A cycle is a word that carries a huge variety of meanings. If you look carefully around, it turns out that in the world everything is subject to repetition, starting with the environment. Constant change of seasons - a cycle? Undoubtedly! The development and decline of civilizations is also subject to these rules. Generational change, birth and death - everything will be repeated at a new round, for the cycle is the options for repeating something.
How will this word respond?
The Latin word "cycle" means a circle. Repeating phenomena, processes, similarities of actions, thoughts - everything can be attributed to the cycle of being. We are accustomed to lunar and solar revivals, we accept the educational cycle, we suffer from a naturally jumping demographic curve. Everything develops on this principle.
Where are they considered to be cyclical?
The fluctuation of the economic development curve is called the economic cycle. Macroeconomic literature discerned them only at the beginning of the 19th century. But it was here that the idea was born that this is a spiral movement, that is, not running in a circle, but progress in each new round. Each economic circle has something in common with the others, but is essentially unique. There are many types of economic sinusoids, each scientist tries to defend his point of view. Among the fundamental and popular ones are the 10-year economic cycles in the literature of the unforgettable Karl Marx with his Capital.
At the end of the twentieth century, an Israeli scientist in the field of managerial theory Adizes carefully studied and described in the literature the life cycles of the organization, publishing two books on this subject. His scientific works are trying to interrupt the endless repetitions of life in at least one area of ​​life.
In music, on the contrary, looping is the basis for constructing a work. The repeated melody of the verses and choruses in the folk tunes, the precise organization of parts in classical compositions (plus refrains, reprises). Both in the forms of musical creations have series (sonata, symphony), and in content (“Seasons”, albums of thematic songs). Perhaps the musical cycle is as ancient as nature itself.
Literature in the cycle
What is a cycle in the literature - the definition is difficult to explain. They began to look at him only at the end of the last century and found even in myths and legends. How do modern linguists and philologists interpret this concept?
Wikipedia: A cycle in literature is a few narratives created by one author that share a common theme. As an example, Turgenev’s “Notes of the Hunter”, stories about Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle), folklore - epics about Russian heroes, and in poetry - “Snow Mask” of Blok.
Glossary of literary terms: a cycle in literature is a union of works of art by genre, theme, content (one hero, one era). Examples: Shakespeare’s dramatic chronicles, Byron’s Jewish Melodies.
Literary Encyclopedia: a series of works that have a common plot and the same characters - this is a cycle in literature. They fully attribute it to antiquity, the Middle Ages, they say about a new one - it occurs. Repeatability is found in poems - "Iliad", "Odyssey", epics about Vladimir - Krasnoy Solnyshko.
The online student library on the Internet offers a serious study of cyclization in literary criticism (the author could not be found). The theory is so confused thoughts, devoting a series of children's books more than forty printed pages of scientific research, that one thing is clear: in the twentieth century, the authors used this to combine stories and characters.
Doctor of Philology Mikhail Darwin considers the cycle a historical and philosophical concept. Professor-philologist Natalya Starygina, having studied the opinions of venerable literary scholars, singled out three concepts in this matter:
- Most researchers view the cycle as a genre.
- The second group of scientists considers it a “supra-genre” association.
- Still others are sure: the cycle should be considered as an art laboratory giving birth to new genres.
Literary cycles are different
But there are quite understandable answers to questions in this thread. Philologists divide the cycles into poetic and prose. Lyrical scientists more studied and understood, with prose a lot of controversial and incomprehensible. Mikhail Darwin believes that the poetic is two options:
- primary - the creation of separate texts for the conceived collection;
- secondary - the union of verses of one poet, written at different times on some basis.
Professor of the Department of Literature Theory Igor Fomenko, who has written many works on poetic repeatability, calls this the author’s and reader’s cycles. Many scholars tend to apply this division to prose.
Genre or ...
Why is it so difficult to define a concept? Here is an example: is the storybook a cycle? They were also collected on some common basis, which means ... This does not mean anything! The collection may not have cyclical nature. This shows how easy it is to mix up genre formations. To make it easier, during the transition period, specific properties were attributed to supra-genre education:
- several works should have common semantic connections;
- the structure of the collection is secondary, each composition can exist separately, if you remove one story, the essence and meaning of the rest will not be lost;
- editing composition - there should be a connection between the texts, at least associative;
- the author’s attitude to the world allows you to create a concept using streamlining sources;
- the presence of a central plot and its development in all publications of the series;
- common features in the main elements (stylistics, metaphors, vocabulary, phraseology, etc.).
In the presence of these components, the collection will be called a cycle. Here are some examples of cycles in the literature.
Lelya and Minka - cyclical prose
Mikhail Zoshchenko is an adult writer, a furious comedian. But there are in his work and "Sentimental Tales", and stories for children. Historiographers say that it was children's stories written from themselves that were for the writer a spiritual salvation from lies and illusions. His collection "Lelya and Minka" meets all the points of determination. Eight stories are united by one name, but each has its own. Each story is a complete independent work, but the relationship between them is clearly visible.
This is how the author cycle looks in its purest form. The same theme, the same heroes, one goal - educational. Each part has internal monologues. Why not a story with chapters? Children's audience dictates: young readers will not master large formats. Any story can be read separately and understand the meaning. The ideological function is a conversation about the educational system using a personal example, this is the main factor in cycling.
It’s more convenient for children
In this series is a series of tales about the Dunno writer Nikolai Nosov. He has one more well-known cycle - “Fantazers”. The problem of moral education of the personality is the substantive side. All miniatures are entitled, equal in volume, having independent completeness.
Another children's bestseller is Deniskins Stories by Victor Dragunsky. The author used a collage method of building texts. In each story, a seven-year-old boy learns the world and receives answers to a question. The general course is subjective assessments and impressions in each adventure, the general orientation is educational.
Philologists studied the work of three writers and reached a verdict: the materials are copyright cycles. And the presence of repetition was not accidental. How does this affect perception? A separate story, placed in a group of similar ones, does not lose its individual significance. But it acquires additional knowledge about the characters, the scene, the reader gets a more complete picture. By the way, with such works it would be nice to study literature as a subject of the aesthetic cycle in elementary school. Teach children choreography, music, painting, it would be necessary and morality, at the same time they read books, think.
And the classics were cyclical
The concept of poetic cyclicality in Russian poetry began with Bryusov, Bely, Blok. Andrei Bely believed that a separate creation can be considered a passage that will be understood only in conjunction with others. Based on the verses of Alexander Blok, the foundation was laid for studying this phenomenon of the 19th-20th centuries in Russia. For the prosaic cycle, there is still no such serious theoretical base. And yet, who will argue that Belkin’s Tales by Alexander Pushkin is not a cycle, but a collection of short stories? It turns out that there are those who wish, indicating the absence of a single hero.
What about today?
The archaic structure, the fundamental principle of harmony and order, repetition is firmly entrenched in modern prose. The new century is changing the integrity standards in literary works. A person with devices gets used to Internet communication, prefers to watch, rather than read. But this does not mean that the Russians stop reading. A different perception requires other means of transmitting information. And the wheel here was at the right time in the right place. A vivid example is the bloggers creating clips about modern reality.
On sale is a collection of businessman Alexander Korotenko, in which he collected 12 personal non-standard stories. A series of stories from modern life in all respects. The prose of a contemporary, military writer German Sadulayev, will be a series of books about the war. The author in each work traces the role of man in the history of the country, national problems, moral, grief, courage - this is the link in one. And the presence of one hero - the author himself.
Another example of the transition of fiction to cyclic tracks is the work of Maxim Cantor. His stories under the general names “Tips of the lonely smoker” and “Scoop and broom” are snapped up, and the voluminous monumental novel “Textbook of drawing” is of little interest to anyone. The pragmatic age of IT professionals requires harmonization in everything. Therefore, today the cycle in literature is the basis of future classics.