Lecture Introduction. Fiction. System of literature. Plans

Questions

1. 
   What biographical facts has the author used in the text?
   
2. 
   What biographical facts has the author changed?
   
3. 
   What insights do we acquire about the author's life by reading the text?
   
4. 
   How do these facts and insights increase or diminish our understanding of the text?
   

Bibliography:

1. 
   Yudin B.G. System analysis;Blauberg I.V., Yudin E.G. Systematic approach // Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary. - M., 1989.
   
2. 
   Likhachev D.S. Poetics of Old Russian Literature. - M., 1979.
   
3. 
   Neupokoeva I.G. History of World Literature. Problems of systemic and comparative analysis. - M., 1976.
   
4. 
   Uemov A.I. Systems approach and general systems theory. - M., 1978.
   

5. TynyanovYu.N. Poetics. Literary history. Cinema. - M., 1977.
Lecture 3: A culture-historical approach
Aims: Practical: to master a new topic and apply it in analyzing works; to write on the basis of the previous topics:
Educational and pedagogical: to increase the literacy of students in an integrated way, to connect the subject with education and upbringing
Developmental Objective: To develop students' listening comprehension, reading, writing, and speaking skills in English in a variety of ways, and to increase their interest in the language they are learning.
Objectives. By the end of this lesson students will be able to:
- learn information about new topic;
- use a culture -historical approach in analyzing any work
Keywords:civilization, race, environment, moment, character of the people, spirit of the people
The historical approach turned out to be so significant for literary criticism that it made it possible to use generalname of the cultural-historical method and school and comparative historical method in the XIX century. The difference in terms of "school" and "method" should not confuse us too much.
"School" – community of researchers united by similar tasks,attitudes and scientific and theoretical postulates, methodas a way of approaching artistic material and its interpretation.
Cultural-historical and comparative-historical methods refer primarily to regional historical significance and national systems or to the modern social context. Researchers are interested in the relationship of the work with the historical tradition or their functioning within a certain social formation. The Hegelian formulation "author - work - consumer" still works, but the "author" is brought under the control of history in its temporal or social expression. Focus on central link of the system - a work of art - the primary task of other classical or modern methods in the study of literature.
The cultural-historical method is a method of studying literature, developed in the second half of the 19th century by the French philosopher, historian and literary critic Hippolyte Adolphe Taine.
Taine is rightfully considered the head of the school, in which it is customary to include scientists from different countries. They are F. Brunettier and G. Lanson(France), G. Brandes (Denmark), V. Scherer (Germany), Francesco de Sanctis(Italy). Russian cultural and historical school is presented A.I. Pypin, author of “The History of Russian Literature”. In XX century a supporter of the cultural historical method was called P.N. Sakulina. All these scientists recognized the importance of Sainte-Beuve and his approach to literature, but in search of additional supports put forward the demand for a history of raised to the rank of a method.
Author of articles on Italian, Dutch and Greek arts, articles on French philosophers of the XIX century, many historical and philosophical works, as well as literary-critical works, Taine creates a fundamental five-volume "History of English Literature", in the preface to which he sets out the essence of cultural and historical method. According to Sainte-Beuve, “History English Literature "is the history of the English race and civilization "through its literature". Already in this definition, similarities and differences in approaches of Taine and Sainte-Beuve are considered.
In the famous introduction to "History of English Literature " Taine says that inmodern criticism “no one stepped "further and more surely than Sainte-Beuve: in this respect we all his students. It is this method that we must take as the starting point for further development. "
Taine is not interested in only a private biography, but also the search for a "general idea of ​​behavior man ", because in human feelings and ideas "there is a certain system, and the main driving force of this system is the well-known common features ... distinguishing people of the same race, one century and one locality." In his literary work, Taine seeks not only "psychology the soul of its creator ”, but also the psychology of the people and the century.
"Three original forces, three different sources" determine, according to Taine, the nature of literature. This is “Race. Environment. Moment". By race, he understands an innate temperament, which is equally characteristic of an individual or a whole people.
The race can change its appearance, disperse across different countries and continents, settle in different climatic zones, exist in different eras at different stages of civilization - it will reveal a spiritual community in any matter.
Taine regards the character of the people “as a concentrated expression” of its entire history, of all the infinite past, “as a quantity with certain dimensions
and mass". "The richest source of the basic properties of the race, that give rise to historical events ... his strength as we see, it happens because it is not just a source, but, as it were, lake or deep body of water, where for many centuries they carry other sources of their waters "According to Taine's concept race is a stable, little change over the centuries, identical to the national character and national mentality.
Having thus determined the spiritual structure of the race, Taine begins to study the "environment" in which she lives. Following the Romans, and in particular J. de Stael, Taine draws attention on the geographical factors that shape the character of peoples. Summing up the concept of "environment", Taine says that geographic, historical, social factors mean the same for a nation as for an individual - a place of residence, upbringing, family, profession and social status.
Depending on the "Meeting" of race and environment changes "pattern" in literature and in art. Comparing the French tragedy of the time of Corneille and
Voltaire, Greek theater under Aeschylus and Euripides, Italian painting by Leonardo de Vinci and the Mannerists, Taine finds that even with the similarity of the pictorial and literary description and the human type, we have a work from different cultural and historical eras.According to Taine moment is "Historical level of culture and tradition".
French scholar Gustave Lanson (1857-1934), author of French Literature(1894) and the work "Method in the history of literature." worked in the tradition of the cultural-historical method. Literary history for Lanson is part of the history of civilization. At the same time, unlike Taine, he pays the main attention to the literary texts themselves, complementing the scientific analysis of impressionistic impressions and the study of psychology.
The cultural-historical method interprets literature as the imprinting of the spirit of the people in different stages of his historical life. Searches for common reasons for the appearance of a work of art give rise to its interpretation of not only as a creation of a biographical author, but also as a document era. Yielding to the formal method exactly, refusing to converge literary research with the work of a mathematician and statist, promoting to the first roles general cultural outlook, intuition of the researcher, cultural-historical method and today serves as a way to study the most complex phenomena of literature
As with any classificatory approach, culture history has benefits and weaknesses . On the positive side it puts order to the unwieldy variation displayed by the massive culture-historical literature. In doing so it makes possible comparisons with other such traditions, as well as their accompanying discourse. A classificatory approach also seems especially suited to a phenomenon of such uncertain historical integrity.

1. What meaning does Taine put into the concepts of "race", "environment", "moment"?

2. What are the similarities and differences between the approach of Sainte-Beuve and Taine?
3. Who is GustaveLanson? What are his theoretical views on culture-historical method?