Gradually, a literary fairy tale became a full-fledged direction of fiction. Today this genre is universal, it reflects the phenomena of the surrounding reality, its problems, achievements, successes and failures. In this connection with folklore remained the same, inextricable. So, let's try to figure out what a literary fairy tale is.
Definition
First we give a definition: a fairy tale is a folk poetic narrative work telling about fictional events and heroes. Often involving fantastic and magical phenomena.
Now we learn what a literary fairy tale is.
This is a genre of storytelling with a fantastic or magical plot taking place in a real or magical world in which both real and fictional characters can act . The author can raise the moral, social, aesthetic problems of history and modernity.
The definitions are similar, but in the second, concerning a literary fairy tale, there is a certain concretization and refinement. They relate to the types of heroes and space, as well as the author and the problems of the work.
Features of a literary fairy tale
Now we list the main features of a literary fairy tale:
- Reflects the aesthetics and worldview of his era.
- Borrowing characters, images, plots, features of language and poetics from a folk tale.
- The combination of fiction and reality.
- The grotesque world.
- There is a game beginning.
- The desire for the psychologization of heroes.
- The position of the author is pronounced.
- Social assessment of what is happening.
Folk and literary tale
What is a literary fairy tale, how is it different from a folk tale? The author's fairy tale is considered a genre that has absorbed folklore and literary principles. She grew out of folklore, transforming and changing her genre distinctions. We can say that a folk tale evolved into a literary one.
A literary fairy tale goes through a series of stages as it moves away from the original source - a fairy tale. We list them in order of increasing distance:
- A simple recording of folk tales.
- Processing records of folk tales.
- Retelling of the tale by the author.
- In the author’s fairy tale, the internal form differs from the folk one, and folklore elements change depending on the intention of the writer.
- Parodies and stylizations - their tasks are related to the pedagogical orientation.
- A literary fairy tale is as far removed as possible from common folklore plots, images. The speech and stylistics of such a fairy tale are closer to the literary tradition.
What are the folk traditions of a literary fairy tale
What is a literary fairy tale? This, as we have already said, is a combination of literary and folklore. Therefore, in order to answer the question, we define what the folklore has inherited from the literary tale.
Writers usually take folklore plots as a basis. For instance:
- the magical origin or birth of the protagonist;
- dislike of the stepmother to his stepdaughter;
- trials of the hero are necessarily moral;
- rescued animals that become the hero’s helpers, etc.
Writers also exploit fabulous character images endowed with certain functions. For instance:
- The perfect hero.
- Assistant perfect hero.
- The one who sends the hero on the road.
- The giver of the magic thing.
- One who harms the ideal hero and interferes with the fulfillment of the assignment.
- A stolen character or thing.
- A false hero is one who is trying to appropriate other people's exploits.
The space and time of the fairy-tale world is often built according to the laws of folklore. This is a fantastic vague place, and time either slows down or speeds up, it is also magical and does not lend itself to the laws of reality. For example: Buyan Island; the distant kingdom, the thirtieth state; how long is short; quickly a fairy tale affects, but not soon the thing is done.
Trying to bring their fairy tales closer to folk tales, writers resort to the use of folklore poetic speech: epithets, triple repetitions, vernacular, proverbs, sayings, etc.
Turning to folk traditions, we were able to answer what a literary fairy tale is in its connection with folklore. Let us now consider another component of our fairy tale - the literary one, and try to understand what separates it from the national heritage.
What is a literary fairy tale and how does it differ from the folk
Examples and comparisons of literary and folk tales allow us to highlight a number of their differences.
The author's tale is always written down, its appearance is unchanged. While folklore was passed from mouth to mouth, and each new storyteller could, at his request, add something to it or remove it.
A literary fairy tale is distinguished by its pictoriality. The author tries to describe in detail the terrain, events, to make the characters closer to reality, so that the reader believes in what is happening as much as possible.
Thus, what is a literary fairy tale, if not the psychologism of the heroes? The writer is trying to explore the inner world of the character, portray experiences. So, Pushkin in “Tsar Saltan”, depicting the hero’s meeting with his wife and son, describes: “A zealous pounded in him ... the tsar took up the spirit in him, filled with tears.” In folklore you will not find this.
Ershov, Pushkin, Odoevsky and other storytellers endow their characters with a full-fledged character. These are not just heroes characteristic of folklore, they are full-fledged living people with their aspirations, feelings, contradictions. Even the little devil in "The Tale of Balda" Pushkin gives naive childish character.
What is the difference between a literary fairy tale
What is a literary fairy tale? The answers to this question can be found in the specifics of a literary work. Namely, in the vivid expression of the author’s position. In a fairy tale, it manifests itself through assessments, an attitude to what is happening, according to which it is easy to guess which of the characters the author sympathizes with and who does not like or ridicule. So, describing the priest, his fears and natural greed, Pushkin makes fun of it.
A literary fairy tale will always reflect the author’s view of the world, his idea of ​​life and ideas. We will see the writer, his aspirations, values, the spiritual world, desires. In a folk tale, however, only the ideals and values ​​of the whole people can be reflected, the personality of the narrator in it will be erased.
So, what is a literary fairy tale in its classical sense? This is a fusion of originality and folk traditions.
The origins of a literary tale
The roots of a literary fairy tale go back to ancient times. There is a recorded Egyptian tale of two brothers dating from the 13th century. BC e. The epic also has references to fairy tales, for example, in the Babylonian cycle about Gilgamesh, among the Assyrians - in the legends about Ahikar, in Greek it is the Iliad and Odyssey.
During the Middle Ages, the church used the literary tale, turning it into a parable. A similar tradition persisted until the XIX century.
The Renaissance brought elements of fairy tales to the short story, using them to create satirical and didactic elements.
The appearance of a literary fairy tale
But only in the XVIII century. a literary fairy tale has become an independent art genre, largely due to the passion for romanticism in folk traditions. At this time, to answer the question of what a literary fairy tale is, examples would have to be taken from Charles Perrault and A. Gallan in Europe and from M. Chulkov in Russia.
In the XIX century. the popularity of literary tales is increasing. Goethe, Chamisso, Thicke, Edgar Poe, Hoffmann, Andersen appeal to this genre. Russian literature of this period is also rich in fairy tales. These are V. Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, N. Gogol, A. Tolstoy and others.
Tales of Pushkin
What is a literary fairy tale? The definition that we gave above is perfectly illustrated by the tales of A.S. Pushkin. Initially, they did not count on children, but quickly found themselves in the circle of children's reading. The names of these tales have been known to us since childhood:
- "The Tale of Tsar Saltan".
- "The Tale of the priest and his worker Balda."
- "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish".
- "The Tale of the Dead Princess and 7 Heroes."
- "The Tale of the Golden Cockerel."
All these tales have a plot connection with folk. So, “The Tale of Balda” resembles the folk tale “Batrak Shabarsh”. “About the Fisherman and the Fish” - “The Greedy Old Woman”, the recording of which was presented to the poet V.I. Dahl, a famous collector of folklore. “The Tale of Saltan” is close to the fairy tale “About wonderful children”. Pushkin saw in folk art inexhaustible themes and plots for literature. Thus, the tales of the poet better than any definition can answer the question of what a literary tale is.
Summary "Tales of the priest and his worker Balda"
Consider one of Pushkin's tales. The essence of this tale is satire on church servants deceiving the people. Human qualities are also ridiculed: stupidity, greed and hypocrisy. Out of greed, the pop decides to hire a penny for a penny who will do the hard work. Stupidity forces him to agree to the proposal of the Bulda. But as the reckoning approaches, deceit and malice wake up in the priest - he decides to destroy the worker.
The tale was not published in this form; censors replaced the priest with the Merchant Ostolop. But the essence of the tale remained the same - it continued to make fun of human vices.
In this tale, as in others, Pushkin creates psychologically perfect characters. Each author endows with character and personal characteristics. And the language, although poetic, is as close to folk as possible. Pushkin always strove to get away from a fanciful literary verse to something easier, more flexible, free. He managed to find all these qualities in folk art.
Thus, the literary fairy tale has a rich history of development, is a unique alloy of folklore and original works, and continues to develop to this day.