Types of dramatic conflicts. Features of plot construction and conflict in Chekhov's dramatic works

In order to determine the significance of side conflicts in entertainment show dramaturgy, we first look at drama theory in general.

Drama is one of the three types of literature, along with epic and lyric poetry. The main purpose of the drama is to play on the stage, and therefore the dramatic text is the replicas of the characters and the author's remarks, which are necessary for correct perception and the best staging. Note that the word drama itself is translated from ancient Greek as "action", which in fact means the content, the essence of this kind of literature.

Of course, it should be noted that the conflict and its significance in the work can be discussed not only in relation to the drama, but also to epic and lyrical works. But the television shows that will be dismantled in the course of work are closest to the drama. Just like the texts of dramas, show scripts are not intended to be read, but exist specifically for staging (in our case, for staging on television). Thus, it is advisable to pay attention to the role of conflict in the drama.

First you need to understand what underlies any dramatic work. "The action of the drama in the theories of the 19th century was understood as a sequence of actions of characters defending their interests in collisions with each other." Such a perception of the drama goes back to G. Hegel, who, in turn, relied on the teachings of Aristotle. Hegel believed that conflict, confrontation moves the action of the drama, and he perceived the entire dramatic process as a constant movement towards the denouement of this conflict. That is why those scenes that do not contribute to resolving the conflict and moving forward, Hegel considered contradictory to the essence of the drama. Therefore, the actions of the characters, which constantly led to inevitable conflicts, according to Hegel, are one of the main features of a dramatic work.

Many other researchers agree with this perception of the drama. So, for example, Doctor of Arts, theorist playwrights of the 20th century, V.A. Sakhnovsky-Pankeev argues that the key condition for the existence of drama is an action "arising as a result of the volitional efforts of individuals who, striving for their goals, come into conflict with other individuals and objective circumstances" . The Russian playwright, theater critic and screenwriter V.M. Wolkenstein, who believed that the action develops "in a continuous dramatic struggle".

In contrast to this perception of a dramatic work, there is another. So, for example, such theorists as the Soviet literary critic B.O. Kostelyanets, the German drama researcher M. Pfister, in their works, were of the opinion that the drama can be based not only on the direct confrontation of the characters with each other, but also on some events that in themselves were the focus of conflicts and changed the fate of the characters, their life circumstances. So B. Shaw believed that in addition to external conflicts, the drama can be based "on a discussion between the characters, and ultimately on conflicts arising from the clash of various ideals." That is why, adhering to a similar point of view, K.S. Stanislavsky divided between himself two actions - internal and external. And if we talk about internal action, then we cannot fail to mention A.P. Chekhov, in whose plays there is almost no such action. The conflicts of Chekhov's dramas are not resolved through the actions of the characters, they are not determined by their lives, but by reality in general.

Combining these seemingly different approaches, V.E. Khalizev argues that in this way “the subject of the image in the drama can be any intensely active orientation of a person in life situations, especially in the provisions marked by conflict.

Accordingly, in any dramatic work there is a main conflict around which the entire plot is built. The main conflict is the main condition for the development, and hence for the existence in general, of drama. And it is precisely in this contradiction, which is the conflict, according to A.A. Anixta "displays the general state of the world".

Let's take one of the generally accepted approaches to the composition of a drama, according to which its elements will be the plot, development, climax, denouement. Speaking about these parts of the composition of a dramatic work, we mean, in fact, the stages of development of the conflict. The conflict becomes the main theme of the drama and the main plot-forming element. And that is why "the conflict revealed in the work must exhaust itself with a denouement". A similar perception of the conflict as a necessary element of any dramatic work was born in Aristotle, who spoke of the inevitability in tragedies of both plots and denouement.

Based on the theories that arose in antiquity and were reflected in subsequent dramatic works, we can talk about the existence of a plot structure that is valid for the time of Hegel. It consists of three parts:

• 1) Initial order (balance, harmony)
• 2) Violation of the order
• 3) Restoration or strengthening of order.

It is logical that if this system involves the restoration of lost harmony, then the conflict that formed the basis of the drama will inevitably be eliminated. This position is controversial for the drama of modern times, according to which "conflict is a universal property of human existence" . In other words, some conflicts are so massive that they cannot be resolved by the aspirations of a few heroes, and therefore cannot disappear in principle.

Based on these opposite views on the theory of conflicts in a dramatic work, V.E. Khalizev in his work speaks of the existence of two types of conflict - “local”, which can be resolved by the efforts of several characters, and “substantial”, that is, those that are either universal in nature, and therefore cannot be resolved, or that have arisen (and, accordingly, and disappeared after some time) not by the will of man, but in the course of the historical process, natural changes. “The conflict of a dramatic (and any other) plot, therefore, either marks a violation of the world order, which is fundamentally harmonious and perfect, or acts as a feature of the world order itself, evidence of its imperfection and disharmony.”

The main confrontation of a dramatic work, that is, its main conflict, organizes the main storyline of the work, being the main theme of the drama. So V.M. Wolkenstein, in fact, equates the concepts of conflict and the theme of a work, arguing that "the general theme of a dramatic work is conflict, that is, a single action that leads to confrontation."

Thus, two main approaches to the theory of conflicts in a dramatic work can be distinguished. One part of the researchers believe that the external conflict, the open confrontation of several characters becomes the main one in a dramatic work, while the other part of the researchers believe that the main conflict can be an internal conflict, which is caused not by the actions of the characters, but by factors that are beyond their will.

Sometimes a play begins with an inversion, that is, showing how the conflict will end before the action begins. This technique is often used by the authors of action-packed works, in particular, detective stories. The task of inversion is to captivate the viewer from the very beginning, keep him in additional tension with the help of information about which one to which. the end will lead" the depicted conflict.

There is also a moment of inversion in Shakespeare's prologue to Romeo and Juliet. The tragic outcome of their love is already mentioned in it. In this case, the inversion has a different purpose than to add fascination to the subsequent

"sad story" Having told how his dramatic narrative will end, Shakespeare removes interest in WHAT will happen in order to focus the viewer's attention on HOW it will happen, on the ESSENCE of the relationship of the characters that led to a tragic end known in advance.

From what has been said, it should be clear that the exposition - the initial part of a dramatic work - lasts until the beginning of the plot - the plot of the main conflict of this play. It is extremely important to emphasize that we are talking about the beginning of the main conflict, the development of which is the subject of the image in this play.

From the very beginning of the tragedy "Romeo and Juliet" we meet with manifestations of the age-old conflict between the families of Montague and Capulet. But this enmity is not the subject of the image in this work. It lasted for centuries, so they "lived and were", but there was no reason for this play. As soon as the young representatives of the two warring clans - Romeo and Juliet - fell in love with each other, a conflict arose that became the subject of the image in this work - a conflict between a bright human feeling of love and a dark misanthropic feeling of tribal enmity.

Thus, the notion - "setting" - includes the setting of the main conflict of this play. In the plot, his movement begins - a dramatic action.

Some modern playwrights and theater critics express the opinion that in our time, when the pace and rhythms of life have accelerated immeasurably, it is possible to do without exposition, and start the play immediately from the action, from the outset of the main conflict, taking, as they say, the bull by the horns. This way of putting the question is wrong. In order to “take the bull by the horns”, you need at least names, a bull in front of you. Only the heroes of the play can start a conflict. \\o we must understand the meaning and essence of what is happening. Like any moment of real life, the life of the heroes of the play can only take place in a specific time and in a specific space. Not to designate either one or the other, or at least one of these coordinates, would mean an attempt to depict some kind of abstraction. The conflict in this unimaginable case would arise from nothing, which contradicts the laws of motion of matter in general. Not to mention such a complex moment of its development as the movement of human relations. Thus, the idea of ​​doing without exposure when creating a play is not well thought out.

Sometimes the exposure is combined with the plot. That is how it is done in The Inspector II. In Gogol. The very first phrase of the mayor, addressed to the officials, contains all the necessary information to understand the subsequent action, and. at the same time. is the beginning of the main conflict of the play. It is difficult to agree with E.G. Kholodov, who believes that the plot of the "Inspector" occurs later, when a "comedy knot" is tied, that is, when Khlestakov was mistaken for an auditor. The plot is the plot of the main conflict of the play, and not this or that plot "knot". AT

There is no conflict between the characters in the Inspector General. All of them - both officials and Khlestakov - are in conflict with the viewer, with the good character sitting in the hall. And this conflict of satirical heroes with the audience begins before the appearance of Khlestakov. The very first acquaintance of the viewer with the officials, with their fear about the “unpleasant” news for them about the arrival of the auditor, is the beginning of the conflict (according to the specific laws of satire) confrontation between the “heroes” and the audience. The denial with laughter of bureaucratic Russia depicted in the comedy begins with the exposition3.

Such an approach to interpreting the plot of The Inspector General, in my opinion, is more in line with the definition of the plot, which, based on Hegel, will be given by E. G. Kholodov himself: “In the plot “only those circumstances should be given that, picked up by the individual mindset and its needs, give rise to precisely that specific conflict, the deployment and resolution of which constitutes a special action of this particular work of art.

This is what we see at the beginning of The Inspector General - a certain collision, the deployment of which constitutes the action of this work.

Sometimes the main conflict of the play does not appear immediately, but is preceded by a system of other conflicts. Shakespeare's Othello is full of conflicts. Conflict between Desdemona's father - Brabantio and Othello. The conflict between Desdemona's unfortunate fiancé Rodrigo and his rival, the more fortunate Othello. Conflict between Rodrigo and Lieutenant Cassio. There is even a fight between them. Conflict between Othello and Desdemona. It arises at the end of the tragedy and ends with the death of Desdemona. Conflict between Iago and Cassio. And, finally, one more conflict, which is the main conflict of this work - the conflict between Iago and Othello, between the bearer of envy, servility, chameleonism, careerism, petty selfishness - which is Iago, and a direct, honest, trusting person, but possessing a passionate and furious character, which is Othello.

Resolution of the main conflict. As already mentioned, the denouement in a dramatic work is the moment of resolving the main conflict, the removal of the conflict contradiction, which is the source of the movement of the action. For example, in The Inspector General, the denouement is the reading of Khlestakov's letter to Tryapichkin.

In Othello, the denouement of the main conflict comes when Othello learns that Iago is a slanderer and a scoundrel. Let's pay attention to the fact that this happens after the murder of Desdemona. It is wrong to believe that the denouement here is precisely the moment of the murder. The main conflict of the play is between Othello and Iago. Killing Desdemona, Othello does not yet know who his main enemy is. Consequently, only the elucidation of the role of Iago is here the denouement.

In "Romeo and Juliet", where, as already mentioned, the main conflict lies in the confrontation between the love that broke out between Romeo and Juliet, and the age-old enmity of their families. The denouement is the moment when this love ends. It ended with the death of the heroes. Thus, their death is the denouement of the main conflict of the tragedy.

The outcome of the conflict is possible only if the unity of action is preserved, the main conflict that began in the plot is preserved. From this follows the requirement: this outcome of the conflict must be contained as one of the possibilities for its resolution already in the plot.

In the denouement, or rather, as a result of it, a new situation is created, compared with the one that took place in the plot, expressed with a new relationship between the characters. This new attitude can be quite varied.

One of the heroes may die as a result of the conflict.

It also happens that outwardly everything remains completely the same as before. for example, in "Dangerous Turn" by John Priestley. The heroes realized that they had only one way out: to immediately end the conflict that had arisen between them. The play ends with a deliberate repetition of everything that happened before the beginning of the “dangerous turn” of the conversation, the old fun begins, empty talk, glasses of champagne clink ... Outwardly, the relationship of the characters is again exactly the same as before. But it's a form. And in fact, as a result of what happened, the previous relationship is excluded. Former friends and colleagues have become fierce enemies.

The final is the emotional and semantic completion of the work. "Emotionally" - this means that we are talking not only about the semantic result, not just about the conclusion from the work.

If in a fable morality is expressed directly - “the moral of this fable is this”, then in a dramatic work the finale is a continuation of the action of the play, its last chord. The finale concludes the play with a dramatic generalization and not only completes this action, but opens the door to perspective, to connection. this fact with a wider social organism.

A great example of an ending is the ending of The Inspector General. The denouement occurred, Khlestakov's letter was read. The officials who have deceived themselves have already been ridiculed by the viewer. The Governor has already delivered his monologue-self-accusation. At the end of it, an appeal was made to the audience - “Who are you laughing at? You are laughing at yourself!”, which already contains a great generalization of the whole meaning of the comedy. Yes, not only they - the officials of a small provincial town - the subject of her angry denunciation. But Gogol does not put an end to this. He writes one more, final scene. A gendarme appears and says: “An official who arrived by personal order from St. Petersburg demands you all this very hour ...” This is followed by Gogol's remark: “A silent scene.”

This reminder of the connection of this town with the capital, with the tsar, is necessary in order for the satirical denial of the behavior of the officials of the town to spread to all the bureaucracy of Russia, to the entire apparatus of tsarist power. And it's happening. Firstly, because Gogol's heroes are absolutely typical and recognizable, they give a generalized image of the bureaucracy, its morals, the nature of the performance of their official duties.

The official arrived "but by nominal command", that is, at the command of the

king. A direct connection between the characters of the comedy and the king has been established. Outwardly, and even more so for censorship, this ending looks harmless: outrageous things were happening somewhere, but now a real auditor has arrived from the capital, from the king, and order will be restored. But this is purely the external meaning of the final scene. Her true meaning different. One had only to recall here about the capital, about the tsar, as through this “communication channel”, as we now say, all impressions, all the indignation that has accumulated during the performance, rush to this address. Nicholas I understood this. After clapping his hands at the end of the performance, he said: “Everyone got it, but most of all I.”

An example of a strong ending is the end of Shakespeare's already mentioned tragedy Romeo and Juliet. The main characters of the tragedy have already died. This unleashes, resolves the conflict that arose due to their love. But Shakespeare writes the end of the tragedy. The leaders of the warring clans are reconciled at the grave of their dead children. The condemnation of the wild and absurd enmity that separated them sounds all the stronger because in order to stop it, it took two beautiful, innocent, young creatures to be sacrificed. Such an ending contains a warning, a generalized conclusion against those dark prejudices that cripple human destinies. But at the same time, this conclusion is not "added" to the action of the tragedy, it is not "suspended" by the author. It follows from the natural continuation of the events of the tragedy. The burial of the dead, the repentance of the parents responsible for their deaths do not need to be invented - all this naturally completes and ends the "sad" story of Romeo and Juliet.

The finale in the play is, as it were, a verification of the dramaturgy of the work as a whole. If the main elements of his composition are violated, if the action that began as the main one is replaced by another, the final will not work. If the playwright did not have enough material, lacked talent or knowledge, lacked dramatic experience in order to complete his work with a genuine finale, the author often, in order to get out of the situation, ends the work with the help of an ersatzfinal. But not every ending under one pretext or another is the final, can serve as the emotional and semantic completion of the work. There are several stamps that are typical of ersatzfin 1a. They are especially visible in the movies. When the author does not know how to end the film, the characters, for example, sing a cheerful song or, holding hands, go into the distance, getting smaller and smaller...

The most common type of ersatzfinal is the "punishment" of the author with the hero. In the play "104 Pages About Love", its author - E. Radzinsky - specially made his heroine a representative of a dangerous profession - an aeroflot stewardess.

When Anna Karenina ends her life under the wheels of a train, this is the result of what happened to her in the novel. In the play by E. Radzinsky, the death of the plane on which the heroine flew has nothing to do with the action of the play. The relationship between the hero and the heroine developed largely artificially, through the author's willful efforts. Different tempers heroes complicated their relationship, however, the ground for the development of conflict, genuine

there is no contradiction that reflects any significant social problem in the play. Conversations "on the subject" could go on endlessly. In order to somehow finish the work, the author himself "ruined" the heroine with the help of an accident - a fact external to the content of the play. This is a typical ersatzfinal.

The problem of such an erzanfinal - with the help of killing the hero - was considered by E.G. Kholodov: “If this alone achieved drama, it would not be easier than to pass for a tragic poet. Lessing ridiculed such a primitive understanding of the problem of the tragic”: “some scribbler who would bravely strangle and kill his heroes and not let a single one leave the stage alive or healthy would also, perhaps, imagine himself as tragic as Euripides "5.

4. CONFLICT. ACTION. HERO IN A DRAMA WORK

The conflict of the play, as a rule, is not identical to some kind of life clash in its everyday form. He generalizes, typifies the contradiction that the artist, in this case the playwright, observes in life. The depiction of this or that conflict in a dramatic work is a way of revealing social contradictions in an effective struggle.

Remaining typical, the conflict is at the same time personified in a dramatic work in specific heroes, “humanized”.

The social conflicts depicted in dramatic works, of course, are not subject to any unification in content - their number and variety are endless. However, the ways of compositional alignment of the dramaturgical conflict are typical. Reviewing the existing dramatic experience, we can talk about the typology of the structure of the dramatic conflict, about the three main types of its construction.

Hero - Hero. Conflicts are built according to this type - Lyubov Yarovaya and her husband, Othello and Iago. In this case, the author and the viewer sympathize with one of the parties to the conflict, one of the characters (or one group of characters) and together with him experience the circumstances of the struggle with the opposite side.

The author of a dramatic work and the viewer are always on the same side, since the task of the author is to agree with the viewer, to convince the viewer of what he wants to convince him. Needless to say, the author does not always reveal to the viewer his likes and dislikes towards his characters. Moreover, a frontal statement of one's positions has little in common with artistic work, especially with dramaturgy. No need to rush about with ideas on stage. It is necessary that the audience leave the theater with them - Mayakovsky rightly said.

Another type of conflict construction: Hero - Auditorium. On such

conflict, satirical works are usually built. The visual choral with laughter denies the behavior and morality of the satirical characters acting on the stage. The positive hero in this performance - its author N.V. Gogol said about the "Inspector General" - is in the hall.

The third type of construction of the main conflict: the Hero (or heroes) and the Environment they oppose. In this case, the author and the viewer are, as it were, in a third position, observing both the hero and the environment, following the ups and downs of this struggle, not necessarily joining one side or the other. A classic example of such a construction is Leo Tolstoy's "Living Corpse". The hero of the drama, Fyodor Protasov, is in conflict with the milieu, whose sanctimonious morality compels him first to "leave" it in revelry and drunkenness, then to portray a fictitious death, and even commit suicide.

The viewer will by no means consider Fedor Protasov a positive hero worthy of imitation. But he will sympathize with him and, accordingly, condemn the opposing Protasov environment - the so-called "flower of society" - which forced him to die.

Vivid examples of constructing a conflict of the Hero-Wednesday type are Shakespeare's Hamlet, A.S. Griboyedov, "Thunderstorm" A.N. Ostrovsky.

The division of dramatic conflicts according to the type of their construction does not have an absolute character. In many works, one can observe a combination of two types of conflict construction. So, for example, if in a satirical play, along with negative characters, there are also positive characters, in addition to the main conflict Hero - Audience, we will observe another one - the conflict Hero - Hero, the conflict between positive and negative characters on the stage.

In addition, the Hero-Wednesday conflict ultimately contains the Hero-Hero conflict. After all, the environment in a dramatic work is not faceless. It also consists of heroes, sometimes very bright, whose names have become common nouns. Recall Famusov and Molchalin in Woe from Wit, or Kabanikha in Thunderstorm. In the general concept of "Environment" we unite them according to the principle of commonality of their views, a single attitude towards the hero opposing them.

The action in a dramatic work is nothing but a conflict in development. It develops from the initial conflict situation that arose in the beginning. It develops not just sequentially - one event after another - but by the birth of a subsequent event from the previous one, thanks to the previous one, according to the laws of cause and effect. The action of the play at any given moment must be fraught with the development of further action.

The theory of drama at one time considered it necessary to observe three unities in a dramatic work: the unity of time, the unity of place and the unity of action. Practice, however, has shown that dramaturgy can easily do without observing the unity of place and time, but the unity of action is a truly necessary condition for the existence of a dramatic work as a work of art.

The observance of the unity of action is essentially the observance of a single picture of the development of the main conflict. Thus, it is a condition for creating a holistic image of the conflict event, which is depicted in this work. The unity of action - a picture of the development of the main conflict that is continuous and not replaced in the course of the play - is a criterion for the artistic integrity of the work. Violation of the unity of action - the substitution of the conflict tied up in the plot - undermines the possibility of creating a holistic artistic image of the conflict event, inevitably seriously reduces the artistic level of a dramatic work.

The action in a dramatic work should be considered only what happens directly on the stage or on the screen. The so-called “pre-stage”, “non-stage”, “on-stage” actions are all information that can contribute to the understanding of the action, but in no case can replace it. The abuse of the amount of such information to the detriment of the action greatly reduces the emotional impact of the play (performance) on the viewer, and sometimes reduces it to nothing.

In the literature, one can sometimes find an insufficiently clear explanation of the relationship between the concepts of "conflict" and "action". P. G. Kholodov writes about it this way: “As you know, life in motion, or in other words, action” is a specific subject of depiction in drama. 6 This is inaccurate. Life in motion is any flow of life. It can, of course, be called action. Although, in relation to real life, it would be more accurate to speak not about action, but about actions. Life is infinitely multi-functional.

The subject of the depiction in the drama is not life in general, but one or another specific social conflict, personified in the heroes of this play. Action, therefore, is not the effervescence of life in general, but the given conflict in its concrete development.

Further, E. G. Kholodov clarifies his wording to some extent, but the definition of the action remains inaccurate: “The drama reproduces the action in the form of a dramatic struggle,” he writes, “that is, in the form of a conflict.” action in the form of conflict, and vice versa - conflict in the form of action. And this is by no means a play on words, but a restoration of the true essence of the concepts under consideration. Conflict is the source of action. Action is the form of its movement, its existence in the work.

The source of drama is life itself. From the real contradictions of the development of society, the playwright takes a conflict to depict in his work. He subjectifies it in specific characters, he organizes it in space and time, gives, in other words, his own picture of the development of the conflict, creates a dramatic action. Drama is an imitation of life - what Aristotle spoke of - only in the most general sense of these words. 1) in each given work of dramaturgy, the action is not written off from any particular situation, but created, organized, molded by the author. The movement, therefore, proceeds thus: the contradiction of the development of society; typical, objectively existing on the basis of a given contradiction

conflict; its author's concretization - personification in the heroes of the work, in their collisions, in their contradiction and opposition to each other; the development of the conflict (from the beginning to the denouement, to the finale), that is, the alignment of the action.

In another place, E. G. Kholodov, relying on the thought of Hegel, comes to a correct understanding of the relationship between the concepts of "conflict" and "action".

Hegel writes: "Action presupposes circumstances that precede it, leading to collisions, to action and reaction."

The plot of the action, according to Hegel, lies where in the work they appear, “given” by the author, “only those (and not any at all - D.A.) circumstances that, picked up by the individual mindset (of the hero of this work - D .A.) and its needs, give rise to precisely that specific conflict, the deployment and resolution of which constitutes a special action of this work of art ", part 1.

So, action is the beginning, "deployment" and "resolution" of the conflict.

The hero in a dramatic work must fight, be a participant in a social clash. This, of course, does not mean that the heroes of other literary works of poetry or prose do not participate in the social struggle. But there may be other characters as well. In a work of dramaturgy, there should be no heroes standing outside the depicted social conflict.

The author depicting social conflict is always on one side of it. His sympathies and, accordingly, the sympathies of the audience are given to one heroes, and antipathies to others. At the same time, the concepts of “positive” and “negative” heroes are relative concepts and not very accurate. Speech in everyone specific case can talk about positive and negative characters from the point of view of the author of this work.

In our common understanding of modern life, a positive hero is someone who fights for the establishment of social justice, for progress, for the ideals of socialism. The hero is negative, respectively, the one who contradicts him in ideology, in politics, in behavior, in relation to work.

The hero of a dramaturgical work is always the son of his time, and from this point of view, the choice of a hero for a dramatic work is even more historical in nature, determined by historical and social circumstances. At the dawn of Soviet drama, it was easy for authors to find a positive and negative hero. Everyone who held on to yesterday was a negative hero - representatives of the tsarist apparatus, nobles, landlords, merchants, White Guard generals, officers, sometimes even soldiers, but in any case, everyone who fought against the young Soviet power. Accordingly, it was easy to find a positive hero in the ranks of revolutionaries, party leaders, heroes of the civil war, etc. Today, in a period of comparative peacetime, the task of finding a hero is much more difficult, because social clashes are not expressed as clearly as they were expressed in years of revolution and civil war, or later, during the Great Patriotic War.

"Reds!", "Whites!", "Ours!", "Nazis!" - varies from year to year

shouted the children, looking at the screens of cinema halls. The reaction of adults was not so immediate, but fundamentally similar. The division of heroes into “ours” and “not ours” in works dedicated to the civil revolution. The Patriotic War was not difficult, neither for the authors nor for the audience. Unfortunately, the artificial division of Soviet people into “ours” and “not ours” imposed from above by Stalin and his propaganda apparatus also provided material for work only in black and white paint, images from these positions of “positive” and “negative” heroes.

A sharp social struggle, as we see, is going on now, and in the sphere of ideology, and in the sphere of production, and in the sphere of morality, in matters of law, norms of behavior. The drama of life, of course, never disappears. The struggle between movement and inertia, between indifference and burning, between broadmindedness and narrow-mindedness, between nobility and baseness, search and complacency, between good and evil in the broadest sense of these words, always exists and makes it possible to search for heroes as positive, with whom we sympathize. , as well as negative ones.

It has already been said above that the relativity of the concept of a “positive” hero also lies in the fact that in dramaturgy, as in literature in general, in some cases the hero with whom we sympathize is not an example to follow, a model of behavior and life position. It is difficult to attribute to the positive characters from these points of view Katerina from The Thunderstorm and Larisa from L.N. Ostrovsky. We sincerely sympathize with them as victims of a society that lives according to the laws of animal morality, but we are their way of dealing with their lawlessness, humiliation. naturally we reject it. The main thing is that. that in life there are no absolutely positive or absolutely negative people at all. If people shared in this way in life, and a “positive” person would not have reasons and opportunities to turn out to be “negative” and vice versa, art would lose its meaning. It would lose one of its most important purposes - to contribute to the improvement of the human personality.

Only a lack of understanding of the essence of the impact of a dramatic work on the audience can explain the existence of primitive assessments of the ideological sound of a particular play by calculating the balance between the number of "positive" and "negative" characters. Especially often with such calculations they approach the assessment of satirical plays.

As we have seen, dramatic action reflects the movement of reality in its contradictions. But we cannot identify this movement with dramatic action - the reflection here is specific. Therefore, a category has appeared in modern theater and literary criticism that incorporates both the concept of “dramatic action” and the specifics of reflecting contradictory reality in this action. The name of this category is dramatic conflict.

The conflict in a dramatic work, reflecting real life contradictions, has not only a plot-constructive purpose, but also is the ideological and aesthetic basis of the drama, serves to reveal its content. In other words, the dramatic conflict acts both as a means and as a way of modeling the process of reality at the same time, that is, it is a broader and more voluminous category than action.

In its concrete artistic implementation, deployment, a dramatic conflict allows you to most deeply reveal the essence of the depicted phenomenon, to create a complete and integral picture of life. That is why the majority of contemporary theorists and practitioners of dramaturgy and theater assert with certainty that dramatic conflict is the basis of drama. It is the conflict of the drama that testifies to

Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, in contrast to vulgar materialist aesthetics, does not equate fundamentally different concepts of life's contradictions and dramatic conflict. The Leninist theory of reflection states the complex, dialectically contradictory nature of the very process of reflection. Real life contradictions are not directly, "mirror" projected in the mind of the artist - they are perceived and comprehended by each artist in his own way, in accordance with his worldview, with a whole complex of individual mental characteristics, as well as with previous experience of art. The class and ideological position of the author is determined primarily by what life contradictions reflect the dramatic conflicts he draws and how he resolves them.

Each era, each period in the life of society has its own contradictions. The set of ideas about these contradictions is determined by the level public consciousness. Some theorists of the past called this complex of ideas, this view that generalizes the important aspects of reality, a dramatic concept or the drama of life.

Undoubtedly, in the most direct, immediate form, this concept, this drama of life, is displayed in dramatic works. In itself, the emergence of dramaturgy as a kind of art is evidence that humanity has reached a certain level of historical development and a corresponding understanding of the world. In other words, drama is born in a "civil" society, with a developed division of labor and a well-formed social structure. Only under these conditions can a socio-moral conflict arise, placing the hero in front of the need to choose one of a number of possibilities.

Antique drama emerges as an artistic model of genuine, essential, deep contradictions of being associated with the crisis of the ancient polis based on slavery. The archaic period, with age-old customs, with the patriarchal traditions of the heroic age, was ending. “The power of this primitive community,” notes F. Engels, “should have been broken, and it was broken. But it was broken under such influences that directly appear to us as a decline, a fall in comparison with the high moral level of the old tribal society. The basest motives - vulgar greed, gross passion for pleasure, dirty stinginess, selfish desire to plunder the common property - are the heirs of a new, civilized, class society.

Antique drama gave absolute meaning to the contradictions of that particular historical reality. The dramatic concept of reality, which gradually took shape in ancient Greece, is limited to the notion of a universal "cosmos" ("due order"). According to the ancient Greeks, the world is governed by a higher necessity, equivalent to truth and justice. But within this "proper order" there is a continuous change and development, which is carried out through the struggle of opposites.

The socio-historical prerequisites for Shakespearean tragedy, as well as for the ancient theater, are a change in formations, the death of an entire way of life. The estate system was replaced by the bourgeois order. The individual is freed from feudal prejudices, but is threatened by more subtle forms of enslavement.

The drama of social contradictions was repeated at a new stage. The emergence of a new class society opened up, as Engels writes, “that epoch that continues to this day, when all progress at the same time means a relative regression, when the well-being and development of some is achieved at the cost of suffering and suppression of others.”

A modern scholar writes about Shakespeare's era:

“For a whole epoch in the development of art, the tragic effect of the resistance and death of the old, taken in its ideal and high content, was the main source of conflict ...

Bourgeois relations were established in the world. And the alienation of the human from the human directly entered into the conflicts of Shakespeare's tragedies. But their content is not reduced to this historical subtext, it is not on it that the current of action closes.

The free will of the man of the Renaissance comes into tragic conflict with the moral norms of the new, "ordered" society - the absolutist state. In the depths of the absolutist state, the bourgeois order is maturing. This contradiction in various collisions was the basis of many conflicts of the Renaissance drama and Shakespeare's tragedies.

The contradictions of historical development acquire a particularly acute character in bourgeois society, where the alienation of the individual is due to the diverse forces embodied in the state apparatus, reflected in the bourgeois norms of law and morality, in the most complex tangles of human relationships that are in conflict with social processes. In a bourgeois society that has reached maturity, the principle of "every man for himself, one against all" becomes obvious. History is, as it were, the resultant of differently directed wills.

Consideration of the essence of this new socio-historical collision helps to understand F. Engels's instruction regarding the "alienation" of social forces: "Social strength, i.e., smart

This social productive force, arising from the joint activity of various individuals conditioned by the division of labor, this social force, due to the fact that the joint activity itself arises not voluntarily, but spontaneously, appears to these individuals not as their own combined force, but as some kind of alien, outside of them. worthy power, about the origin and development trends of which they know nothing...”.

Hostile to man, bourgeois reality, reflected in the dramaturgy of the 19th and early 20th centuries, does not seem to accept the challenge of the hero to a duel. It is as if there is no one to fight with - the alienation of social power here reaches its extreme limits.

And only in Soviet dramaturgy did the powerful progressive course of history and the will of the hero - a man from the people - appear in unity.

Awareness of the movement of history as a result of the class struggle has made class contradictions the primary basis of the dramatic conflict in many works of Soviet drama, from the time of Mystery Buff to the present day.

However, all the richness and diversity of life's contradictions told by Soviet dramaturgy does not come down to this. It also reflected new social contradictions, no longer generated by the struggle of classes, but by the difference in the levels of social consciousness, the difference in understanding the weight and priority of this or that task - political, economic, moral and ethical. These tasks and the problems associated with their solution have arisen and inevitably arise in the process of the socialist transformation of reality. Finally, we must not forget the mistakes and misconceptions along the way.

Thus, the dramatic concept of reality in an indirect form, in a dramatic conflict (and more specifically, through the struggle of individuals or social groups) gives a picture of the social struggle, deploying the driving forces of time in action.

Based on the semantics of the word, conflict, some theorists believe that a dramatic conflict is, first of all, a specific clash of characters, characters, opinions, etc. And they come to the conclusion that a drama can consist of two or more conflicts (social and psychological), of main and side conflicts and etc. Others identify the contradictions of reality itself with conflict as an aesthetic category, thereby revealing a misunderstanding of the essence of art.

The works of leading modern researchers and practitioners of the theater refute these erroneous assumptions.

The best plays by Soviet playwrights have never been divorced from the most important phenomena of reality. Invariably preserving the class approach to the phenomena of reality, the parties-

new certainty in their assessment, Soviet playwrights took and continue to take the dominant issues of our time as the basis of their works.

The construction of communist society proceeds in stages, one stage ensures another, higher one, and this continuity must be understood, realized by society. The theater, as one of the means of ideological support for the construction of communism, must deeply comprehend the processes taking place in life in order to contribute to the development and movement of society forward.

Thus, dramatic conflict is a broader and more voluminous category than action. This category concentrates all the specific features of dramaturgy as an independent kind of art. All elements of the drama serve the best deployment of the conflict, which allows the most profound disclosure of the depicted phenomenon, creating a complete and complete picture of life. In other words, the dramatic conflict serves for a deeper and more visual disclosure of the contradictions of reality, plays a major role in conveying the ideological meaning of the work. And the specific artistic specificity of reflecting the contradictions of reality is what is commonly called the nature of dramatic conflict.

The different life material underlying the plays gives rise to conflicts that are different in nature.

"The drama is in a hurry ..." - Goethe.

The issue of drama is an object of close attention not only to literary critics, but also to language teachers, psychologists, methodologists, and theater critics.

Art critic I. Vishnevskaya believes that “it is the drama that will help to analyze time and fate more deeply, historical events and human characters. Emphasizing the deep connection between dramaturgy and the theater, Vishnevskaya states that "the dramaturgy of the theater, cinema, television, and radio is the life of a modern schoolchild." This fact is probably the reason why many students often know the content of dramatic (and sometimes epic) works only from television performances or screen adaptations.

M. Gromova, a researcher of the poetics of dramatic works, who has created a number of textbooks on dramaturgy containing interesting literary material, believes that undeservedly little attention is paid to the study of dramatic works.

Also known is the textbook of the famous scientist of the Moscow methodological school Z.S. Smelkova, which presents extensive material on dramaturgy. Considering dramaturgy as an interspecies art form, Z. Smelkova emphasizes the stage purpose of the drama, which “lives in the theater and takes on a complete form only when it is staged”.

As for methodological aids and developments, there are very few of them today. Suffice it to name the works "Literature of the XX century" in two parts by V. Agenosov, "Russian Literature" by R.I. Albetkova, Russian Literature. Grade 9 ”,“ Russian literature 10-11th grades ”by A.I. Gorshkova and many others.

The history of the development of dramaturgy gives us many examples when dramatic works never saw a scene during the life of the author (remember A.S. Griboedov’s “Woe from Wit”, M.Yu. Lermontov’s “Masquerade”), or were distorted by censorship, or were staged in truncated form. Many plays by A.P. Chekhov were incomprehensible to modern theaters and were interpreted opportunistically, in the spirit of the requirements of the time.

Therefore, today the question is ripe to talk not only about drama, but also about the theater, about staging plays on the theater stage.

From this it becomes quite clear that the drama:

• - firstly, one of the genera (along with epic and lyrics) and one of the main genres of literature (along with tragedy and comedy), requiring special study;
• - secondly, drama should be studied in two aspects: literary criticism and theatrical art(the main objective of our book).

The study of drama is conditioned by the requirements of standard curricula in literature intended for students of schools, academic lyceums and vocational colleges. The objectives of the training programs are aimed at the formation of knowledge, skills and abilities of analysis artwork and the education of true connoisseurs of art.

It is quite natural that students can find interesting, scientific and cognitive information in the Hegelian “Aesthetics” (, in the work of V. G. Belinsky “On Drama and Theater”, in the studies of A. Anixt “Drama Theory in Russia from Pushkin to Chekhov”, A. A. Karyagina Karyagin A. "Drama - as an aesthetic problem", V. A. Sakhnovsky-Pankeeva "Drama. Conflict. Composition. Stage life", V. V. Khalizeva "Drama - as a phenomenon of art", "Drama as kind of literature" (and many others.

It is also quite natural that today there are few teaching aids that raise the problem of students' perception of dramatic works in the aspect of theatrical art.

To some extent, modern textbooks and study guides according to the theory of literature V.V. Agenosova, E.Ya. Fesenko, V.E. Khalizeva and others, who rightly believe that a play cannot have a full life without a theater. Just as a play cannot “live” without a performance, so the performance gives an “open” life to the play.

Literary critic E.Ya. Fesenko considers the reflection of the essential content of life “through systems of contradictory, conflicting relations between subjects directly realizing their interests and goals” to be a distinctive feature of the drama, which are expressed and realized in action. The main means of its embodiment in dramatic works, according to the author, is the speech of the characters, their monologues and dialogues that induce action, organize the action itself, through the confrontation of the characters' characters.

I would also like to mention the book by V. Khalizev "Drama as a Phenomenon of Art", which deals with the issues of plot construction.

In the works of E. Bentley, T.S. Zepalova, N.O. Korst, A. Karyagin, M. Polyakova and others also touched upon issues related to the study of the artistic integrity and poetics of drama.

Modern researchers-methodists M.G. Kachurin, O.Yu. Bogdanova and others) talk about the difficulties that arise in the study of dramatic works that require a special psychological and pedagogical approach to the learning process.

“The study of dramatic poetry is, so to speak, the crown of the theory of literature ... This kind of poetry not only contributes to the serious mental development of young people, but with its lively interest and special effect on the soul, it settles the noblest love for the theater, in its great educational significance for society” - In .P. Ostrogorsky.

The specific features of drama are determined by:

• - Aesthetic properties of drama (an important feature of drama).
• - The size of the dramatic text (a small amount of drama imposes certain restrictions on the type of construction of the plot, character, space).
• - Lack of author's narration

The position of the author in a dramatic work is hidden more than in works of other kinds, and its identification requires the reader to special attention and reflections. Based on monologues, dialogues, remarks and remarks, the reader must imagine the time of action, the stop in which the characters live, imagine their appearance, manner of speaking and listening, catching gestures, feeling what is hidden behind the words and actions of each of them.

• - The presence of actors (sometimes called a poster). The author anticipates the appearance of characters by giving brief description on each of them (this is a remark). In the poster, another type of remark is possible - the author's indication of the place and time of the events.
• - Dividing the text into acts (or actions) and phenomena

Each action (act) of a drama, and often a picture, a scene, a phenomenon, is a relatively finished part of a harmonious whole, subordinated to a certain plan of the playwright. Inside the action there can be paintings or scenes. Each arrival or departure of the actor gives rise to a new action.

The author's remark precedes each act of the play, marks the appearance of the character on the stage and his departure. The remark accompanies the speech of the characters. When reading a play, they are addressed to the reader, when staged on stage - to the director and actor. The author's remark gives a certain support to the "recreating imagination" of the reader (Karyagin), suggests the situation, the atmosphere of the action, the nature of the characters' communication.

Remark says:

• - how to pronounce the replica of the hero (“with restraint”, “with tears”, “with delight”, “quietly”, “out loud”, etc.);
• - what gestures accompany him (“respectfully bowing”, “politely smiling”);
• - what actions of the hero influence the course of the event (“Bobchinsky looks out the door and hides in fright”).

The note states characters, indicate their age, describe appearance, which family relations they are connected, the place of action is indicated (“a room in the mayor’s house”, the city), “actions” and gestures of the characters (for example: “peers out the window and screams”; “brave”).

Dialogic form of text construction

Dialogue in drama is a multi-valued concept. In the broad sense of the word, dialogue is a form of oral speech, a conversation between two or more persons. In this case, a monologue can also be part of the dialogue (the speech of the character addressed to himself or to other characters, but the speech is isolated, not dependent on the replicas of the interlocutors). This may be a form of oral speech, close to the author's description in epic works.

In connection with this issue, the theater critic V.S. Vladimirov writes: “Dramatic works allow portrait and landscape characteristics, designations outside world, playback inner speech only to the extent that all this "fits" in the word uttered by the hero in the course of the action. The dialogue in the drama is distinguished by its special emotionality, richness of intonations (in turn, the absence of these qualities in the character's speech is an essential means of characterizing him). The dialogue clearly shows the "subtext" of the character's speech (request, demand, persuasion, etc.). Especially important for the characterization of the character are monologues in which the characters express their intentions. Dialogue in drama performs two functions: it gives a characterization of the characters and serves as a means of developing dramatic action. Understanding the second function of the dialogue is connected with the peculiarity of the development of the conflict in the drama.

A feature of the construction of a dramatic conflict

The dramatic conflict determines all the plot elements of a dramatic action, it "shines through the logic of the development of the 'individual', the relationship of the characters living and acting in his dramatic field."

The conflict is the "dialectics of drama" (E. Gorbunova), the unity and struggle of opposites. A very crude, primitive and limited understanding of the conflict as the opposition of two characters with different life positions. The conflict expresses the shift of times, the clash of historical epochs and manifests itself at every point of the dramatic text. The hero, before making a certain decision or making an appropriate choice, goes through an internal struggle of hesitations, doubts, experiences of his inner self. The conflict dissolves in the action itself and is expressed through the transformation of characters that occurs throughout the play and is found in the context of the entire system of relationships between the characters . V. G. Belinsky states in this regard: “The conflict is the spring that drives the action, which should be directed towards one goal, towards one intention of the author.”

Dramatic ups and downs

The ups and downs (an important feature of the dramatic text), which has a certain function in the play, contributes to the deepening of the dramatic conflict. Peripetia - an unexpected circumstance that causes complications, an unexpected change in any business of the hero's life. Its function is connected with the general artistic conception of the play, with its conflict, problems and poetics. In the most different occasions vicissitudes appear as such a special moment in the development of dramatic relations, when they are, one way or another, stimulated by a certain new force intervening in the conflict from the side.

The dual construction of the plot, working to reveal the subtext

The famous director and founder of the Moscow Art Theater K.S. Stanislavsky divided the play into "plan of external structure" and "plan of internal structure". For a great director, these two plans correspond to the categories “plot” and “canvas”. According to the director, the plot of a drama is an event chain in spatio-temporal sequence, and the canvas is a super-plot, super-characteristic, super-verbal phenomenon. If in theatrical practice this corresponds to the concept of text and subtext, then in a dramatic work - text and "undercurrent".

“The dual structure of the text “plot-canvas” determines the logic of the action of events, the behavior of the characters, their gestures, the logic of the functioning of symbolic sounds, the mixing of feelings that accompany the characters in everyday situations, pauses and replicas of the characters.” The characters of a dramatic work are included in the space-time environment, so the movement of the plot, the disclosure of the inner meaning (canvas) of the play is inextricably linked with the images of the characters.

Each word in the drama (context) has two layers: direct meaning connected with the external - life and action, figurative - with thought and state. The role of context in drama is more complex than in other literary genres. Since it is the context that creates a system of means for revealing subtext and outline. This is the only way to penetrate through externally depicted events into the true content of the drama. The complexity of the analysis of a dramatic work lies in the disclosure of this paradoxical connection between the canvas and the plot, the subtext and the “undercurrent”.

For example, in the drama "Dowry" by A.N. Ostrovsky, the subtext is felt in the conversation between the merchants Knurov and Vozhevatov about the sale and purchase of a steamboat, which imperceptibly passes to the second possible "purchase" (this scene must be read in class). The conversation is about an “expensive diamond” (Larisa) and a “good jeweler”. The subtext of the dialogue is obvious: Larisa is a thing, an expensive diamond, which only a rich merchant (Vozhevatov or Knurov) should own.

Subtext arises in colloquial speech as a means of keeping silent "back thoughts": the characters feel and think not what they say. It is often created by means of "dispersed repetition" (T. Silman), all links of which act with each other in complex relationships, from which their deep meaning is born.

The law of "tightness of the series of events"

The dynamism of the action, the cohesion of the replicas of the characters, pauses, the author's remarks - make up the law of "crowdedness of the series of events." The tightness of the plot line affects the rhythm of the drama and determines the artistic concept of the work. The events in the drama take place as if before the eyes of the reader (the viewer directly sees them), who becomes, as it were, an accomplice of what is happening. The reader creates his own imaginary action, which can sometimes coincide with the moment of reading the play.

Today, even the most unlimited possibilities of a computer cannot replace human-to-human communication, because as long as humanity exists, it will be interested in art that helps to understand and solve moral and aesthetic problems that arise in life and are reflected in works of art.

A.V. Chekhov wrote about the fact that drama occupies a special place not only in literature, but also in the theater: “Drama has attracted, is attracting and will continue to attract the attention of many theater and literary critics.” In the recognition of the writer, the dual purpose of dramaturgy is also palpable: it is addressed to both the reader and the viewer. Hence the impossibility of complete isolation in the study of a dramatic work from the study of the conditions of its theatrical realization, "the constant dependence of its forms on the forms of stage production" (Tomashevsky).

The well-known critic V. G. Belinsky reasonably sought a way to a synthetic understanding of a theatrical work as a result of an organic change in functions and structure. certain types art. It becomes clear for him the need to take into account the functional significance of various structural elements play (as a dramatic work) and performance. A theatrical work - for Belinsky - is not a result, but a process, and therefore each performance is "an individual and almost unique process that creates a number of concretizations of a dramatic work that have both unity and difference."

Everyone knows the words of Gogol: “The play lives only on the stage ... Take a long look at the full length and breadth of the burning population of our divided homeland, how many we have good people, but how many there are weeds, from which there is no life for the good and for which no law is able to follow. On their stage: let all the people see them.

A.N. Ostrovsky.

K.S. Stanislavsky repeatedly emphasized: “Only on the stage of the theater can one recognize dramatic works in their entirety and essence,” and further “if it were otherwise, the viewer would not aspire to the theater, but would sit at home and read the play.”

The question of the dual orientation of drama and theater also worried the art historian A.A. Karyagin. In his book Drama as an Aesthetic Problem, he wrote: “For the playwright, drama is more like a performance created by the power of creative imagination and fixed in a play that you can read if you wish, than literary work, which can also be played on stage. And it's not the same at all."

The question of the relationship between the two functions of drama (reading and performance) is also at the center of two studies: “Reading and seeing play. A Study of Simultaneity in Drama” by the Dutch theater critic W. Hogendoorn and “In the World of Ideas and Images” by the literary critic M. Polyakov.

V. Hogendoorn in his book seeks to give an accurate terminological description of each of the concepts he uses. Considering the concept of "drama", V. Hogendoorn notes that this term, with all the variety of its meanings, has three main ones: 1) drama as a real linguistic work created in accordance with the laws of this genre; 2) drama as a basis for creating a work of theatrical art, a kind of literary fabrication; 3) drama as a product of staging, a work recreated from a dramatic text by a certain team (director, actor, etc.) by reframing the information contained in the text and the emotional and artistic charge through the individual consciousness of each participant in its production.

W. Hogendoorn's research is based on the assertion that the process of the theatrical representation of a drama differs from its development by the reader, since the perception of a theatrical production of a drama is perception both auditory and visual at the same time.

The concept of the Dutch theater critic contains an important methodological idea: the drama must be studied by the methods of theatrical pedagogy. Visual and auditory perception of the text (when watching a performance and when playing improvisational scenes) contribute to the activation of individual creative activity of students and the development of creative reading techniques for a dramatic work.

M. Polyakov in the book “In the World of Ideas and Images” writes: “The starting point for describing such complex phenomenon, as a theatrical spectacle, there remains a dramatic text .... The verbal (verbal) structure of the drama imposes certain type stage behavior, type of action, structural connections of gestural and linguistic signs. The specificity of the reader's perception of a dramatic work "is due to the intermediate nature of its status: the reader is both an actor and a spectator, he, as it were, stages the play for himself. And this determines the duality of his understanding of the play,” the literary critic believes. The process of perception of a dramatic work by the spectator, actor and reader is homogeneous, according to the author, only in the sense that each of them, as it were, passes the drama through his individual consciousness, his own world of ideas and feelings.

4.1. Determination of the boundaries of the concept of "the nature of the conflict".

The term "nature of conflict" is often used in writings on drama, but there is no clear terminological clarity in its functioning. A. Anixt, for example, characterizing Hegel's reasoning about collision, writes: "In essence, everything that Hegel says about "action" and the general state of the world is a reasoning about the nature of dramatic conflict" (9; 52). Representing different kinds collisions highlighted by the philosopher, Anikst notes that "this place of his aesthetics is of exceptionally great interest, because here questions about the nature, ideological and aesthetic qualities of the dramatic conflict are resolved" (9; 56). The nature and nature of the conflict are reduced by the researcher to an unambiguous concept. V. Khalizev in his work "Drama as a kind of literature" also resorts to the wording "the nature of the conflict", although, covering the same issues in the preface to the collection "Analysis of a Dramatic Work", the scientist also uses the concept of "the nature of the conflict", and notes that " among the controversial is the question of the nature of the conflict in a dramatic work" (267; 10).

In reference publications, this conceptual formula is not singled out in a special paragraph at all. Only in the translated Dictionary of the Theatre, P. Pavi, such an explanation exists in the section "Conflict". It says: “The nature of various conflicts is extremely diverse. If a scientific typology were possible, it would be possible to draw a theoretical model of all conceivable dramatic situations and thereby determine the dramatic nature of the theatrical action, the following conflicts would be revealed:

The rivalry of two characters for economic, love, moral, political and other reasons;

The conflict of two worldviews, two irreconcilable morals (for example, Antigone and Creon);

Moral struggle between the subjective and the objective, attachment and duty, passion and reason. This struggle may take place in the psyche of the personality, or between two "worlds" which are trying to win the hero over to their side;

Conflict of interests of the individual and society, private and general considerations;

The moral or metaphysical struggle of a person against any principle or desire that exceeds his capabilities (God, absurdity, ideal, overcoming oneself, etc.) "(181; 162).

The nature of the conflict in this case refers to the forces that come into conflict with each other. In works on drama, one can also find references to the tragic, comedic, melodramatic nature of the conflict, that is, the reduction of the concept to a genre characteristic. The very meaning of the word "nature" as applied not to the sphere of the physical existence of the world, but to the area of ​​metaphysical reflections, is polyfunctional, it can be used with various logical series. In the dictionary of V. Dahl, this is explained as follows: “Referring nature to personality, they say: such was born. In this sense, nature, as a property, quality, belonging or essence, is also transferred to abstract and spiritual objects” (89; III, 439). Hence the well-founded application of the concept of "nature" to any other concepts and phenomena that need an explanation of their features.

For a systematic analysis of a dramatic work, it is necessary to establish clear boundaries for such a definition as the "nature of a dramatic conflict" and separate it from the concept of "the nature of the conflict", to identify their interdependence, interconnection, but not identity.

Since the concept of "nature", according to Dahl, as applied to abstract categories of logical constructions, correlates with different semantic groups, then, speaking about the nature of a dramatic conflict, one can mean both its genre essence, and the characteristics of the forces entering into a duel, and the belonging of these forces to that or other area human activity. However, in these cases, the definition of "the nature of the conflict" does not claim a categorical status. If the term is introduced as a theoretical unit, then it is necessary to find a more general and universal meaning.

In this study, the nature of the conflict will be understood as a metacategory, i.e. the broadest and most fundamental category of drama poetics, which is a system-forming beginning in the process of the author's modeling of the world order. The introduction of this category will make it possible to more clearly and substantively trace how ontological views artist determine the specifics of his artistic principles.

If we use the distinction between the concepts of "collision" and "conflict", bearing in mind that the first is a designation of potential contradictions, and the second is the process of their complex collision - a struggle organized into a single artistic process, then the collision is defined as the basis of the conflict, the impetus for its development . In turn, the source of the collision determines the nature of the conflict.

"Mediation" of a collision between a source of contradictions and a holistic model of their representation (conflict) seems to be of fundamental importance. In this triad - the source (the nature of the conflict) - collision - conflict - the cognitive-modeling function of art is clearly traced. A collision is a real-life contradiction, a conflict is its in an artistic way(collision - signified, conflict - signifier). The material carrier of the artistic sign (conflict) in the drama is the objective world, which includes a person. Here, it seems to us, lies the core of the generic specificity of the drama.

The objective world and the person in the lyrics and the epic remains the depicted word, in the drama the reproduction of the verbal description in an effective series is initially programmed. The focus on material materialization is manifested through a special concentration of the crisis conditions of the character's existence for the maximum manifestation of his personal qualities and the essence of the events. Only in drama does conflict become not just a way of depicting the world, but the very texture of the image, only in drama does conflict turn from a means, a principle (a logically abstract concept) into a carrier of artistic imagery. Comprehension of the depth and specifics of the conflict is impossible without referring to the source, the primordial basis for the creation of contradictions, i.e. the structure of the conflict is determined by the nature of its occurrence.

The supporters of the "new drama" rebelled against the established forms of dramatic skill because they saw completely different sources for creating conflicts than their predecessors. According to A. Bely, the "drama in life" was replaced by the "drama of life".

V. Yarkho, who discusses the work of ancient Greek authors, and A. Skaftymov, who reveals the specifics of Chekhov's plays, analyze the features of various dramatic systems without resorting to theoretical calculations, but precisely through the concept of "the nature of the conflict." Here is what Yarkho writes about the essence of the differences between the dramaturgy of Aeschylus and his younger contemporaries: "when analyzing the post-Aeschylus tragedy, we will try to get an answer to the following questions already posed in the dramaturgy of Aeschylus: How does she see the world - does it retain its ultimate rationality in the eyes of Sophocles and Euripides" ? What is the essence of the tragic conflict - is it limited to the tragedy of the situation, or is the conflict rooted in the tragic inconsistency of the world as a whole? conflict? Who and what constitutes the source of suffering?" (215; 419).

Let us note that in the first case we are talking about dramas created at the dawn of the formation of the literary genre itself; but even then, as a modern researcher noted, the different nature of the conflict distinguished the works of playwrights, determining the features of their artistic principles. Therefore, in late XIX- the beginning of the twentieth century. supporters of the "new drama" only exacerbated and put at the center of the discussion the question inherent in drama at all stages of its historical development.

4.2. Casual and substantial nature of the conflict.

V. Khalizev turned to the theoretical understanding of this problem, proposing to classify conflicts according to the sources of their occurrence. Exploring Hegel's theory of conflict, V. Khalizev writes: "Hegel allowed contradictions into the world of dramatic art restrictively. His theory of collision and action is in full agreement with the work of those writers and poets who thought of reality as harmonic." In this regard, Khalizev proposes to call such conflicts "casus conflicts", i.e., "local, transient, closed within a single set of circumstances and fundamentally resolvable by the will of individual people." He also singles out "substantial conflicts", i.e. "states of life marked by contradictions, which are either universal and essentially unchanged, or arise and disappear according to the transpersonal will of nature and history, but not due to individual actions and accomplishments of people and their groups" (266; 134).

Hegel did not deny the existence of such conflicts, calling them "sad", but denied art the right to depict them, while the philosopher applied the concept of "substantial" to the sphere of human spiritual aspirations. Hegel did not question the return to the original harmony of the world; the constant (“substantial”) in his theory is the comprehension of this truth by a person through a chain of trials and hardships.

By proposing to divide conflicts, based on the nature of their occurrence, into casual and substantive, the modern theorist has in mind the manifestation of different worldview attitudes, on which the authors rely. In this regard, the conflict "either marks a violation of the world order, fundamentally harmonious and perfect, or acts as a feature of the world order itself, evidence of its imperfection or disharmony" (266; 134).

Thus, the conflict can be an artistic embodiment of harmony or disharmony, cosmos or chaos (if we keep in mind the archetypal nature of these concepts that have developed at the level of mythological consciousness).

The materialization of the conflict through the behavior of a human actor, the focus on which we single out as a specific feature of the drama, can manifest itself through various spheres of human activity: social, intellectual, psychological, moral and ethical, as well as in different combinations them with each other. The sphere of manifestation of contradictions will be referred to in this study as the nature of the conflict. The nature of the conflict can equally reflect both its causal and substantial nature.

But, given that the drama is obliged not to tell about the conflict, but to show it, the question arises of the boundaries and possibilities of the visible manifestation of the conflict, especially when it comes to such subtle areas as spiritual activity, associated with the ideological aspirations of a person, and spiritual life, related to his mental health. It is no coincidence that V. Khalizev has doubts about the completeness of the artistic powers of the drama, since it "is not able to use the characters' internal monologues in combination with the narrator's accompanying comments, which significantly limits its possibilities in the field of psychologism" (269; 44). This is what P. Pavi is talking about: "Dramaturgy, which sets out the inner struggle of a person, or the struggle of universal principles, faces great difficulties in a dramatic depiction." The preference given to too particular or too universal human conflicts leads to the disintegration of dramatic elements ... "(181; 163).

Nevertheless, K. Stanislavsky, a director who was one of the first to discover the principles of the stage embodiment of the "new drama", saw the main task of the actor in recreating the "life of the human spirit." And he built his famous system of acting creativity on an appeal to the internal impulses of human behavior. The director introduced the concept of "internal action" into theater criticism, distinguishing it from "external action". This distinction was firmly entrenched in the theory of drama of the 20th century, in many ways influencing the renewal of its provisions as a whole.