What is a prose work?

Prose is around us. She is in life and in books. Prose is our everyday language.

Artistic prose is not having a size (a special form of organization of sounding speech), a non-rhymed narrative.

A prose work is an artistic text written without rhyme, in which its main difference from poetry. Prose works are both artistic and non-fiction, sometimes they are intertwined with each other, as, for example, in biographies or memoirs.

How did the prose, or epic, come about

Prose came into the world of literature from ancient Greece. It was there that poetry first appeared, and then prose as a term. The first prose works were myths, legends, legends, fairy tales. These genres were defined by the Greeks as non-fiction, mundane. These were religious, everyday or historical narratives that were defined as "prosaic."

In the ancient world in the first place was highly artistic poetry, prose was in second place, as a kind of opposition. The situation began to change only in the second half of the Middle Ages. Prose genres began to develop and expand. There were novels, novellas and novels.

In the XIX century, the writer-prose writer pushed the poet to second place. The novel, the novel became the main artistic forms in literature. Finally, the prose work took its rightful place.

Prose is classified by size: small and large. Let's consider the main artistic genres.

A prose in a large volume: species

The novel is a prose work that differs in narration length and a complex plot developed in the work to the full, and the novel can have side storylines, besides the main one.

The novelists were Honore de Balzac, Daniel Defoe, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, Ernest Hemingway, Erich Maria Remarque and many others.

Examples of prose works of Russian novelists can make a separate book-list. These are works that have become classics. For example, such as "Crime and Punishment" and "Idiot" by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky, "Gift" and "Lolita" by Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, Doctor Zhivago Boris Leonidovich Pasternak, Fathers and Sons by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev, "Hero of Our Time" Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov and so on.

Epic - this is an epic work, in volume greater than the novel, and describing major historical events or responding to the public issues, more often, both.

The most significant and famous epics in Russian literature are Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Mikhail Alexandrovich Sholokhov's Quiet Flows the Don, and Aleksey Tolstoy's Peter the First.

Prose work of small volume: species

Novella is a short work, comparable to the story, but having a great saturation of events. The history of the novel originates in oral folklore, in parables and stories.

Novellists were Edgar Poe, Herbert Wells; Guy de Maupassant and Alexander Pushkin also wrote novels.

The story is a small prose work, featuring a small number of characters, one storyline and a detailed description of the details.

The works of Chekhov, Bunin, Paustovsky are rich in stories.

An essay is a prose work that is easy to confuse with a story. But still there are significant differences: the description of only real events, the absence of fiction, the combination of literary and documentary literature, as a rule, affecting social problems and the presence of greater descriptiveness than in the story.

Essays are portrait and historical, problematic and travel. They can also be mixed together. For example, a historical essay can also contain a portrait or problem.

Essays are some impressions or reasonings of the author in connection with a specific topic. It has a free composition. This kind of prose combines the functions of a literary essay and journalistic article. It can also have something in common with a philosophical treatise.

The middle prosaic genre is a novel

The story is on the border between the story and the novel. By its volume, it can not be attributed to either small or large prose works.

In Western literature, the story is called a "short novel." In contrast to the novel, there is always one storyline in the story, but it also develops fully and fully, so it can not be attributed to the genre of the story.

There are many examples of stories in Russian literature. Here are just a few: Karamzin's Poor Lisa, Chekhov's Steppe, Dostoevsky's Netochka, Zamyatin's County, Arseniev's Life of Bunin, Pushkin's Stationmaster.

In foreign literature, you can name, for example, "Renee" Chateaubriand, "The Dog of the Baskervilles" by Conan Doyle, "The Tale of Mr. Sommer" by Suskind.