Runny nose

Definition of "comic". Great Soviet Encyclopedia - comic

The main forms of comic Yu.B. Borev considers satire and humor. The term "comic" is accepted in aesthetic literature as a word denoting a general and broad concept; satire and humor, as already noted, are considered forms of comedy. Satire is the highest and most acute form of the comic.

WITH English word"humor" literally means laughter, comedy, quirk, mood. For the first time given word used in literature by the 16th century English playwright Ben Jonson, writing the comedies “Every One with His Folly” and “Every One Without His Folly.” Later, the English romantic of the 19th century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, would note: “Humor stands out among other types of wit, which are impersonal, not colored by individual understanding and feeling. At least in high humor there is always a hint of connection with a certain idea, which is not inherently finite, but finite in form...". Coleridge also believed that humor is a certain “state of mind, its difficult and irresistible talent, talent, which gives a mocking edge to everything that it absorbs daily and hourly...”.

Humor? This is the ability to notice something comic, unusual, funny in all aspects of life. But, as you know, humor? this is also one of the literary categories, which has its own forms: satire, irony, parody, sarcasm, anecdote, etc. It is these types that we notice in the literary works of different writers.

Many literary researchers believe that “the origins of humor trace back to archaic, ritual, playful and festive laughter,” but it was realized only in the 18th century. In Russian literature, the pinnacle of satire is considered to be early work N.V. Gogol. His humor is close to the folk culture of laughter. Throughout his work, he retains the ability to introduce humor in its various forms.

Humor? This is a mocking attitude towards the characters and everyday life of people. Humor? This is a harmless laughter, combined with pity, condescending, sympathetic. Allegorically the purpose of humor? show tears through laughter.

A modern branch of science devoted to the study of various phenomena related to laughter is called Humor studies, humor research. In the 1970s, the International Society for Humor Studies was created, which brought together scientists from different countries involved in different scientific disciplines.

Modern researchers rely on a three-part classification of theories of humor proposed by the American philosopher Doc. Morreale and includes superiority theories, incongruity theories and relief theories.

Superiority theories assert the aggressive nature of laughter and see the main source of pleasure in humor in the sudden elevation of the subject of laughter above the object. Plato called the essence of laughter the correction of misconceptions arising from the inflated self-esteem of the object, or as the modern researcher A.A. formulated it. Sychev “a mixture of sadness and pleasure”, where sadness consists of contrition over the mistakes of others, and joy? in confidence in the absence of these delusions in the laugher." Aristotle shifted the emphasis from the ethical to the aesthetic in one of the most famous definitions of laughter: "Funny is a certain mistake and disgrace, but painless and not bringing suffering to anyone."

The most famous and vivid definition of humor within the framework of this theory was given in the 17th century by the English philosopher G. Hobbes: “Sudden fame is a passion that produces those grimaces that are called laughter. It is caused in people or by some of their own unexpected an action that pleased them, or the perception of some shortcoming or deformity in another, in comparison with which they themselves suddenly rise in their own eyes."

In modern times, a prominent representative of the theory of superiority is the American scientist C. Gruner, who considers aggression to be the cause of laughter, while likening humor to a war game.

According to research by Canadian scholar R. Martin, superiority theories “emphasize the social and emotional aspects of humor and draw attention to its paradoxical nature, combining social and aggressive elements. This approach also provides a theoretical basis for viewing humor as a way of promoting a sense of victory over people and situations that threaten us, transcendence over circumstances in life that might otherwise overwhelm us, and liberation from the limitations of life."

In the theory of relief, its main exponent and founder is 3. Freud, although even earlier it was argued that the essence of the comic? in the pleasure of releasing nervous energy. Humor, according to Freud, ? in the narrow sense of the term? one of a number defense mechanisms, which allows us to perceive negative situations without being consumed by unpleasant emotions. In the article “Humor,” Freud wrote that within the framework of humor, the superego is no longer a prohibitive and strict parent, but a consoling, supportive and protective one. Thus, according to Freud, humor, as opposed to wit,? This is one of the most developed defense mechanisms, it is a “precious and rare gift.”

Mismatch theories represent the largest group. These theories claim that the essence of the comic lies in the discrepancy between our expectations and reality. Early comic scholar Kit-Spiegel summarized the idea of incongruity or contradiction as the basis of humor as follows: “Humor arising from incongruent, inappropriate combinations of ideas” in situations or representations of ideas or situations that differ from conventional representations.

The most famous definition of laughter in the group of theories of incongruity was given by the German philosopher I. Kant: “Laughter is the affect of the sudden transformation of tense expectation into nothingness.” A. Kästder’s definition of humor is also popular. According to him, humor is based on the process of bisociation, which “understands the formation of an original connection between various elements of two situations (“associative contexts”), which forms a new meaning<...>Laughter occurs as a release of tension when seemingly incompatible things can be combined, resulting in new meaning" .

From this definition grows the leading linguistic theory of humor, developed by V. Raskin and S. Attardo. In his General theory verbal humor" they argued that humor in a text is found where two scripts coexist that should not coexist, and some explanation is given for this proximity.

As many researchers note, there is no single theory of humor, but recently attempts have been made to create a concept that would take into account all previous achievements in the field of humor studies. For example, the modern English philosopher S. Critchley published a book “On Humor” in 2002, which takes into account various theories. Critchley thinks humor? it is the dominant feature of human existence, the key to understanding and realizing the special human condition. Critchley in his work synthesizes the theories of incongruity and relief, highlighting a number of functions of humor: critical, epistemological, cognitive, protective. The philosopher places the main emphasis on the humanistic nature of laughter (there is no laughter outside of man), its social nature (laughter should be immersed in society) and borderline nature, its constant walking on the edge of one or another dichotomy (man? animal, me? other, long time? moment, etc.), as well as on its reflexive nature, the inevitable coincidence of the subject and object of laughter (man himself is funny).

Modern Russian anthropologist A.G. Kozintsev, studying laughter, its origins and functions, believes that “in order for the theory of humor to be correct, it must be metasemantic and metacognitive, and not just semantic and cognitive.” He sees the essence of humor, first of all, in the opposition “serious-frivolous,” and “all other oppositions [in humor] are neutralized.” The key element of humor manifests itself, according to the scientist, as “a neutralizing meta-attitude of the subject towards his own seriousness. In other words, humor<...>is exclusively reflective and self-intentional. His true objects? these are the thoughts, feelings and words of the subject himself. Humor strips them of their own meanings and plays with empty mental representations."

Canadian humorist and satirist S. Leacock writes about humor in his works “Humor, as I Understand It” (1916), “Humor, Its Theory and Technique” (1935), “Humor and Humanity” (1937). According to Leacock's definition, humor is reflection on the contradictions of life and their artistic expression. Humor in its highest form is an explanation of life, an interpretation of its phenomena; it is generated by the contrasts of reality, the inconsistencies between our ideas about life and what exists in it. Laughter is only the first stage of humor. Humor reaches its greatest depth and strength when laughter gives way to a smile, turning into tears at the sight of the injustice of our lot in life. The highest form of humor is a mixture of tears and laughter.

In the article “Humor, as I understand it,” S. Leacock reveals the following meaning of humor: “The deep basis of what is commonly called humor is visible only to those few who have consciously or accidentally thought about its nature. The humor of the peoples of the world, in its best examples , is the greatest creation of civilization. It's about not about the paroxysms of laughter caused by the antics of a clown sprinkled with flour or smeared with soot, performing on the stage of a wretched variety show, but about truly great humor that illuminates and elevates our literature in best case scenario once or, many, twice a century. The Canadian humorist emphasizes that humor is not created by empty jokes and cheap wordplay; it is alien to ridiculous, meaningless plot tricks that are supposed to cause laughter; it comes from the deep contrasts of life itself: dreams do not correspond to reality; what excites us so vividly and passionately today turns out to be an insignificant trifle the next; the most burning pain The deepest grief subside over time, and then, looking back at the path we have traveled, we mentally return to the past, like old people who remember the furious quarrels of childhood, mixing tears with a smile. And then the funny (in its broad sense) merges with the pathetic, forming that eternal and inextricable unity of tears and laughter, which is our lot in the earthly vale."

Leacock repeatedly emphasized the great importance of humor, arguing that in its best examples it is the greatest creation of civilization.

So, at the heart of many theories of humor is the belief that the cause of laughter and the main mechanism of the comic is contradiction, incongruity, ambivalence or deviation from the norm. In modern studies of humor, the problem of resolving this contradiction is often raised. Today, this is one of the most important issues in the study of problems of humor and the comic.

Thus, humor is everything that is associated with the generation or perception of phenomena that cause laughter. Humor - special kind comic, combining sympathy and ridicule, an externally comic interpretation and internal involvement in what is funny. In humor, under the guise of the funny, there is serious attitude to the subject of laughter.

Comic

COMIC - see Aesthetics.

Literary encyclopedia. - At 11 t.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction . Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929-1939 .

Comic

(from the Greek komikos - cheerful, funny), funny, causing laughter, fun. Throughout human history, it has been embodied in different types and forms. The crudest form of the comic is farce, a short skit usually shown in booths at fairs. Laughter in a farce is caused by people falling, fights, etc. Farcical techniques survived until the era of cinema - the comedy of Charles Chaplin’s films was built on them. More tall forms comic - humor And satire. They differ from each other in that humor, as a rule, is dominated by a positive attitude towards the subject (for example, the humorous portrayal of England in J. C. Jerome's story “Three Men in a Boat and a Dog”). Satire, on the contrary, exposes, it is aimed at negative traits ridiculed (eg. satirical image Russia in “The Inspector General” and “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol). The comic can be hidden under the guise of the serious - this technique is called irony(for example, the poem “ Moral man» N.A. Nekrasova).
The techniques that create the comic are varied. They can be divided into two groups. The first is techniques based on the discrepancy between the expected and the real. Thus, the comedy of a farce is created due to unexpected falls, mistakes, and absurdities. The comic can be based on grotesque– exaggeration of any one trait (for example, the exaggerated hypocrisy of Tartuffe in the comedy of the same name Moliere), on illogicalism(for example, the mayor with a stuffed head in “The History of a City” by M.E. Saltykova-Shchedrin). These methods of creating the comic are used not only in literature, but also in other forms of art - for example, in painting (caricatures, caricatures), in music (“Solo on a typewriter” is a discrepancy, the main part is not performed on a musical instrument). Another group of techniques that create the comic is the bringing together of distant concepts. Such methods include pun(a rapprochement based on the similar sound of words, as, for example, in the comic poems of D. D. Minaev: “The area of rhymes is my element, / And I always write poetry, / Even to the brown Finnish rocks / I address with a pun”), wit, based on a comparison of two objects (for example, in “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol: “The overseer of a charitable institution, Strawberry, is a perfect pig in a yarmulke”).
The most ancient, pre-literary forms of the comic are games. People get the freedom to laugh at everyone, because they seem to be not themselves, fulfilling some role in the game. The beginnings of this are associated with the Greek Dionysian festivals (ko-mos, from which the word ko-mikos comes - a band of mummers), where laughter was caused by dressing people in grotesque, ugly masks and their actions - not on their own behalf, but on behalf of the characters whom they are playing. This tradition was continued in European medieval carnivals. The world at the carnival seemed to turn into its own opposite - laws and regulations no longer applied, one could laugh at the church, superiors, etc. Outside the carnival, this right was retained by jesters at the royal courts - only they could tell the truth about the king and his rule, masking it as a joke.

Literature and language. Modern illustrated encyclopedia. - M.: Rosman. Edited by prof. Gorkina A.P. 2006 .

See what “Comic” is in other dictionaries:

- (from the Greek cheerful, funny, from a cheerful band of mummers at the village festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece), funny. Starting from Aristotle, there is a huge literature about K., its essence and source; the difficulty of its exhaustive explanation is due to ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

Modern encyclopedia

- (Greek komikos cheerful funny, from komos a cheerful band of mummers at a rural festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece), a category of aesthetics meaning funny. Goes back to playful, collective amateur laughter, for example. in carnival games. During... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

COMENIC, detection, fixation by the artist of inconsistencies (inconsistencies, contradictions) in the phenomena of the surrounding reality, their incompleteness or, on the contrary, their excessiveness, atrophy or hypertrophy. The basis of K. as a specific attitude hope... ... Lermontov Encyclopedia

comic- (in psychology) (from khmikуs cheerful, funny) an impulse to laugh, caused by a deliberate discrepancy between what is and what should be. Laughter as an emotional (see emotions) reaction of an individual to the influence of comic stimuli allows symbolic... ... Great psychological encyclopedia

Comic- (Greek komikos cheerful, funny, from komos a cheerful band of mummers at a rural festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece), a category of aesthetics meaning funny. Goes back to playful folk laughter, for example in carnival games. During the development... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary

- (from other Greek κωμῳδία, lat. comoedia) a philosophical category denoting culturally designed, socially and aesthetically significant funny. In aesthetics, the comic is considered the logical correlate of the tragic... Wikipedia

- (from the Greek koikós cheerful, funny, from komos a cheerful band of mummers at a rural festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece) funny. Starting with Aristotle, there is a huge literature about K., its essence and source; exceptional difficulty... Big Soviet encyclopedia

- (Greek kōmikos cheerful, funny, from kōmos a merry band of mummers at a rural festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece), a category of aesthetics meaning funny. Goes back to playful, collective amateur laughter, for example in carnival games... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary

Comic- an aesthetic category denoting everything that is the opposite of the serious and tragic in life and art and that gives rise to a characteristic psychological reaction in a person in the form of a smile, laughter, laughter. The basis of the comic... ... Aesthetics. Encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

Comic in Russian literature of the 20th century. In a collective work devoted to the comic in Russian literature of the 20th century, a wide range of problems related to general patterns literary process, history, theory and...

There is no scientifically substantiated theory of calculus in the monuments of ancient literature that have reached us. The second part of Aristotle's Poetics, which apparently dealt with comedy, has not survived. In the works of Cicero and Quintilian there is a classification of the genera of K. and their intended purpose. for speakers, recommendations on their use. Based on the available data about K., including those contained in Plato and Aristotle, we can conclude: according to the views of the ancients, something is comically ugly, ugly, if it “does not cause suffering to anyone and is not harmful to anyone” (Aristotle). True suffering and death are alien to K. P??? called by K. is an expression of pleasure and disgust, joy and indignation in equal measure: by ridiculing K.-L., a person receives pleasure and release.

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COMIC

from Greek ko – mikОs – cheerful, funny), funny, causing laughter, fun. Throughout the history of mankind it has been embodied in different types and forms. The crudest form of the comic is farce, a short skit that was usually shown in booths at fairs. Laughter in a farce is caused by people falling, fights, etc. Farcical techniques survived until the era of cinema - the comedy of Charles Chaplin’s films was built on them. Higher forms of the comic are humor and satire. They differ from each other in that humor, as a rule, is dominated by a positive attitude towards the subject (for example, the humorous portrayal of England in J. C. Jerome's story “Three Men in a Boat and a Dog”). Satire, on the contrary, exposes; it is aimed at the negative features of the ridiculed (for example, the satirical depiction of Russia in “The Inspector General” and “ Dead souls"N.V. Gogol). The comic can be hidden under the guise of the serious - this technique is called irony (for example, the poem “The Moral Man” by N. A. Nekrasov).

The techniques that create the comic are varied. They can be divided into two groups. The first is techniques based on the discrepancy between the expected and the real. Thus, the comedy of a farce is created through unexpected falls, mistakes, and absurdities. The comic can be based on the grotesque - an exaggeration of any one feature (for example, the exaggerated hypocrisy of Tartuffe in the comedy of the same name by Moliere), on alogism (for example, the mayor with a stuffed head in “The History of a City” by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin) . These methods of creating the comic are used not only in literature, but also in other forms of art - for example, in painting (caricatures, caricatures), in music (“Solo on a typewriter” is a discrepancy, the main part is not performed on a musical instrument). Another group of techniques that create the comic is the bringing together of distant concepts. Such techniques include a pun (a rapprochement based on the similar sound of words, as, for example, in the comic poems of D. D. Minaev: “The area of rhymes is my element, / And I always write poetry, / Even to the brown Finnish rocks / I turn with a pun"), wit based on a comparison of two objects (for example, in “The Inspector General” by N.V. Gogol: “The overseer of a charitable establishment, Strawberry, is a perfect pig in a yarmulke”).

The most ancient, pre-literary forms of the comic are games. People get the freedom to laugh at everyone, because they seem to be not themselves, fulfilling some role in the game. The beginnings of this are associated with the Greek Dionysian festivals (ko-mos, from which the word ko-mikОs comes - a band of mummers), where laughter was caused by dressing people in grotesque, ugly masks and their actions - not on their own behalf, but on behalf of the characters whom they are playing. This tradition was continued in European medieval carnivals. The world at the carnival seemed to turn into its own opposite - laws and regulations no longer applied, one could laugh at the church, superiors, etc. Outside the carnival, this right was retained by jesters at the royal courts - only they could tell the truth about the king and his rule, masking it as a joke.

TYPES OF COMIC IN LITERATURE

COMIC(from the Greek komikos - cheerful, funny) - funny, causing laughter, fun; a means of revealing life's contradictions through ridicule.

Basic types of comic : humor, irony, satire, sarcasm.

At the heart of the comic there is always some kind of inconsistency, a violation of the norm.

This discrepancy may be at the linguistic level ( absurdities, slips of the tongue, imitation of a speech impediment, accent, out of place sound foreign speech ), at the level of the plot situation ( misunderstanding, one character is mistaken for another, misrecognition, wrong actions), at the character level ( the contradiction between self-esteem and the impression made, between word and deed, between desired and actual etc.).

Throughout the history of mankind, the comic has been embodied in different types and forms.

HUMOR

HUMOR- a special type of comic, depiction of heroes in a funny way.

Unlike satire, humor - cheerful, good-natured laughter, helping a person to free himself from prejudices, erroneous beliefs, and shortcomings.

For example, Gogol's story " Christmas Eve"literally permeated with humor (description of the capricious beauty Oksana, Chub, etc.).

Humor- the most universal manifestation of the comic. Despite the contradiction associated in humor positive and negative feelings, general " balance“When perceived, it evokes a feeling of pleasure.

Humor- This is a friendly, good-natured, but not toothless laughter. Revealing the essence of a phenomenon, he strives to improve it, cleanse it of shortcomings, helping to more fully reveal what is socially valuable. Humor sees in his object some aspects that correspond to the ideal.

Object of humor , while deserving of criticism, still generally retains its attractiveness.

A specific feature of humor is the presence in it of a certain moral position and moral qualities, both on the part of the comedian and on the part of the recipient of humor. At the same time amazing humor effect is that while laughing at others, we sometimes don’t notice that we are laughing at ourselves at the same time.

Humor occupies a huge place in life; it accompanies us in all our affairs. This is an indicator of a person’s moral health, an indicator of his ability to keenly notice everything and react to events in the world around him.

Even the so-called gloomy» humor has a well-known positive meaning. Remember the work of the German writer E. Remarque, the humor of the front-line soldiers in the book “ No change on the Western Front" Remarque himself wrote about this: “ We joke not because we have a sense of humor, no, we try not to lose our sense of humor because without it we would be lost».

In general, humor strives for a complex assessment, like life itself, free from the one-sidedness of generally accepted stereotypes. On a deeper (serious) level, humor reveals the sublime behind the insignificant, wisdom behind the insane, the true nature of things behind the capricious, and the sad behind the funny - “ through laughter visible to the world... tears invisible to him"(according to N.V. Gogol).

In Russian liter of the 19th century. Gogol's humor is diverse and highly original (from folk-festive laughter " Evenings on the farm..." And " heroic"humor" Taras Bulba"to the point of bizarre grotesquery" Nose", idyllic humor " Old world landowners" and sad in " Overcoats»).

Humor in a variety of functions and shades is inherent in F.M. Dostoevsky, A.N. Ostrovsky.

The stories and plays of A.P. Chekhov are permeated with humor. Wonderful samples various types humor in Soviet literature - by I.E. Babel, M.M. Zoshchenko, M.A. Bulgakova, M.A. Sholokhova, A.T. Tvardovsky, V.M. Shukshina.

IRONY

IRONY- a special type of comic, ridicule, ridicule.

With irony, the negative meaning is hidden behind the external positive form of the statement.

For example:

Servant of powerful masters,
With what noble courage
Thunder with your free speech
All those who have their mouths covered.
(F.I. Tyutchev " You were not born Polish....")

IN " Dead souls» N.V. Gogol ironically portrays landowners and officials. The irony in Nozdryov’s characterization lies in the contradiction between its first part, where people like Nozdryov are called good comrades, and the subsequent words that they “ despite all this, they can be beaten very painfully».

Irony- a technique in which a word or statement acquires, in the context of speech, a meaning that is opposite to its literal meaning, or that denies it or casts doubt on it.

A hint of ironic subtext may be contained not in the word or statement itself, but in the context, intonation, and in prose - even in the situation with which the word or statement is associated.

For example, Chichikov speaks of the police chief as follows: “ What a well-read man! We lost to him at whist... until the very late roosters»

The humor of Gogol's stories and poems " Dead souls“is carried out precisely through the feigned serious tone of the narrator, supposedly naively accepting all the absurdities and shortcomings of the depicted life, supposedly viewing the depicted life through the eyes of his heroes.

In both irony and humor, two attitudes of the author to the depicted are given: one is feigned, the other is genuine, in both irony and humor the intonation is opposed to the literal meaning of the statement, but in irony the intonation carries a genuine discrediting attitude, in humor - feigned respect attitude.

Distinguishable theoretically, irony and humor often transform into each other and are intertwined to the point of indistinguishability in artistic practice, which is facilitated not only by the presence common elements, commonality of functions, but also the common intellectualistic nature of these two methods of artistic discrediting: playing with semantic contrasts, contrasting logically opposite concepts require clarity of thought in the process of its creation and appeal to it in the process of reader perception.

Irony not only highlights flaws, that is, it serves the purpose of discrediting, but also has the ability to ridicule, expose unfounded claims, giving these claims themselves an ironic meaning, as if forcing the ridiculed phenomenon to ironize itself.

In its stylistic implementation, irony uses a number of forms, covering the most diverse material in volume and nature, sometimes localized in a single word, sometimes penetrating the entire work as a whole.

Irony can also arise from a collision of a situation with the language in which the author unfolds this situation, for example, when stylizing the author's speech into a high, solemn style. Vocabulary and syntactic archaisms in Shchedrin play this role, and in this role they entered our journalistic tradition. The very rhythm of a poem can serve as the same tool of ironic stylization, for example, in Pushkin’s couplet about the Russian translation “ Iliad»:

« Kriv was Gnedich the poet, the translator of the blind Homer, - his translation is side by side similar to the model ", where the ironically drawn parallel between Gnedich and Homer is emphasized by the use of ancient rhythm - the elegiac distich.

SATIRE

SATIRE- a special type of comic: ridiculing, exposing the negative aspects of life, depicting them in an absurd, caricatured form.

For example, it is clearly satirically described in “ The Master and Margarita"Bulgakov" Griboedov's house", where the association of writers MASSOLIT was located. There is little reminiscent of literature here, and all the doors are hung with signs like “ Fish and cottage section ».

Satire represents the merciless ridicule and denial of a phenomenon or the human type as a whole.

Satire denies the world, executes his imperfection in the name of transformation in accordance with some ideal program.

Unlike humor, satirical laughter is a menacing, cruel, withering laughter. In order to hurt evil, social deformities, vulgarity, immorality and the like as much as possible, the phenomenon is often deliberately exaggerated and exaggerated.

For example, in the satirical comedies of V. Mayakovsky “ Bath" And " Bug“The action does not coincide with the real course of life. People from the future cannot meet us. There cannot be a boss like Glavnachpups in “ Banya" And many circumstances of the play " Bug"also do not have an exact analogy with reality. But exaggeration, a pointed form makes visible our shortcomings that were and are in our lives.

Satirical ridicule is achieved using techniques such as hyperbola(i.e. exaggeration to extraordinary proportions) or grotesque (fantastically ugly image).

For example, one of the mayors in “ Stories of a city» Saltykov-Shchedrin with serious look, discussing the issue of building a bridge in the city, asks: “ How will we build the bridge—along or across the river? “And the impenetrable stupidity of a person occupying a responsible position immediately becomes clear.

Hyperbole and grotesque are masterfully used by V. Mayakovsky in the poem “ Those who sat down for a meeting", in which he " smashing" ridicules all kinds of meetings and mocks those sitting; what they constantly do is sit and re-meet. A person cannot get an appointment with his boss, and the secretary explains why:

“She’s at two meetings at once,
per day
Twenty meetings
We need to keep up.
Involuntarily you have to split into two.
Up to the waist here
And the rest
There".

Satire does not strive for an exact reproduction of life, verisimilitude or similarity. It can enlarge a character, sharpen its individual aspects, and exaggerate the circumstances in which people act. The main thing for her is to expose, to make visible those phenomena of life against which she directs her sharp edge.

Satire- the genre is bold. It connects the unprecedented with the real, existing; exaggeration, hyperbole - with the everyday traits of the characters and life circumstances.

This freedom of funds is dictated by her main task: make you see those vices and shortcomings that people pass by in life without noticing them. The laughter here is cruel, castigating, because it is aimed at everything that does not correspond to legal, political, aesthetic and moral ideals. Therefore, satire does not know condescension and pity.

The forms of satirical works are extremely unique. We are talking not only about the degree of artistry of satire, but also about its artistic originality.

If we turn to the type of satire that is built on the negation of the social system, we will see that the work of the great satirists - Rabelais, Swift, Saltykov-Shchedrin - separated from each other by time and space, so different in their socio-political genesis, represents represents a greater closeness of form. The main feature of this type of satire is that everything depicted in it is given in terms of complete negation. The positive ideological attitudes of the author, in the name of which this denial occurs, are not given in the work itself. Their essence is clear from the comic revelation of the insignificance of the depicted. Hence the often vulgar assertion that satirists of this type have no positive ideal.

Such satire is usually built on grotesque hyperbolism, turning reality into fantasy. Rabelais tells about extraordinary giants, about the colossal accessories of their everyday life, about their fantastic adventures, about sausages and sausages coming to life, about pilgrims traveling in the mouth of Gargantua .

Swift fantastically shifts all human concepts, pitting his hero alternately against Lilliputians and giants, talks about a flying island, etc. Saltykov-Shchedrin portrays a mayor with a clockwork mechanism in his head, always saying the same two phrases , etc.

By intensifying the comic to the point of grotesqueness, giving it the form of the incredible, the fantastic, the satirist thereby reveals its absurdity, its uncertainty, its contradiction with reality.

The realistic-grotesque fantasy of satirists as the basis of their style determines a whole series individual techniques. The most important of them is that the fantastic is given with an accurate and very extensive enumeration of naturalistic details (Rabelais) or even an accurate measurement of its dimensions (Swift).

The desire for a comprehensive realistic criticism of the social system also determined the very genre of satire of this type. Great satirical writers, who directed their gift to expose the socio-political system hostile to them, made the novel their main genre. The form of the novel made it possible to cover reality widely. At the same time, the usual form of the novel, in connection with its satirical function, received its own characteristics as form of satirical novel. A satirical novel is not bound by a specific plot. The plot here is just a canvas on which everything that serves to depict and expose one or another aspect of life is strung together. The satirist does not limit himself to the number of characters, just as he is not obliged to follow their fate to the end.

Satire brings negative types and characters to the fore, giving the positive only as a background for them or not giving them at all. This satire is primarily a satire of types and characters.

The satirist embodies certain negative aspects of the social system in individual characters. Negative types are built for the most part on one sharply prominent trait; For example, on the stinginess of Harpagon, on the hypocrisy of Tartuffe, on the meanness and servility of Molchalin, on the stupid soldiery of Skalozub . This satirically pointed character trait sometimes creates a social mask instead of an individualized image.

Satire has its own, unique features. We are talking, first of all, about topicality. People won’t laugh at what doesn’t seem important to them today, what doesn’t bother them, doesn’t bother them.

That's why modernity is a prerequisite for satire. If a satirist begins to castigate phenomena that do not exist or have no significant significance in modern life, he risks turning his own work into an object of ridicule by other satirists. And even when the satirist turns to phenomena that seem to have become obsolete, depicted, for example, in a classic satirical comedy, he gives them a modern interpretation, makes him think about the phenomena of modern life.

When comprehending the essence of the comic, it is important to understand that its source is not the aestheticization of the ugliness of life, but the fight against them. Laughter heals the ills of society; it serves the good and the beautiful.

Satire- the genre is difficult. She is sure to offend someone, offend someone, and dislike someone. No wonder French proverb says: funny things kill more than weapons. There are more than enough arguments for fear of satire, which is why satire cannot develop to universal applause. However, satire serves creative purposes in society; it cures its illnesses. This is why all comic genres are so necessary. Where it begins to subside, we can talk about decay. In this regard, it is especially important to understand the educational tasks of the comic and its role in the formation of human morality.

SARCASM

SARCASM(from Greek sarkadzo - to tear, torment) - a special type of comic, caustic mockery, the highest degree of irony, when indignation is expressed quite openly.

Unlike direct denunciation, sarcasm is carried out as a process of rethinking the subject.

For example:
Molchalin! - Who else will settle everything so peacefully!
There he will stroke the pug in time,
It’s time to wipe the card...
(A.S. Griboyedov, " Woe from mind").

Lermontov speaks sarcastically in the poem “ Thought"about his generation: " We are rich, barely from the cradle, in the mistakes of our fathers and their late minds... ", and ends with a caustic comparison of the attitude of future generations towards him with " The bitter mockery of a deceived son Over a squandered father ».

Like satire, sarcasm involves the fight against hostile phenomena of reality through ridicule of it.

Ruthlessness, harshness of exposure - distinctive feature sarcasm.

Unlike irony, sarcasm expresses the highest degree of indignation, hatred.

Due to its direct impact, sarcasm is a form of incrimination, in to the same degree inherent in journalism, polemics, oratory, as well as fiction. That's why sarcasm especially widely used in conditions of acute political and class struggle.

The developed political life of Greece and Rome gave rise to high examples of sarcasm in Demosthenes, Cicero and Juvenal. The work of the great fighters of the young bourgeoisie against feudalism was permeated with deep sarcasm. Rabelais, a humanist who fought against the constraint of consciousness by theology and scholastic science, directs arrows of sarcasm against scholastic scientists, deriving from the word “ Sorbonne» mocking - sorbonates, sorbonides etc.

Voltaire widely used the technique of sarcasm to expose the church and its ministers in his pamphlets and especially in “ Virgin of Orleans" In Voltaire’s pamphlets, sarcasm directed at the church rose to the pathos of indignation in the often repeated ending: “ Ecrasez l'infame" Swift's sarcasms in his exposure of various aspects of the social life of contemporary England are extremely diverse.

The sarcasm of Russian revolutionary-democratic writers (Chernyshevsky, Saltykov-Shchedrin, etc.) in their struggle against autocracy, serfdom, and liberals is permeated with the deepest indignation.

For example , in Saltykov-Shchedrin we find in a huge number such expressions full of sarcasm as “ administrative delight », « student of the censorship department "(about myself), etc.

In Soviet literature, class-conscious and acute, sarcasm towards the enemy should and does find favorable conditions for your development. We encounter sarcasm in V. Mayakovsky, M. Koltsov and others.

TECHNIQUES FOR CREATING A COMEN EFFECT

Hyperbola

The contrast between given and ought can be further emphasized by hyperboles, bringing the ironically stated phenomenon to highly exaggerated proportions.

For example: instead of ironically naming a small object big, they call him huge, gigantic, colossal .

Grotesque

GROTESQUE— literary device, a combination of the real and the fantastic, creating absurd situations and comic incongruities.

For example: in the fairy tale by M. E. Saltykov-Shchedrin “ Bear in the voivodeship" the bear is going to ruin "printing houses and universities"; in the novel by M. A. Bulgakov “ The Master and Margarita“The impression of the grotesque is created by a bizarre combination of the everyday background of Moscow with fantastic images of Woland and his retinue.

Grotesque is actively used by M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin in " Stories of a city" In fact, all the events taking place in the city are grotesque. Residents of the city, Foolovites, " feel like orphans "without mayors and consider" salutary severity "the outrages of Organchik, who knows only two words - " I won't tolerate it" And " I'll ruin you ».

Such mayors as may seem quite acceptable to the townspeople: Pimple with stuffed head or Frenchman Du-Mario. However, the absurdity reaches its culmination with the appearance of Gloomy-Burcheev, who plans to take over the entire universe. In an effort to realize our systematic delirium", Gloomy-Burcheev is trying to equalize everything in nature, to organize society so that everyone in Foolov lives according to the plan he himself invented, which as a result leads to the destruction of the city by its own inhabitants.

Grotesque- the word owes its origin to archaeological excavations that were carried out in Rome in the 15th-16th centuries on the site where the public baths (therms) of Emperor Titus were once located. In rooms covered with earth, the famous Italian artist Raphael and his students discovered a kind of painting called grotesque (from Italian - grotto, dungeon). It was a Roman ornament with mutual transitions and bizarre play, plant, animal and human forms - fun game fantasies.

Grotesque- this is an unprecedented, special world, opposing not only the ordinary and everyday, but also the real, the actual.

Grotesque borders on fantasy, which he readily resorts to, but is not identical to it. In the grotesque, natural connections and relationships give way to illogical ones, the very moments of transition from one form to another collide and are exposed. This is the world of Gogol's story " Nose“, where the inexplicable disappearance of Major Kovalev’s nose is possible, his flight from his rightful owner, and then an equally inexplicable return to his place.

The grotesque is always two-dimensional, and its perception is dual: what at first glance might seem random and arbitrary turns out to be deeply natural.

K. Stanislavsky wrote: “ True grotesque is the external, most vivid, bold justification of the enormous, all-exhaustive internal content.».

The grotesque is often characterized by a desire for extreme generalization, mainly satirical. The generality of historical content allows the grotesque to combine opposing features: satire and lyricism, humor and sarcasm, the tragic and the comic, and also to include moments of utopia in the perspective of modern life (for example, the society of the future in the novel “ What to do"N. Chernyshevsky).

Oxymoron

OXYMORON(oxymoron; ancient Greek literally - witty stupidity) - a stylistic figure, or a stylistic error - a combination of words with the opposite meaning. Thus the word " oxymoron" is itself an oxymoron.

For example: “hot ice”, “distant close”, “living dead”, “young old people”, “hear how the silence is silent”, “sounding philosophy”, wretched luxury of attire, living corpse, cheerful boredom, bored gaiety, “heat of cold numbers » (A. Blok), White Crow etc.

Any oxymoron is a contradiction.

Characteristic of an oxymoron is the deliberate use of contradiction to create a stylistic effect. An oxymoron is often used in the titles of literary works: “ Hot snow "Yu. Bondareva, " Endless dead end " D. Galkovsky, " Blinding darkness "Arthur Koestler, " Dead souls "N. Gogol, " Living corpse"L. Tolstoy, " Optimistic tragedy » V. Vishnevsky.

Antiphrase

Of the forms that irony uses, the most common and most elementary seems to be antiphrase - the use of a word in a meaning directly opposite to its usual meaning.

For example: Okay, nothing to say.

In Krylov's and the philosopher - without cucumbers“The ridicule is focused on the title of philosopher, lover of wisdom, sage, who has given in to the common sense of the peasant, but there is no antiphrase here, for the title of philosopher is not disputed for the object of irony, only the claims of this kind of philosophy for wisdom, for knowledge of life, hence the word “ philosopher” is used here simultaneously both in its literal sense, correctly denoting a person engaged in philosophy, and in an ironic sense - thus giving a kind of partial antiphrase, relating only to some of the characteristics of the concept expressed by this word.

Based on site materials

Comic comic

(Greek kōmikos - cheerful, funny, from kōmos - a cheerful band of mummers at the rural festival of Dionysus in Ancient Greece), a category of aesthetics meaning funny. Goes back to playful, collective, amateur laughter, for example in carnival games. In the course of cultural development, types of comics are isolated - irony, humor, satire. Vary tall views comic (for example, the image of Don Quixote by Cervantes) and funny, playful types (puns, friendly cartoons, etc.). For the comic, which reflects the contradictions of reality, it is important to play on the exaggeration of the size of objects (caricature), on fantastic combinations (grotesque), and the bringing together of distant concepts (wit). One of the main types of drama, comedy, is based on the comic.

COMIC

COMIC (Greek kumikus - cheerful, funny, from kumos - a cheerful procession; that was the name of the mummers at the Dionysian festivals), in a broad sense - causing laughter at someone or something.
It is not advisable to classify every laughter as comic: laughter can be purely physiological (from tickling - for example, in “Dead Souls” by N.V. Gogol (cm. GOGOL Nikolai Vasilievich) Korobochka’s husband fell asleep only after scratching his heels), expressing triumph (in “The Old Woman Izergil” by M. Gorky (cm. GORKY Maxim) twofold: people laugh vindictively at the desperate, lonely Larra, and Danko, having accomplished his feat, “laughed proudly”), completeness vitality(teenager Natasha Rostova from L. N. Tolstoy (cm. TOLSTOY Lev Nikolaevich) laughs joyfully, watching how well her father dances Danila Kupora), nervous and crazy (Evgeniy in Pushkin’s “The Bronze Horseman” (cm. PUSHKIN Alexander Sergeevich)). There is no ridicule in those types of non-physiological activities that deliberately evoke a valuable laughter reaction for the sake of pleasure: in buffoonery, clowning, kindly jokes, most jokes. To a large extent, such laughter is present in pop comedy. Before the Renaissance (cm. REVIVAL (Renaissance)) carnival, festive folk laughter existed and continued to exist rudimentarily (studied by M. M. Bakhtin (cm. BAKHTIN Mikhail Mikhailovich) using the example of F. Rabelais (cm. Rabelais Francois)), temporarily and situationally aimed at the entire world order, turning it upside down, as if turning it inside out.
Comic in the precise sense of the word is “addressed”, specifically directed laughter, something that not only amuses, but also ridicules a specific object. In art last centuries this kind of laughter prevails. Only a person or something human-like in nature can be funny and comical. A. Bergson (cm. BERGSON Henri) noted that if tragedy brings to the fore an extraordinary personality (hence the titles and names: Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello in Shakespeare), then comedy is certain phenomena (the names of Moliere’s comedies are “The Misanthrope,” “The Misanthrope,” “Learned Women”). The two main variants of the comic are humor and satire (but the latter is not always funny, and originated in antiquity precisely as an angry denunciation). The opposite of humor is irony (also not always comic). In the ridiculing comic, one way or another there is an incongruity between the form and content of the phenomenon, the contrast of opposite principles in comparison with the norm or aesthetic ideal. Contradiction to the norm gives rise to external comedy (violations physiological type, random situations, etc.), a contradiction to the ideal - evaluative and generalizing comedy, the comedy of internal inferiority, insignificance. Forms of the first comic type - means of expressing humor (cm. HUMOR), the second type - means of expressing both humor and satire and sarcasm. Alogism plays the role of laughter and comic devices (cm. ALOGISM), grotesque (cm. GROTESQUE)(although it can also be non-comic, even tragic), buffoonery (cm. BUFFOONERY) and farce (cm. Farce (in the theater)), pun (cm. PUN), parody (cm. PARODY) and a number of other means.
Among the masters of the comic in world and Russian literature: Aristophanes (cm. ARISTOPHANES (comedian)(to a large extent also involved in the actual laughter), Plautus (cm. PLAVT), Apuleius (cm. APULEUS), G. Boccaccio (cm. BOCCACCIO Giovanni), W. Shakespeare (cm. SHAKESPEARE William), M. Cervantes (cm. CERVANTES Saavedra Miguel de), J. Swift (cm. SWIFT Jonathan), Mollier (cm. MOLIERE) r, C. Goldoni (cm. GOLDONI Carlo), N. V. Gogol (cm. GOGOL Nikolai Vasilievich), G. Heine (cm. HEINE Heinrich), Charles Dickens (cm. DICKENS Charles), Mark Twain (cm. TWAIN Mark), A. P. Chekhov (cm. CHEKHOV Anton Pavlovich), J. Hasek (cm. GASHEK Yaroslav), B. Shaw (cm. SHOW George Bernard), M. A. Bulgakov (cm. BULGAKOV Mikhail Afanasyevich), M. M. Zoshchenko (cm. ZOSCHENKO Mikhail Mikhailovich) and others. Famous comic characters - the boastful warrior (ancient comedies), Harlequin (cm. HARLEQUIN), Pierrot (cm. PIERO) and Columbine (cm. COLUMBINE)(Italian commedia dell'arte), "Russian", "German", etc., Chapaev (cm. CHAPAEV Vasily Ivanovich) and Petka in jokes. The most famous comic characters are Panurge from F. Rabelais, Falstaff from W. Shakespeare, Sancho Panza from M. Cervantes, Harpagon from Moliere, Candide from Voltaire (cm. VOLTER), Khlestakov from Gogol, Mr. Pickwick from Dickens, the good soldier Schweik from J. Hasek, the attacker Denis Grigoriev from A.P. Chekhov, grandfather Shchukar from M.A. Sholokhov (cm. SHOLOKHOV Mikhail Alexandrovich), Lariosik by M. A. Bulgakov.

Encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

See what “comic” is in other dictionaries:

See Aesthetics. Literary encyclopedia. At 11 vol.; M.: Publishing House of the Communist Academy, Soviet Encyclopedia, Fiction. Edited by V. M. Fritsche, A. V. Lunacharsky. 1929 1939. comic... Literary encyclopedia

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