What is a prose work

Prose is around us. She is in life and in books. Prose is our everyday language.

Fiction is a non-rhyming narrative that does not have a size (a special form of organization of sounding speech).

A prose work is a literary text written without rhyme, which is its main difference from poetry. Prose works are both artistic and non-artistic, sometimes they are intertwined, as, for example, in biographies or memoirs.

How did the prosaic or epic work come about?

Prose came to the world of literature from Ancient Greece. It was there that poetry first appeared, and then prose as a term. The first prose works were myths, legends, legends, and tales. These genres were defined by the Greeks as non-artistic, down to earth. These were religious, everyday, or historical narratives, defined as "prosaic."

In the ancient world, highly artistic poetry was in the first place, prose was in second place, as a kind of opposition. The situation began to change only in the second half of the Middle Ages. Prose genres began to develop and expand. Novels, novels, and short stories appeared.

In the 19th century, a prose writer pushed the poet to the background. Novel, short story became the main art forms in literature. Finally, the prose work took its rightful place.

Prose is classified by size: small and large. Consider the main art genres.

A work in prose of large volume: types

A novel is a prosaic work that is distinguished by the length of the narrative and the complex plot fully developed in the work, and the novel may also have secondary storylines, in addition to the main one.

The novelists were Honore de Balzac, Daniel Defoe, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque and many others.

Examples of prose works of Russian novelists can compose a separate book-list. These are works that have become classics. For example, such as “Crime and Punishment” and “Idiot” by Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, “Gift” and “Lolita” by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, “Doctor Zhivago” by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, “Fathers and Sons” by Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev, “Hero of Our Time” Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov and so on.

An epic is an epic work that is larger in volume than the novel, and which describes major historical events or meets popular issues, more often both.

The most significant and famous epics in Russian literature are “War and Peace” by Leo Tolstoy, “Quiet Don” by Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov and “Peter the Great” by Alexei Tolstoy.

Prose work of small volume: types

The short story is a short work comparable to the story, but having a great eventfulness. The story of the story originates in oral folklore, in parables and legends.

The novelists were Edgar Poe, Herbert Wells; Guy de Maupassant and Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin also wrote short stories.

The story is a small prose work, characterized by a small number of characters, one storyline and a detailed description of the details.

The stories are rich in the works of Chekhov, Bunin, Paustovsky.

An essay is a prosaic work that is easy to confuse with a story. But still there are significant differences: a description of only real events, a lack of fiction, a combination of fiction and non-fiction, as a rule, touching upon social problems and the presence of more descriptiveness than in the story.

Essays are portrait and historical, problematic and travel. They can also mix with each other. For example, a historical essay may also include portrait or problematic.

An essay is an author’s impressions or reasoning in connection with a specific topic. It has a free composition. This type of prose combines the functions of a literary essay and a journalistic article. It may also have something in common with a philosophical treatise.

Middle prose genre - a story

The story is on the border between the story and the novel. In terms of volume, it cannot be attributed to either small or large prose works.

In Western literature, the story is called a “short novel”. Unlike the novel, the story always has one storyline, but it also develops fully and fully, therefore it cannot be attributed to the genre of the story.

There are many examples of stories in Russian literature. Here are just a few: “Poor Lisa” by Karamzin, “Step” by Chekhov, “Netochka Nezvanova” by Dostoevsky, “Uyezdnoe” Zamyatin, “Life of Arsenyev” by Bunin, “Station Warden” by Pushkin.

In foreign literature, one can name, for example, “Rene” by Chateaubriand, “The Hound of the Baskervilles” by Conan – Doyle, “The Tale of Mr. Sommer” by Suskind.