The composition of a literary work significantly affects the expression of his idea. The writer focuses on the life phenomena that are attracting him at this time and embodies them through the artistic depiction of characters, landscapes, moods. At the same time, he seeks to unite them so that they are truly convincing and really reveal what he wanted to show, so that they encourage the reader to think.
Belinsky constantly pointed out in his works that composition in literature significantly affects the disclosure of the writer’s ideological intent. He believed that the following criteria should meet the main idea of the author: isolation and completeness of the whole, completeness, proportional distribution of roles between the heroes of a work of art. Thus, the composition in the literature is determined by the position of the author: ideological and aesthetic. But an idea and a theme can be harmoniously combined only in a mature work.
The composition of the text is considered by literary scholars from different points of view. Moreover, they have not agreed on a general definition to this day. Most often, composition in literature is defined as the construction of a work of art, the correlation of all its parts with a single whole. It is known that it has many components that writers use in works to complete the depiction of life paintings. The main elements that make up the composition in the literature are lyrical digressions, portraits, and false episodes, epigraphs, titles, landscapes, and surroundings.
Epigraphs and titles bear a special burden.
The title usually indicates the following aspects of the work:
- subjects (for example, Bazhov “Malachite Box”);
- images (for example, George Sand "Countess Rudolfstadt", "Valentine");
- problems (E. Rich "What moves the Sun and the stars").
The epigraph is a kind of additional name, which is usually associated with the main idea of the work or hints at the bright features of the protagonist.
Lyrical digressions stand apart from the storyline. With their help, the author has the opportunity to express his own attitude to those events, phenomena and images that he depicts. There are also such lyrical digressions in which the experiences of several characters merge, but it is nevertheless clear that here the writer expressed his feelings and thoughts. For example, as in the retreat about maternal hands in the novel "Young Guard" by Fadeev.
Choosing the sequence of connection of the listed elements, their principles of their "assembly", each author creates a unique work. And he uses the following tricks of the composition :
- Ring composition, or frame composition. The writer repeats artistic descriptions, stanzas at the beginning of the work, and then at the end; the same events or heroes at the beginning of the story and in the finale. This technique is found in both prose and poetry.
- Reverse composition. When the author places the finale at the beginning of the work, and then shows how events developed, explains why this is so, and not otherwise.
- Using the technique of retrospection - when the writer puts readers in the past, when the reasons for those events that happened at the moment were formed. Sometimes a retrospection is presented in the form of memoirs of the main character or his story (the so-called "story in the story").
- The compositional breakup of events, when one chapter ends at the most intriguing moment, and the next begins with a completely different action. This technique is more common in works of the detective, adventurous genre.
- Using exposure. It may precede the main action, or it may be completely absent.