he thought in advance on whom and why he would send cheerful arrows of laughter.

And these arrows strike accurately and can, at the request of the author, either touch lightly, or prick harder, or even nail the one who deserves it to the pillory. Cheerful arrows of laughter can quickly knock down the magnificent clothes in which an insignificant, swaggering creature has dressed up, and show what it really is.

Here you are reading and completely forgot about the author, carried away by events. And he's here with you. It is he who makes you laugh on this particular page, and not on another, and together with laughter he gives you thoughts and feelings, through a joke helps you to discern, understand and critically evaluate something on your own ...

Laughter can be cheerful, kind - scenes, episodes of the work that cause it, we call humorous. And sometimes there is angry, angry laughter - it is caused by satirical works; they call people to protest, arouse contempt for a painted character, a phenomenon, they force people to act.

Charles Dickens and his literary characters

Laughter in the works of Dickens expresses not only the position of the author in relation to his characters (which is quite a common thing), but also his understanding of the personal position of a person in the world. Humor is present in Dickens' novels as an expression of the author's reaction to what is happening. Unsuspecting characters are constantly being laughed at. Describing the small, touching life of his characters, the author, on the one hand, fixes them in it, and on the other hand, brings them into some other reality. Something more is revealed to us than the pastime and feelings of certain heroes. Consider, for example, a small fragment from Boz's Sketches: “Here the old people liked to indulge in long stories about what the Thames was like in times past, when the weapons factory was not yet built, and no one thought about Waterloo Bridge; having finished the story, they shook their heads meaningfully as a warning to the young generation of coal miners crowding around them, and expressed doubt whether it would all end well; after which the tailor, taking his pipe out of his mouth, noticed that it was good, if good, but only hardly, and if anything, then there was nothing to be done - what a mysterious judgment, expressed in a prophetic tone, invariably met with the unanimous support of those present.

By itself, this scene does not carry anything remarkable. It is illuminated and filled with meaning through the eyes of the author. Emphasizing the absolute lack of content of the conversation, he points out to us how good these people are, living their simple, unpretentious life. The mediocrity of these heroes is ridiculed, but in such a way that the author at the same time seeks to soften and elevate it in every possible way. And if laughter, as a rule, reduces the object at which it is directed, then, possessing this gift, Dickens does not abuse it, as a result of which his characters become both defenseless - under the revealing gaze of the author, and protected - by his affection. But such a view is contradictory. If the understanding that a person should be loved with his weaknesses and shortcomings has Christian roots, then the incessant exposure and ridicule of these shortcomings is something completely different in relation to Christianity and alien to it. The imperfection of the world, therefore, ceases to be perceived as temporary, but, on the contrary, is legitimized. And in this sense, laughter is fraught with a sense of hopelessness. Laughing himself arranges the space around him. He evaluates and measures the world. And, consequently, the center of the world is found in itself, and not outside of it. But since, fixing the flaws, he can in no way affect their correction, the world under his gaze becomes non-existent, devoid of harmony and order. A similar picture is given to us by the choice of heroes who become objects of laughter. After all, if these are people who believe in the orderliness of the world and are looking for the high and beautiful, then it seems obvious to us that the attitude of the author himself is something completely opposite. But if we say that skepticism is found in Dickens's view of the romantic aspirations and naivety of his heroes, then we will not be entirely right, since in his novels we can find many examples of the way with which trepidation and confidence he himself tells us about some sentimental history.

All the hardships and experiences of the heroes resonate in his soul. But although misfortune is present in abundance in the works of Dickens, nevertheless, they remain at a certain distance in relation to the reality in which the man of his world should exist. It seems that this world does not contain misfortune, does not have the resources to comprehend it. Thus Dickens's account of tragic destinies some heroes can touch us, cause tears, and at the same time remain completely groundless. Giving food to feelings, it will not contain those meanings without which our life would be undermined in its ultimate foundations. Troubles and misfortunes, in this case, no longer become some unresolved and painful moments of our reality. The world is set in some order, and we have no real cause for concern. And in this case, the description of cruelty towards goodies, as well as the sacrifice and nobility of the latter, is necessary in order for our sensitivity to come to light. Joining this kind of reality, Dickens is aware of its groundlessness and some imaginary. Which makes it quite understandable Dickens' gradual transition to ridiculing her.

“Shall I speak of the lamentations and groans that were heard after Miss Wardle saw that she had been abandoned by the unfaithful Jingle? Shall we bring to light Mr. Pickwick's masterful depiction of this heartbreaking scene? Before us is his Notebook, which is irrigated with tears caused by philanthropy and sympathy; one word - and she is in the hands of a typesetter. But no! Armed with resilience! Let us not torment the heart of the reader with the depiction of such suffering! There is irony in all these solemn expressions. The “unmarried aunt” herself, who has already reached fifty years of age and is trying in vain to get married, is a caricature character and can hardly cause heart torment in us, as the author fears. Yet open ridicule turns out to be impossible. Demonstrating to us the imperfection of his heroes, Dickens always reveals his closeness to them and the desire to immediately justify them. It seems that he cannot deny himself the pleasure of somehow making fun of them, but at the same time he does not stop stroking their heads.

But, despite the abundance of love and warmth that Dickens pours out on his heroes, his attitude towards them contains not only Christian motives. With all his attention to their destinies, he is always in a state of deep peace of mind, to maintain which, perhaps, humor serves. Laughter does not require any supernatural effort from a person. The laughing one does not lose his temper towards another, but, on the contrary, fixes himself in something of his own. After all, if the ambiguity that can be traced in the hero's worldview, somehow related to issues unresolved for the author himself, then the story about this character could not be completely calm and impassive. Such, for example, is Russian literature. Turning to the work of Dostoevsky, we will see that the problems that concern his heroes are a direct expression of what the author himself is trying to explain to himself. He does not distance himself from the desperation that his characters experience. This shows his confidence in the fact that the center that orders the world is outside of it. This is what allows him to descend into the abyss of despair, without fear for the consequences. The possibility of gaining the fullness of knowledge is not, in this case, some kind of distant and sweet dream, as we meet it in Dickens, as a result of which there is no need to artificially fix oneself in an obscure and disordered world.

So, if Dostoevsky selflessly follows in the footsteps of his heroes, then Dickens, giving them complete freedom, does not let anyone into his own world. Laughter somehow keeps him from revealing himself to the reader. Precisely due to the fact that the difficulties that Dickens' heroes encounter on their way are not the difficulties of the author himself, there is no single center to which they could aspire together. Both the author himself and his characters feel entitled to adhere to the views that, for whatever reason, they choose for themselves. Thus, the main thing here is the very fact of human existence, which is so ontologically fixed that it does not require any additional justification. Indeed, people living in ordinary human life those who say the most banal things become no less attractive to us than those who would be distinguished by intelligence, nobility and heroic deeds. “Here is a close circle surrounded by two respectable persons who, having consumed a fair amount of bitter beer with gin in the morning, did not agree on some issues of private life and are just now preparing to resolve their dispute by assault, much to the enthusiasm of other inhabitants of this and neighboring houses divided into two camps on the basis of sympathy for one side or the other.

Give it to her, Sarah, give it to her right! exclaims the old lady in encouragement, apparently not having enough time to finish her toilette. - Why are you standing on ceremony? If it was my husband who decided to treat her behind my back, I would scratch her eyes out, the bastard!

These heroes cannot cause contempt for themselves, although they are loose beyond measure, since the very space of the human in all its manifestations in the world of Dickens is fundamental and deserves all respect. It is it that is the basis in which the meeting of the author and his characters, as well as the latter with each other, takes place. In the case when it becomes impossible to believe in the existence of true holiness, apophatic knowledge about God and man, the world, as it were, condenses and concentrates in itself. As a result of the fact that the basis of everything is found in the human world with all its imperfections and vices, something common and unshakable for all is revealed. But what appeared to us here as one, in fact, becomes a condition for the existence of the particular. After all, if the human is valuable in itself, then any owner of this nature turns out to be rooted in something genuine. And thus the author, who tells about people, encounters in them the same self-sufficiency that he himself possesses. They can no longer be helpless and demand constant participation.

If the center is in a person, then he is, in a sense, divine, and therefore, chaos cannot be found in him - something unexpected, incomprehensible. Everything that Dickens finds in his characters is already familiar to him and to us, and this is what causes laughter. The human kind of enjoys itself. Being turned to itself, it does not become impoverished. The laugher always rises above the objects of laughter, but still does not stand far from them. Pushing them away from him, he needs them in a sense. But in this his desire is manifested not for another, but for himself. When the meaning of someone's words and deeds becomes transparent to the observer, then the latter's talents are revealed. He only recognizes himself, but by no means receives something new from a person.

Let us turn to the work of the writer, whom we already mentioned in the first chapter, namely, Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice. Her heroes are distinguished by the same calm and even fun that we already know from the novels of Dickens: “Mr. Bennet's expectations were fully confirmed. The stupidity of his cousin fully justified his hopes. And, listening to the guest with a serious expression on his face, he amused himself from the bottom of his heart. However, apart from the rare occasions when he glanced at Elizabeth, he did not need a partner with whom he could share the pleasure.

By the time of tea in the evening, however, the dose he had taken was already so significant that Mr. Bennet was glad to escort his cousin into the living room, asking him to read something to the ladies.

Laughing exhausts for himself, in relation to which he shows his irony. He cannot endlessly look at each of them. And, at the same time, he seems to really become the only one, but this happens in such a way that he gives everyone the opportunity to be one. Leaving to himself his guesses about another person, in reality he does not interfere in his life. This is impossible precisely because the world, closed on the human, as mentioned above, should not contain arbitrariness, because. bears the attributes of the divine. And in the case of intentional interference in the life of another, arbitrariness arises, because it is impossible to calculate your strengths and abilities in such a way as to know for sure that all your actions will benefit a person. This is possible only if the world is opened from the human into the divine. And the responsibility that the one who helps another then takes upon himself is correlated with a world full of harmony. The feeling of the latter is inaccessible to those who legitimize human nature in its untransformed state. If the world in which people participate in each other's lives is not limited to the human world, the need for the distance that we see between them in Dickens' novels is removed. If it is present in their relationship, it is not ontologically fixed.

But, returning to Dickens, we can say that laughter in his novels carries an ontology. It helps the author to build the world in such a way that both the detachment of the other and his presence in it become important for a person at the same time. Independence from others is maintained by continuous contacts with them. Loneliness within this reality is impossible. Pushing away from himself everything that, it would seem, should not exist, the man of Dickens' world at the same time consolidates this. Revealing, as already mentioned, his abilities through contact with the world, he begins to feel in the latter an inner necessity, which, however, is not dictated by the desire to unite with himself alone. This allows him to look into the world of another, without ceasing to feel his own stability. But even this degree of openness allows us to see some scope in Dickensian reality. People of the most diverse destinies and characters color this world with unique shades, which, nevertheless, closing in the soul of the author, continues to be imbued with a sense of the impossibility of finally overcoming its fragmentation. An attempt to resolve the latter by turning to God runs into a constant feeling of unpreparedness for this step, which is reinforced by the fact that the human in itself creates support. And speaking of humor as one of the components of this support, we can turn to the German writer of the twentieth century - Hermann Hesse. In his novel "Steppenwolf" the theme of laughter repeatedly sounds, which is directly related to immortality. Take, for example, an excerpt from a poem composed by the protagonist of the novel at the moment of some special insight. “Well, we live on the ether, / We are in the ice of the astral height / We don’t know youth and old age, / We are deprived of age and sex. / We are on your fears, squabbles, rumors, / On your earthly swarming / Like spinning we look at the stars, / Our days are immeasurably long. / Only quietly shaking his head / Yes, he shined on the roads, / In the cold of cosmic winter / We breathe endlessly in the skies. / We are embraced by the cold, / Our eternal laughter is cold and ringing.

Laughter in this case, being the focus of everything, holds and repels all things from itself at the same time. The eternity presented to us by Hermann Hesse contains nothing of what we encounter in the world. It constantly denies everything that fills our life. But the detachment itself cannot arise in isolation from the subject to which it relates, as a result of which, in some way, it closes on this subject. All things are seized in the state in which they are at a particular moment, depriving them of the possibility of further development. But this fixation itself carries a sense of triumph and completeness.

What is important for us in such sensations is that their occurrence is possible only as a result of a person's going out of himself. Indeed, the expectation and achievement of completeness implies the existence of disparate units that it could include. Celebration is also characterized by the overcoming of some obstacle, and, therefore, it must necessarily contain subjective and objective realities. Thus, we see that the point, which in this case acts as a limit, has its origins in the personal, human. Through the effort of the will, the human recognizes the human, but since there is no appeal to revelation, this flash itself carries a limitation. The event develops horizontally. A person learns something about himself and another, but this knowledge is of such a kind that, despite the fact that something really existing at the moment is illuminated, the direction in which it is possible to change remains closed. And if we can attribute such a movement from oneself to another with an inevitable return to oneself to both German and English culture, then here we will have to separate them. The very first thing that catches your eye is the absence in the attitude of the Englishman of that coldness that permeates the creations of German authors. This can be explained by the fact that the exit of the German from himself turns out to be more strong-willed and uncompromising than the one that the Englishman does. The love of the latter for comfort and peace does not allow him to focus on the object with his whole being. Although representatives of both cultures, through laughter, as a kind of correlation between subject and object, carry ontology, the Englishman, nevertheless, does not bring this move to a semantic end. His path, affecting the ultimate foundations, always rests on something purely human, which has no depth in itself. He inevitably discovers some weakness in himself that prevents further searches. He seeks support in what was already created before his intervention.

Charles Dickens and his literary characters

An illustration of this is the abundance of banal sayings in the works of the same Dickens, the lack of content of which the author, of course, is aware of. While grinning at them, he is not looking for something deeper and more convincing. And thus, his irony is on the verge of ultimate meanings and some simple human pleasure. The presence of the former allows the latter not to become completely empty and vulgar. The latter brings some warmth in contrast to the German cold. This is due, perhaps, to the fact that, allowing himself to be weak, the Englishman reveals the reality of love, thereby relying on Christian foundations. Confidence in one's own resources, which gives rise to irony, is coupled here with humility, which reveals itself in the fact that he can trust those truths that exist for him, regardless of the level of his understanding.

Magazine "Beginning" No. 15, 2006

Dickens C. Essays on Boz. Collected works in 30 volumes. M., 1957. T. 1. S. 120.

Posthumous notes pickwick club. Decree. ed. T. 2. S. 173.

There. T. 1. Sketches of Boz, Mudfog notes. S. 126.

Osten D. Pride and Prejudice. Collected works in 3 volumes. M., 1988. T. 1. S. 432–433.