The artistic device of personification in literature. What is personification - meaning, definition and application of the word

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons - all these are means of artistic expression that are actively used in the Russian literary language. There is a huge variety of them. They are necessary in order to make the language bright and expressive, enhance artistic images, and attract the reader’s attention to the idea that the author wants to convey.

What are the means of artistic expression?

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons refer to different groups means of artistic expression.

Linguistic scientists distinguish sound or phonetic visual means. Lexical are those that are associated with a specific word, that is, a lexeme. If an expressive device covers a phrase or a whole sentence, then it is syntactic.

Separately, they also consider phraseological means (they are based on phraseological units), tropes (special figures of speech used in figurative meaning).

Where are the means of artistic expression used?

It is worth noting that the means of artistic expression are used not only in literature, but also in various spheres of communication.

Most often epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons can be found, of course, in artistic and journalistic speech. They are also present in colloquial and even scientific styles. They play a huge role, as they help the author bring his artistic concept and image to life. They are also useful for the reader. With their help, he can penetrate into the secret world of the creator of the work, better understand and delve into the author's intention.

Epithet

Epithets in poetry are one of the most common literary devices. It is surprising that an epithet can be not only an adjective, but also an adverb, noun and even a numeral (a common example is second Life).

Most literary scholars consider the epithet as one of the main devices in poetic creativity, decorating poetic speech.

If we turn to the origins of this word, it comes from the ancient Greek concept, literally meaning “attached”. That is, being an addition to the main word, main function which makes the main idea clearer and more expressive. Most often, the epithet comes before the main word or expression.

Like all means of artistic expression, epithets developed from one literary era to another. So, in folklore, that is, in folk art, the role of epithets in the text is very large. They describe the properties of objects or phenomena. Their key features are highlighted, while extremely rarely addressing the emotional component.

Later, the role of epithets in literature changes. It is expanding significantly. This means of artistic expression is given new properties and filled with functions that were not previously inherent in it. This becomes especially noticeable among the poets of the Silver Age.

Nowadays, especially in postmodern literary works, the structure of the epithet has become even more complex. The semantic content of this trope has also increased, leading to surprisingly expressive techniques. For example: the diapers were golden.

Function of epithets

The definitions epithet, metaphor, personification, comparison come down to one thing - all of this artistic media, giving prominence and expressiveness to our speech. Both literary and colloquial. The special function of the epithet is also strong emotionality.

These means of artistic expression, and especially epithets, help readers or listeners to visualize what the author is talking or writing about, to understand how he relates to this subject.

Epithets serve to realistically recreate a historical era, a certain social group or people. With their help, we can imagine how these people spoke, what words colored their speech.

What is a metaphor?

Translated from ancient Greek, metaphor is “transfer of meaning.” This characterizes this concept as well as possible.

A metaphor can be either a separate word or a whole expression that is used by the author in a figurative sense. This means of artistic expression is based on a comparison of an object that has not yet been named with some other one based on their common feature.

Unlike most other literary terms, metaphor has a specific author. This is a famous philosopher Ancient Greece- Aristotle. The initial birth of this term is associated with Aristotle’s ideas about art as a method of imitating life.

Moreover, the metaphors that Aristotle used are almost impossible to distinguish from literary exaggeration (hyperbole), ordinary comparison or personification. He understood metaphor much more broadly than modern literary scholars.

Examples of the use of metaphor in literary speech

Epithets, metaphors, personifications, comparisons are actively used in works of art. Moreover, for many authors, it is metaphors that become an aesthetic end in themselves, sometimes completely displacing original meaning words.

As an example, literary researchers cite the famous English poet and playwright William Shakespeare. For him, what is often important is not the everyday original meaning of a particular statement, but the metaphorical meaning it acquires, a new unexpected meaning.

For those readers and researchers who were brought up on the Aristotelian understanding of the principles of literature, this was unusual and even incomprehensible. So, on this basis Leo Tolstoy did not recognize Shakespeare’s poetry. His point of view Russia XIX century, many readers of the English playwright adhered to.

At the same time, with the development of literature, metaphor begins not only to reflect, but also to create the life around us. A striking example from classical Russian literature is Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol's story "The Nose". The nose of the collegiate assessor Kovalev, who went on his own journey around St. Petersburg, is not only a hyperbole, personification and comparison, but also a metaphor that gives this image a new unexpected meaning.

An illustrative example is the futurist poets who worked in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Their main goal was to distance the metaphor as far as possible from its original meaning. Vladimir Mayakovsky often used such techniques. An example is the title of his poem “A Cloud in Pants.”

Moreover, after October revolution The use of metaphor became much less frequent. Soviet poets and writers strived for clarity and straightforwardness, so the need to use words and expressions in a figurative sense disappeared.

Although it is impossible to imagine a work of art, even by Soviet authors, without metaphor. Almost everyone uses metaphor words. In Arkady Gaidar's "The Fate of a Drummer" you can find the following phrase - "So we parted ways. The stomping has stopped, and the field is empty."

In Soviet poetry of the 70s, Konstantin Kedrov introduced the concept of “meta-metaphor” or, as it is also called, “metaphor squared”. The metaphor has a new one distinguishing feature- she is constantly involved in the development of the literary language. As well as speech and culture itself as a whole.

For this purpose, metaphors are constantly used when talking about the latest sources of knowledge and information, they are used to describe modern achievements humanity in science and technology.

Personification

In order to understand what personification is in literature, let us turn to the origin of this concept. Like most literary terms, it has its roots in the ancient Greek language. Literally translated it means “face” and “do”. With the help of this literary device, natural forces and phenomena, inanimate objects acquire properties and signs, inherent in man. It’s as if they are animated by the author. For example, they can be given the properties of the human psyche.

Such techniques are often used not only in modern fiction, but also in mythology, and religion, in magic and cults. Personification was a key means of artistic expression in legends and parables, in which ancient man explained how the world works, what is behind natural phenomena. They were animated, endowed with human qualities, and associated with gods or supermen. This made it easier for ancient man to accept and understand the reality around him.

Examples of avatars

Examples of specific texts will help us understand what personification is in literature. Thus, in a Russian folk song, the author claims that "bast is girded with grief".

With the help of personification, a special worldview appears. It is characterized by an unscientific understanding of natural phenomena. When, for example, thunder grumbles like an old man, or the sun is perceived not as an inanimate cosmic object, but as a specific god named Helios.

Comparison

In order to understand the main modern means artistic expression, it is important to understand what comparison is in literature. Examples will help us with this. At Zabolotsky we meet: "He used to be loud, like a bird"or Pushkin: "He ran faster than a horse".

Very often comparisons are used in Russian folk art. So we clearly see that this is a trope in which one object or phenomenon is likened to another on the basis of some characteristic common to them. The purpose of comparison is to find new and important properties for the subject of artistic expression.

Metaphor, epithets, comparisons, personifications serve a similar purpose. The table, which presents all these concepts, helps to clearly understand how they differ from each other.

Types of comparisons

For a detailed understanding, let us consider what comparison is in literature, examples and varieties of this trope.

It can be used in the form of a comparative phrase: the man is as stupid as a pig.

There are non-union comparisons: My home is my castle.

Comparisons are often formed by using a noun in the instrumental case. Classic example: he walks like a nog.

2.1. Personification is an artistic trope of literature

Personification (personification, prosopopoeia)- trope, the assignment of properties of animate objects to inanimate ones. Very often, personification is used when depicting nature, which is endowed with certain human traits.

Examples:

And woe, woe, woe!
And grief was girded with a bast,
My legs are tangled with washcloths.

In a folk song

State as if stepfather is evil,
from whom, alas, you cannot escape,
because it is impossible to take with you
Motherland - a suffering mother.

Personification was common in poetry different eras and peoples, from folklore lyrics to the poetic works of romantic poets, from precision poetry to creativity (from materials on the INTERNET: innovative teachers).

Personification, like allegory, is based on metaphor. In a metaphor, the properties of an animate object are transferred to an inanimate one. By transferring one after another the properties of animate objects onto an inanimate object, we gradually, so to speak, animate the object. Giving an inanimate object the full image of a living being is called personification.

Examples of avatars:

And woe, woe, woe!

And grief was girded with a bast,

My legs are tangled with washcloths.

(Folk song)

Personification of winter:

The gray-haired sorceress is coming,

He waves his shaggy sleeve;

And snow, and scum, and frost is falling,

And turns water into ice.

From her cold breath

Nature's gaze is numb...

(Derzhavin)

After all, autumn is already in the yard

He looks through the spinning wheel.

Winter follows her

He walks in a warm fur coat,

The path is covered with snow,

It crunches under the sleigh...

(Koltsov)

Personification – endowing inanimate objects with human feelings and the ability to speak; a stylistic device that is very common in all centuries and peoples. This definition is given by the author and compiler of the dictionary of poetic terms, literary critic A.P. Kvyatkovsky (17).

Personification, prosopopoeia (from Greek prósōpon - face and poiéō - I do), personification (from Latin persona - face, personality and facio - I do), special type metaphors: the transfer of human traits (more broadly, the traits of a living being) onto inanimate objects and phenomena. Gradations can be outlined Personification depending on the function in artistic speech and literary creativity.

1) Personification as a stylistic figure associated with the “instinct of personification in living languages” (A. Beletsky) and with the rhetorical tradition inherent in any expressive speech: “the heart speaks,” “the river plays.”

2) Personification in folk poetry and individual lyrics (for example, in G. Heine, F. Tyutchev, S. Yesenin) as a metaphor, close in its role to psychological parallelism: the life of the surrounding world, mainly nature, attracted to participation in the mental life of the hero, is endowed with signs humanlikeness.

3) Personification the likening of the natural to the human goes back to mythological and fairy-tale thinking, with the significant difference that in mythology, through the “kinship” with the human world, the “face” of the element is revealed (for example, the relationship between Uranus - Heaven and Gaia - Earth is clarified through the likening to marriage), and in folklore and poetic creativity of later eras, on the contrary, through personified manifestations of spontaneous-natural life, the “face” and spiritual movements of a person are revealed.

4) Personification How symbol, directly connected to the central artistic idea and growing out of the system of private Personification. The poetic prose of A. P. Chekhov’s story “The Steppe” is permeated personification-metaphors or comparisons: a handsome poplar is burdened by its loneliness, half-dead grass sings a mournful song, etc. From their totality arises the supreme o impersonation: the “face” of the steppe, aware of the vain destruction of its wealth, heroism and inspiration, is a multi-valued symbol associated with the artist’s thoughts about his homeland, the meaning of life, the passage of time. Personification this kind is close to the mythological impersonation in its general significance, “objectivity”, relative lack of connection with psychological state narrating, but nevertheless does not cross the line of convention that always separates art from mythology (18).

Personification- this is a type of metaphor based on the transfer of signs of a living being to natural phenomena, objects and concepts.
Most often, personifications are used to describe nature:

Less commonly, personifications are associated with the objective world:

Personification as a means of expression is used not only in artistic style, but also in journalistic and scientific style. (X-ray shows, the device speaks, the air heals, something is stirring in the economy).

Developmental tasks:

1. Find examples in the texts where inanimate objects are presented as living.

1) The wind sleeps and everything goes numb,
Just to fall asleep;
The clear air itself becomes timid
To die in the cold. (A. A. Fet)

2) Along hidden, deaf paths,
Dusk is coming into the forest thickets.
Covered with dry leaves,
The forests are silent - they are waiting for the autumn night. (I. A. Bunin)

3) In severe frost, birch firewood crackles merrily, and when it flares up, it begins to hum and sing. (I. S. Shmelev)

2. Find personifications in the texts. Explain their use and expressive role.

1) There are minute thunderstorms on spring days,
The air is clean, the sheets are fresh...
And silently shed tears
Fragrant flowers. (A. A. Fet)

2) A cloud is reaching home,
Just to cry over her. (A. A. Fet)

3) Hot and stuffy afternoon. There is not a cloud in the sky... the sun-scorched grass looks sad, hopeless: although it will rain, it will no longer be green... The forest stands silently, motionless, as if peering somewhere with its tops or waiting for something. (A.P. Chekhov)
4) The sun got entangled in grayish-yellow clouds behind the silver river. A transparent fog sleepily swirls above the water.
The quiet city sleeps, nestled in a semi-ring of forest. It's morning, but it's sad. The day promises nothing, and his face is sad. (M. Gorky)
5) Anger hissed like a snake, wriggled in evil words, alarmed by the light that fell on it. (M. Gorky)
6) Every night melancholy came to Ignatiev... with her head bowed, she sat on the edge of the bed, took him by the hand - a sad nurse of a hopeless patient. They remained silent for hours, hand in hand. (T.N. Tolstaya)

3. Find cases of combining personification with other means of artistic representation: comparison, rhetorical appeal, parallelism.

1) In the distance the windmill still flaps its wings, and it still looks like a little man waving his arms. (A.P. Chekhov) 2) In the morning he woke up with light, and with him melancholy, disgust, and hatred woke up. (M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin) 3) Ah, my fields, dear furrows, you are beautiful in your sadness. (S. A. Yesenin) 4) Native land! Name such a monastery for me... (N. A. Nekrasov)

Chapter III Methodological organization lessons on studying theoretical and literary concepts in groups with Russian as the language of instruction at professional colleges

Lesson Objectives :

1. 
   Acquaintance with the lyrics of F.I. Tyutchev.
2. 
   Skill development literary analysis poetic text with an emphasis on the theoretical and literary concept of “personification”.
3. 
   Development of students' communication abilities.

First teaching situation: teacher's introductory speech.

Today we will reflect on the poems of Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev, we will try to express our feelings, capture the mood, the music of his poems.. The task is not easy: Tyutchev is a poet-thinker. The most ordinary things and phenomena in his lyrics are endowed with the deepest meaning.

Second learning situation: expressive reading and commenting on Tyutchev’s poems about nature.

Students expressively read and comment on Tyutchev’s poems about nature, characterizing the different seasons. After reading the whole group, we try to reveal the meaning of the poet’s poetic images.

Third learning situation: analysis of the poem “Spring Thunderstorm”.

Poem "Spring Storm" conveys the sublime Tyutchev-like beauty of the world. We see “blue sky”, “rain pearls”, “golden threads of the sun”, a forest washed by rain; We hear “the first thunder rumbles”, “the peals thunder”, “the din of birds”, “the din of the forest”, “the noise of the mountains”, “everything echoes cheerfully with the thunder”, “the thunderous boiling cup” spills onto the ground. So the spring action, unfolding in heaven, touches the earth.

Fourth training situation: analysis of the poem “Reluctantly and timidly.”

Summer. Tyutchev's summer is also very often thunderous: “There is silence in the stuffy air,” “How cheerful is the roar of summer storms,” “reluctantly and timidly” ... The poem “Reluctantly and timidly” creates a personified image of nature. The scene of action is earth and sky, they are also the main characters, the thunderstorm is their complex and contradictory relationship. Nature is full of movement (the wind is gusty, the flame of lightning is flying, dust is flying in a whirlwind, the earth is in turmoil), full of sounds (thunder roars, thunderclaps), colors (green fields, blue lightning, white flame, earth in radiance). And again the poet makes us feel the approach of the holiday. Although the sun looks “reluctantly and timidly”, looks “from under its brows” at the fields and thunder “gets all angry”, and the earth “frowns”, yet nature is colored by this anger - “green fields are greener under a thunderstorm”, and a thunderstorm brings the bliss of radiance: “And the whole troubled earth was drowned in radiance.”

Fifth educational situation: analysis of the poem “In the original autumn there is a short but wonderful time...”

Autumn. Pictures of autumn are drawn in the poem. “In the original autumn there is a short, but wondrous time...” and again we see action on the ground and amazed vertical movement from the sky.

Sixth training situation: analysis of the poem “The forest is bewitched by the enchantress in winter.”

Winter. Tyutchev depicted winter nature in the poem “The forest is bewitched by the enchantress in winter.” The winter “miracle” takes place in a state of nature’s magical sleep. The music of the verse imitates the magical action of the Enchantress, who draws magic circles, rings, enchanting, hypnotizing, plunging into sleep, which is especially emphasized by the repetitions: “bewitched... bewitched... enchanted... all entangled... all bound... motionless... mute."

Seventh training situation: heuristic conversation.

What is special about Tyutchev’s depiction of nature, how does his view differ from ours? – Tyutchev depicts nature not from the outside, not as an observer and photographer. He is trying to understand the soul of nature, to hear its voice. Tyutchev’s nature is a living, intelligent being.

Eighth training situation: analysis of the poem “What are you howling about, night wind?” Analytical polylogue.

Questions and tasks:

1) What is the central image of the poem?

2) How does it change? (The central image of the wind changes characteristics throughout the poem: it moves from depicting a natural phenomenon to conveying that mysterious impulse that causes storms in the “mortal... chest”)

3) What sound is heard in stanza 1?

4) Can we say that the poet uses assonance?

5) What does the lyrical hero realize? (The howl of the wind. For lyrical hero it contains either a “dull” complaint or “noisy” indignation. The main thing is that he is in tune with the “crazy “lamentations” of his soul. His strange voice resonates in the heart, but the meaning is incomprehensible to consciousness. This contradiction amazes the lyrical hero.

6) Name the verbs that determine the nature of the action of the tongue of the wind on the lyrical hero. (howling, lamenting, digging, exploding) We have approached the abyss, the subject of the song of the wind - chaos.

7) What do the combinations “ancient chaos” and “native chaos” mean? (About the pre-order beginning of the world, about the generic proximity of chaos to man).

8) Read the lines:

He bursts from the mortal breast, He longs to merge with the infinite!..
What phrase is grammatically associated with the pronoun “he”? What is the meaning in this connection? The pronoun “he” can only grammatically correlate with the “night world of the soul.” “Peace” still means a certain harmony, harmony. And this world is rushing towards chaos, they are related. The unity of the world and chaos, man and nature is possible because they are connected by one basis: the origin of the world from chaos. In the poem, nature is a mediator between higher powers and the human soul.

Ninth educational situation: students work interactively in small groups.

A) Analysis of the poem "The gray shadows mixed..."

What is the significance of color and sound in the poem? How is the lyrical hero’s feeling of disharmony conveyed? What is the meaning of the poem?

The mood of the lyrical hero is expressed in a confessional form. However, in order for it to become audible, the entire movement of life had to fall silent; in the darkness, contradictions were smoothed out. Unity with the world turns out to be unattainable for the lyrical hero. The impression of harmony is deceptive. The feeling of disharmony is emphasized by the fact that an instantaneous phenomenon is depicted. Landscape characteristics fade - the soul awakens. The desire to dissolve in nature turns out to be one of the main things in a person.

B) Analysis of the poem " Spring waters"(The snow is still white in the fields...").

What mood do the lines of the poem convey? What does Spring look like? What visual means create the image of Spring?

The poem creates a picture of the approach of a bright, festive time, which nature, awakening from its winter sleep, greets cheerfully. Spring is a fairy-tale queen, surrounded by her retinue - a round dance of days. The feeling of magic filling the soul of the lyrical hero. Spring is the personification of vitality. “Spring waters” running from the fields to bring news of the approach of spring is a metaphor that allows us to bring together the landscape plan and the level of subjective perception.

C) Prove with examples that nature in the poet’s poems is alive, thinks, feels, speaks.

Comment on the poems (themes, moods, images, music of the verse) “Day and Night”, “Autumn Evening”, “Not what you think, nature ...”, “Not cooled down from the heat ...”, “Nature - sphinx. And the more true it is...” (The landscape created by the poet, inside and outside a person. Man is a meeting place of two abysses, the border between worlds, this determines the catastrophic nature of existence. Turgenev: “Each of his poems began with a thought, which, like a fiery point, flared up under the influence of a deep feeling or strong impression ; as a result of this... thought never appears to the reader naked or abstract, but always merges with an image taken from the world of the soul or nature...")

Tenth training situation: We think, reflect, draw conclusions….

For poetry F.I. Tyutchev characteristically:

1. 
   Creating changeable, contrasting pictures of nature (especially “day” and “night”).
2. 
   An attempt to penetrate the mystery of the contradictory unity of nature and man.
3. 
   Reflections on the divine beginning of the Universe.
4. 
   The feeling that a natural phenomenon or event is similar to what is happening in a person’s soul.
5. 
   Simplicity of verbal expression, refined poetic phrases in the lyrics.
6. 
   Landscape and philosophical lyrics.
7. 
   Man in the world and his Destiny.
8. 
   The lyrics are imbued with admiration for the greatness, beauty, infinity, and diversity of nature.
9. 
   The unexpectedness of epithets and metaphors conveying the clash and play of natural forces.

Teaching materials for small group work

A). Analysis of the poem "The gray shadows mixed..." What is the meaning of color and sound in the poem? How is the lyrical hero’s feeling of disharmony conveyed? What is the meaning of the poem?

B). Analysis of the poem “Spring Waters” (“The snow is still white in the fields...”):

Q) What mood do the lines of the poem convey? What does Spring look like? What visual means create the image of Spring?

Do you agree with the words of N.A. Nekrasov about the lines from this poem “Spring is coming, spring is coming / We are messengers of the young spring / She sent us forward”: “So much life, gaiety, spring freshness in the three verses we have underlined! Reading them, you feel spring, when you yourself don’t know why things are happening cheerfully and lightly at heart. It’s as if several years have fallen off your shoulders - when you admire the barely visible grass, and the just budding tree, and you run, you run like a child, drinking in the life-giving air and forgetting that running is completely indecent, not flying, but should to walk sedately, and that there is also absolutely nothing and nothing to rejoice at..."

G). Prove with examples that nature in the poet’s poems is alive, thinks, feels, speaks.

Comment on the poems (themes, moods, images, music of the verse) “Day and Night”, “Autumn Evening”, “Not what you think, nature ...”, “Not cooled down from the heat ...”, “Nature - sphinx. And the more true it is...”

The landscape created by the poet, inside and outside a person. Man is the meeting place of two abysses, the border between worlds, this determines the catastrophic nature of existence. Turgenev: “Each of his poems began with a thought, which, like a fiery point, flared up under the influence of a deep feeling or strong impression; as a result of this... thought never appears naked or abstract to the reader, but always merges with an image taken from the world of the soul or nature...”

3.2. Fragments of a lesson on studying the lyrics of S. Yesenin. Function of “personification” (symbol – personification)

DURING THE CLASSES

Teacher's opening remarks:

It is not enough to see the word. Definitely necessary

To know what kind of soil a word has,

How it grew and how it became stronger,

The way it sounded

What should swell and fill,

Before it becomes a name,

In rank, name or nickname just...

The beauty of the word is in the chronicle of growth.

These lines were written by the Polish poet Julian Tuwim (1894 - 1953). The word lives in us, the words of our native language shape a person’s view of the world. Language constitutes the spiritual force that unites the people and strengthens their creative energy.

Our thought is aimed at the general; we strive to understand this world in thought. But the thought escapes, at every moment it is different. Eternity is only in an idea, which within the boundaries of a word can be represented by a symbol.

Repetition of what has been learned

1. Student message.

Symbol (from Greek - sign, omen) is one of the types of tropes-words that are received in literary text In addition to their basic (dictionary, subject) meanings, they also have new (figurative) meanings. A symbol forms its new figurative meanings based on the fact that we feel a kinship, a connection between the object or phenomenon that is designated by some word in the language or phenomenon to which we transfer the same verbal designation.

The symbol is endowed with a huge variety of meanings.

Where does the symbolic meaning of images come from? The main feature of symbols is that they, in their mass, appear not only in those texts where we find them. They have a history of tens of thousands of years, going back to ancient ideas about the world, to myths and rituals.

2. Which literary movement considered the main symbol in its poetry? Name the most famous representatives this current.

Theme formulation. Setting a goal. Working with an epigraph.

Each language contains a certain number of personifications. From generation to generation they were passed down in songs, epics, and later began to appear in the works of poets and writers. These are the words we will talk about in class today. Write down the topic: “Personification” in the lyrics of Sergei Yesenin.

Reading a poem by Y. Smelyakov

I, belatedly, thank you

The one who was before me

And who is the evening dawn

He called it the evening dawn.

The one who heard first

Drops of April, squeal of frost

And he named this tree

So intoxicating - like a birch.

Then already, already later

Sergei Yesenin came here

Warm up with a broken mouth

Her cold knees.

Ya. Smelyakov.

Smelyakov formulates the idea of ​​continuity in poetry. Find these lines.

What image is the poem talking about?

About the natural world

What image does it highlight in the natural world?

Birch.

Which poet does he name?

Sergei Yesenin.

The birch tree is an image in the same row as the following symbolic images: flying cranes, an endless road, a wide field, a deep river. What power is hidden in all these images familiar to Russian poetry?

They contain a feeling of the Motherland, its spaciousness, signs of their native land.

In Russian poetry of the 19th century, when depicting the native landscape, the names of trees are very often used. Let's remember them.

Oak is a symbol of strength and strength, associated with the theme of the “big Motherland”, i.e. states; with the theme noble family, symbolizing the power and strength of the family, the connection of generations. Linden - symbol noble estate, home, comfort.

But Russian poetry has a special passion for birch. Her poetic cult begins in the first half of the 19th century and reaches its culmination in the work of the 20th century poet Sergei Yesenin. Let's see how it went.

Message from one of the students

All literary artists felt the unconditional charm of the birch.

A.S. Pushkin wrote to P.A. Vyazemsky in the rainy summer of 1825: “I enjoy the stuffy smell of resinous birches...”, and in his travel notes from the time of his first exile he left a poignant remark about a birch tree encountered in the Crimea: “We crossed the mountains, and the first thing, What struck me was a birch, a northern birch! My heart sank..."

In the minds of poets, the birch tree, love, melancholy, and emotional excitement are closely connected, and although the birch tree among other trees still seemed prosaic to Vyazemsky, he also recognizes its charm:

... dear prose to the soul

He speaks in a living dialect.

For him, the birch is a symbol of his homeland in a foreign land, warming the soul with its warmth and light:

Of us who could calmly

See the Russian mark.

Here you and I, birch tree, are like

A letter from a dear mother.

At M.Yu. Lermontov’s idea of ​​his homeland is firmly connected with the feeling of widespread sadness of Russian villages with their trembling night lights, and next to it stood a daytime picture dear to the heart:

I love the smoke of burnt stubble,

A convoy spending the night in the steppe

And on the hill among the yellow

A couple of white birches.

After Pushkin and Lermontov, the image of the birch tree entered the work of each of the poets. ON THE. Nekrasov in his poem “Who Lives Well in Rus'” more than once mentions the birch tree. In the chapter “Governor's Lady”, chance helped Matryona Korchagina free her husband from being a soldier. Liberation from royal service and the image of a spring birch merged into a symbol of peasant happiness:

Spring has already begun

The birch tree was blooming,

How we went home.

A.K. Tolstoy wrote about love, happiness, and also with the mention of birch:

It was early spring

It was in the shade of birches.

That was on the morning of our years

Oh happiness! Oh tears!

Working with S. Yesenin's poems based on homework

The theme of the birch tree in Sergei Yesenin poured out in a generous poetic shower of whimsical personifications and comparisons:

Birches!

Girls are birches!

The only one who can not love them is

Who even in the affectionate teenager

The fetus cannot predict.

At home you read poetry, wrote down the lines where the word “birch” appears. How does it attract the poet’s attention?

The birch tree attracts Yesenin's attention with its slenderness, white trunk, and dense crown decoration.

The dim but graceful outfit of the birch evokes a number of associations in the poet’s mind. Name them.

The branches are silky braids, like well-aimed hands, green earrings...

Birch - bride, girl, candle...

The color of the trunk is birch milk, birch chintz...

How does Yesenin feel about the birch tree? Why does the poet revive her?

The poet loves this tree: “cute birch thickets”, “Here I’m glad to kiss almost every birch tree’s leg.” He most often names the tree using the diminutive suffix -k-: birch. This expresses a sincere human attitude towards the world. Nature comes to life along with Yesenin’s lines.

Work in groups. Comparative analysis poems.

Of Yesenin’s many poems, for a more detailed discussion we will take two: “Birch” (1913) and “Green Hairstyle, Maiden Breasts...” (1918).

Benchmarking Questions

How are the poems structured? What person are they talking about?

How do we see the birch tree in these verses? How does the author treat her?

What types of tropes does the poet use?

Note the compositional features of the poems.

What features of Yesenin’s lyrics are reflected in these poems?

What do these poems have in common?

Approximate analysis

"Birch" (1913) The poem is a picture of nature, akin to a picturesque landscape. The focus is on a birch tree in winter dress: a snow border, white fringe, snowflakes burning. With the help of epithets and metaphors, Yesenin conveys the beauty of modest Russian nature. The birch tree, like other objects and phenomena, lives its own special life. This becomes clear from the final stanza, where Yesenin uses his favorite technique - personification. In it, the image of dawn appears - a worker who constantly renews the outfit of her favorite:

And the dawn is lazy

Walking around

Sprinkles branches

New silver.

The poem is structured as an entertaining episode from the life of spiritualized nature. There is no man in the picture, but he is invisibly present: the birch tree stands under his window, through his eyes we see this beauty, the charm of the modest Russian birch tree as a symbol of Russia. And although there are no words - sounds in this poem, there is an abundance of sounds s and r (in 8 lines they are repeated 7 times), hissing and sonorous ones convey to us sounds: the quiet rustle of frost falling from disturbed branches. Color associations evoke epithets and comparisons: “covered with snow, like silver”; “snowflakes burn in golden fire like a snowy border.” Winter sparkles, sparkles, creating a joyful mood, bringing peace and tranquility to the soul.

And in this poem, as in many others, in Yesenin’s composition using the shape of a ring:

Covered up with snow

Exactly silver.

Sprinkles branches

Personification is the endowment of inanimate objects with the signs and properties of a person [... Star speaks to star (L.); The earth sleeps in a blue radiance... (L.)]. Personification is one of the most common tropes. The tradition of its use goes back to oral folk poetry (Don't make noise, mother, green oak tree, don't disturb me, good fellow, from thinking...).

Personifications are used to describe natural phenomena, things surrounding a person that are endowed with the ability to feel, think, act

A special type of personification is personification (from Latin persona - face, facere - to do) - complete likening of an inanimate object to a person. In this case, objects are not endowed with private characteristics of a person (as in personification), but acquire a real human appearance:

Allegory

Allegory (Gr. allēgoria - allegory, from allos - other, agoreúo - I say) is the expression of abstract concepts in specific artistic images. For example, in fables and fairy tales, stupidity and stubbornness are embodied in the image of a Donkey, cowardice in the image of a Hare, and cunning in the image of a Fox. Allegorical expressions can receive an allegorical meaning: autumn has come can mean “old age has come.”

Individual author's allegories often take on the character of an expanded metaphor, receiving a special compositional solution. For example, A.S. Pushkin’s allegory underlies the figurative system of poems “Arion”, “Anchar”, “Prophet”, “Nightingale and Rose”; at M.Yu. Lermontov - poems “Dagger”, “Sail”, “Cliff”, etc.

Metonymy

Metonymy (from the gr. metonomadzo - to rename) is the transfer of a name from one object to another based on their contiguity. For example: Porcelain and bronze on the table (P

The metonymy of definitions is of interest. For example, in Pushkin the combination of over-starched impudence characterizes one of the secular guests. Of course, in terms of meaning, the definition overstarched can only be attributed to nouns that name some details of a fashionable dandy’s toilet, but in figurative speech such a transfer of the name is possible. In fiction there are examples of such metonymy (Then a short old man with astonished glasses came. - Boone

Antonomasia

A special type of metonymy is antonomasia (gr. antonomasia - renaming) - a trope consisting in the use of one's own name in the meaning of a common noun. Hercules is sometimes figuratively called strong man. The use of the words Don Quixote, Don Juan, Lovelace, etc., in a figurative sense, has become firmly established in the language.

The names of famous public and political figures, scientists, and writers also acquire common meaning [We all look to Napoleons... (P.)].

An inexhaustible source of antonomasia is ancient mythology and literature.

However, antonomasia, based on rethinking the names of historical figures, writers and literary heroes, still retains its expressive power. Publicists use this trope most often in headlines.

Synecdoche

A type of metonymy is synecdoche in the use of the name of a part instead of the whole, a particular instead of a general, and vice versa. (A yellow leaf flies inaudibly from the birch trees.) (Free thought and scientific audacity broke their wings about the ignorance and inertia of the political system

An epithet (from the gr. epitheton - application) is a figurative definition of an object or action (The moon makes its way through the wavy fogs, it pours a sad light onto the sad meadows. - P.).

There are exact red viburnums

(golden autumn, tear-stained windows),

Epithets are most often colorful definitions expressed by adjectives

The creation of figurative epithets is usually associated with the use of words in a figurative meaning (cf.: lemon juice - lemon moonlight; a gray-haired old man - gray-haired fog; he lazily waved away mosquitoes - the river lazily rolls waves).

Epithets expressed in words that have figurative meanings are called metaphorical (A golden cloud spent the night on the chest of a giant cliff, in the morning it rushed off early, playing merrily across the azure ... - L.).

The epithet may be based on a metonymic transfer of the name; such epithets are called metonymic (... The white smell of daffodils, the happy, white spring smell... - L. T.). Metaphorical and metonymic epithets refer to tropes [cardboard love (G.); moth beauty, tearful morning (Ch.); blue mood (Cupr.); wet-lipped wind (Shol.); transparent silence (Paust.)].

Personification is an artistic technique quite often used in literature, the essence of which is to transfer personality characteristics to inanimate objects. With its help, figurative speech is ensured. This artistic technique is a variation. With its help, you can create original semantic structures that add color to the text. For example, “the reeds whisper” (which in real life only a person can do).

In contact with

You can also find the name “personification”, which is a synonym. Wikipedia writes that personification is a term that is used in psychology when a person’s qualities and emotional reactions wrong attributes to another person(this mechanism is called projection, which underlies this process). In sociology, personification is used to shift responsibility for bad events onto another person.

Functions of personification in art

This artistic technique is used to solve various problems.

• Adding playful aspects to children's learning. For example, fables are full of personifications of various kinds. Animals are endowed with human qualities, making it more interesting for the child to perceive the plot and find the moral of the work.
• Creating an emotional tone of the text. Personification can be used to attract the reader's attention to the work. It can find application not only in fiction, but also in popular science. Personification is often used as one of the marketing techniques.
• Stimulate the reader’s imagination, give him the opportunity to experience what he read more colorfully.

And a number of other tasks are set by personification. This is what personification is used for.

Where is personification used?

One of the genres where personification is especially active is myth. In the texts of ancient peoples, human qualities were attributed to plants, animals, seas and oceans. Using an example, it was much easier to explain the essence of things, the reasons for the origin of the universe and the appearance of living beings. There were many gods who were embodied in inanimate objects and animals and had the same character traits as people.

Personification is also used in a fairy tale. We must draw a line between myth and fairy tale. The first is perceived as reality. That is, they believe in personification, denying that it is just an artistic device. In the case of a fairy tale, everything is clear - the characters are fictional. It does not aim to explain incomprehensible things like the origin of life on Earth.

Personification can also be used in scientific literature, although its quantity is significantly less than in fiction. Most often it is used in the form of stable expressions such as “it is raining”, which are used everywhere. That is, personification in scientific texts is used unconsciously, without the goal of creating colorfulness. Personification manifests itself most actively in art, not science.

How to find an avatar?

It is not difficult to find personification in prose or poetry. To do this, you need to start from the definition. Personification is when not a person endowed with human qualities. Example - the sun has set. Thus, in the famous poem by A. S. Pushkin “By the Lukomorye there is a green oak” from the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” there are the following lines:

Day and night, the learned cat keeps walking around the chain. He goes to the right - he starts a song, to the left - he tells a fairy tale.

conclusions

Personification is good tool, which will help add expressiveness due to a successful comparison. It is used in a huge number of areas, from myths to scientific texts. This is a powerful technique that must be used carefully and in moderation.