Working with Literary Text Outside the Classroom the Role of Multi-Aspect Synthesis in Personality Development

Abstract

The multi-aspect synthesis is an important stylistic feature of the 50-80s of the ХХ century, specifically reflected in children’s literature, and in the individual style of each writer. The author identifies the main trend in the fulfillment of the multi-aspect synthesis potential in Russian children’s literature of the 1950–1980s, and its role in the moral, spiritual, and intellectual education of children and adolescents. Besides, the author shows how children’s and juvenile literature of the period is influenced by the respective art forms, new features imparted to the verbal art by others, and the capability of the literature itself to influence a growing and developing personality increase. Chelyukanova О.N. notes that making school-children familiar with literary works based on the multiaspect synthesis, produces a many-sided emotional impact appealing to children’s feelings. Fantasy, fairytale, anti-utopia, humour — are all vectors of children and juvenile literature, and appear in various planes to instill the values empowering the reader to think and feel freely, demonstrating the true and the false, and giving a real and an imaginary freedom. The research methods include the principles of the comparative-historical, comparative-typological, content and structural, and historic-functional methods, allowing the author to efficiently solve the research problems set. The research material contains prose for children and adolescents: stories, tales, fairytales, and fantastic cycles, and the works of the authors recognized as “exemplary” children’s writers: Kir Bulychev, S. Georgievskaya, Yu. Koval, V. Krapivin, V. Medvedev, R. Pogodin, B. Rakhmanin, Yu. Tomin, Yu. Yakovlev.

Keywords: Leisure time, children’s prose, intra-literary synthesis, art synthesis, game, psychological training, fairytale, fantasy, humor

Introduction

Arrangement of school-children’s leisure time is one of the most pressing issues in today’s

pedagogics. Communication with a good children’s book undoubtedly integrates quite a number of

leisure time activities, such as games, creative activities, self-education, entertainment, etc. The most

efficient pieces are those based on the intra-literary and art synthesis described theoretically in the

works of Y.I. Mineralov (Mineralov Yu.I., 1999), I.G. Mineralova (Mineralova I.G., 1999), G.Y.

Zavgorodnyaya (Zavgorodnyaya G.Y., 2010), S.А. Vasilyev (Vasilyev S.А., 2007).

The research methods have been developed by the above-mentioned contemporaneous scientists.

The purpose of the research is to show how children’s literature of the second half of the ХХ

century, with its important artistic and stylistic features, can arouse interest to reading and multi-aspect

creative activity.

The article covers the methodical, psycho-pedagogical, and philosophic aspect of studying art

practices of children’s prose written in the 50-60s of the ХХ century using empirical data.

The subject matter is Russian children’s prose of the 1950-1980s, in particular, the trilogy by V.V.

Medvedev “Barankin’s Fantasy World” (1962-1978), novel “The Wedding March” (1974), cycle of

fantastic stories by Kir Bulychev (I. Mozheiko) (1934) about the girl named Alisa (1965–2003), story

by B. Rakhmanin “The Handless Clock”, 1975, stories by Yu. Tomin “A, B, C, D, and Others” (1975)

and R. Pogodin “The Red Horses” (1967), etc.

Most favorable conditions for synthesis in the children’s literature of the 50–80s of the ХХ century,

were created by literary talegenre and forms, based on a specific conventional imagery. The fairytale

genre was approached by writers such as, V. Gubarev, L. Geraskina, V. Krapivin, Yu. Tomin, etc. The

importance of their works is conditioned not only by the obvious use of the various synthesis forms,

but by creating to various vital spiritual and moral problems. What is meant here is that, in these

literary works, words attain such supplementary meanings other than their lexical meanings.

V.V. Medvedev with his trilogy “Barankin’s Fantasy World” was most convincing in this meta-

genre. The idea of spiritual and moral revival was the main idea the book. In this context, the fairytale

story is of educational nature. The idea is embodied through multiple artistic devices used by the

author, including a whimsical combination in the story structure of fairytale and reality, as well as

humour, game, psychological and fantastic elements typical for the genre.

Being an artist who received film director education, Medvedev, even in children fairytales

arranges the contents in a way synonymous to movies. A trivial pedagogical cliché used when

addressing a child “Be a human!” is of key ontological importance in the book. The writer turns the

conversation with the reader from humoristic and preaching levels, to the level of speculation

involving all “aspects” of a human: biology, physiology, psychology, sociology, ideology, philosophy.

These aspects are interlaced in the plot as characters that are not only comprehensible for a child, but

also answer the key questions about his relationships with the world. Medvedev was not only

interested in getting answers to the trivial questions, but also to complicated ones, for example - “what

does it mean to be human?”. As an actor and a film director, he put both the character and the reader in

the situation of an “actor’s etude” - “me in the suggested circumstances”. For children these “sacred”

words are normally just a meaningless phrase, whereas the moral concept itself is the basis of the entire

humanistic morals. It is this profound moral and philosophical content, inherent in the concept of

”human”, that Medvedev decided to bring home to children.

Taking into account the age of the readers, the writer understood that the visibility of characters,

can be achieved using the literary tale form always favored by all children and adolescents, and

combining various genres and allusions to them, of conventionally fantastic, as well as lyrical,

humouristic and realistic kinds. Such artistic understanding of the childhood world was observed in the

works of А.G. Aleksin, L.B. Geraskin, N.N. Nosov, V.P. Krapivin, when they inherited and

paraphrased the traditions of K.I. Chukovsky, S.Ya. Marshak, Yu.К. Olesha, А.P. Gaidar, etc.

Medvedev certainly considered the experience accumulated by the folk art, and included them in the

expressions of most complicated philosophic sentences through fairytale plots and characters. Such

experiences were fruitfully manifested in Russian, as well as West European literary tales.

Medvedev’s fairytale story not only describes how one can 'wake up' the interests of young

characters, but also help in the growth of consciousness, and shapes their spiritual aspect. Because a

literary work for a reader is “both a “container” for certain feelings and thoughts he possesses and

expresses, and an “actuator” (stimulator) for his/her own spiritual initiative and energy” (Halizev V.Е.,

2005).

Tomin’s story “A, B, C, D and Others” is a typical example of genre multidimensionality in what is

understood under the literary tale concept. Frankly speaking, stories by Yury Tomin cannot be related

to the fairytale genre with its mandatory components present in the folk art, but they fall within the

genre and type definition of a literary tale, the style and all constituents of which can be rather different

from those of its folk predecessor. The story contents are shaped within science fiction ideas and

images, the reader’s attention is held with a number of detective means, school themes and problems

— teachers, camping, adventures — neutralize the “non-confidence” in what is being depicted,

contribute to the feeling of authenticity and certainty towards the series of depicted events, as well as

the transformation of the inner world of the characters — both children and adults.

Literary work transposition into the language of animation, movie, illustration, and other a priori

synthetic forms, undoubtedly, acquire complementary, but still important meanings for aesthetic

sensibility development and child’s personality formation as a whole. These transpositions of a verbal

text into the language of other arts become a constituent part of the artistic world of a children’s tale.

This synthesis is the basis of powerful intellectual and emotional impacts on a young reader's view.

This phenomenon is an important stylistic feature of the epoch.

The genre synthesis in children’s literary tale and fantasy of the 50-80s of the ХХ century opens

unlimited opportunities for the implementation and functioning of the rules and laws of a children’s

game in a piece, improving the reading motivation.

Game is put in the center of a pre-school child’s life, as a specially arranged activity that allows a

child to understand social laws, to obtain new social skills, to learn how to use the environment, and

control his/her own behavior. In the 1960s, Soviet developmental psychology arrived at the idea that

game is the principal activity for children education, and thus the game phenomenon appeared on the

pages of children’s books, however, it happened a bit earlier in the West. Russian and foreign literary

studies pay close attention to the game problem, and it’s crucially important, since game is used for

developing models of adults’ life. The characters and readers of works by V. Krapivin, Yu. Yakovlev, А.

Aleksin, V. Medvedev, etc. learn about life through game. Game is directly connected with literature.

According to J. Huizinga, poetry originated from game and developed in accordance with game forms

(Huizinga http://rumagic.com/ru_zar/sci_philosophy/heyzinga/0/).

The role of game is of most significance in fairytale and fantastic pieces for children. The children

fantasy genre opens vast opportunities for genre synthesis, establishes the rules and laws of game, and

correlates them with literary work construction laws. In Russian literature of the 1950 – 1980s prosaic

cycles for children series, not collections of tales, were rather efficient, especially the most popular one

by Kir Bulychev (I. Mozheiko) (1934) — a cycle of fantastic stories about a girl called Alisa, through

whose eyes a young reader sees a fantastic world.

Game as a means of cognition connects fairytale and fantasy, allowing Alisa to comprehend the

laws of the world, gives impetus to development, shapes the artistic environment of both individual

stories, and the cycle as a whole. In Kir Bulychev’s Adventures of Alisa, the imaginary world game is a

determinant factor shaping the genre and imagery space of the cycle. Fantastic worlds built according

to the rules of children’s games, provide the option of creating a simple and clear world view, clear and

understandable for a young reader. This is the way the writer builds up the semantic model of an

imaginary world, reflecting the real one in the game form. These models are essentially created for

studying real life situations, and therefore are inherently related to the children’s game phenomenon, as

well as fairytale as another real world model. The genre structure of the pieces included in the cycle is

based on the synthesis of fantasy, adventure novel, travel novel, literary and folk tale. The fantastic

aspect is a plot shaping factor in the cycle works, it has an important cycle shaping function connecting

genre features of a story and tale in the cycle with the same fantastic “realia”.

The fantastic tale/story genre opens vast opportunities for creation of a new inner form,

through combinations of characters and plots traditionally “bound” to certain genres, but due

to the nature of the game, creates an efficient life-building focus.

Language game in children’s book is a special technique for influencing mental activity. Thus, the

language of V. Medvedev’s characters is characterized by bright metaphors, a plethora of wordplays,

original imagery, emphasizing the originality and vivacity of the character’s mind. The wordplay is

sometimes reflected by the characters as part of the game. In the story by Yu. Tomin “А, B, C, D and

Others» the characters purposely juggle with words and phrases, playing with different meanings. It

should be noted that language game is one of manifestations of common human desire to play,

actuating the creative ability of homo ludens (Huizinga).

An integral part of children’s culture is humour, which moral lessons while taking away the

psychological barrier. The blossom of humourous literature for children was observed in the 1950-

1970s. “Like other trends in children’s literature, the purpose of humour has always been

entertainment and psychological relaxation, and on the other hand, improvement of manners and

prevention of misconduct”. (Mineralova I.G., 2002). The well-established genres and forms (fable,

parable, apologue, cautionary tale) with upbringing functions, are replaced with lyrical and humorous

stories, genre sketches, essays with pronounced psychological training features, fantastic stories and

fairytales, “unfolding:” or paraphrasing trivial morals for children.

A book for a child is a key to self-education. Convergence of the artistic, public, and popular

scientific origins (V. Medvedev, S. Georgievskaya, etc.), play a special part in shaping the inner form

of quite a number of works. Many of scientific and public material extends the boundaries of

narration, enlarges and satiates it intellectually.

In the children’s literature of the 1950-80s science fiction and fantasy in the best works of art,

turned to be multi-functional on moral and aesthetic levels. The fantastic story genre was brightly

embodied in a number of works by children writers of the period in question. Such pieces seem to

outline approaches to the unknown, perform a kind of aesthetic approbation of emerging ideas and

concepts, express the primary, most generalized, often theoretical, and rather still abstract perception

of phenomena, emerging in the world.

The game function of fantasy makes it similar to fairytale, but a number of other functions that

allow integration of this genre with science, myth, and fiction, contribute to shaping the impression

about a special functional nature of fantasy. Fantasy here is like a dream, when there is no romantic

dissonance between the dream and reality, and the reality is an incentive space for the dream and its

fulfillment. Penetration of fairytale elements to the fantasy genre generated a number of fairytale, as

well as fantastic “series” for children, and involvement of the game element became a serious lyrical

and psychological basis for dynamic and easily comprehensible works.

Stories and tales by B.L. Rakhmanin (1933-2000) are based on a close synthesis of two origins —

the fantastic and the lyrical one. Their combination and interaction are typical for the style of the

1950–80s as a whole, and for the individual style of B. Rakhmanin, who wrote not only prose, but

poems as well. The lyrical and fantastic aspects in Rakhmanin’s pieces are so closely interrelated, that

one can speak concurrently about the lyrical and fantastic focus of his works.

“The Handless Clock” (1975) is based on a fantastic story about a “time travel”. Boris Rakhmanin

uses fantastic aspect as a means to make existential problems of the real Russian history more acute.

The fantastic aspect does not create a different history, but places the reader in the situation “me in the

suggested circumstances”, make him/her think about his/her responsibility for the present and the

future, about the responsibility that was typical for those who participated in that Great War, and the

victory we inherited.

Russian children’s literature of the second half of the ХХ century tends to artistic synthesis that was

approved and emphatically manifested in children’s literature of the first third of the ХХ century. Close

attention to art forms connecting literature and music to literature and painting, is of the same nature as

similar phenomena of the 1910–1920s: connecting arts, in order to transform and change the inner

world of the child.

Children literature essentially appeals to the inner resource of art synthesis, in which a

more profound spiritual, moral, aesthetic, and humanistic impact on the child’s or

adolescent’s personality is produced. Formation of prose genres for children and adolescents

of the period in question is directly connected with the trends of childhood cultural

development. Arts addressed to children and adolescents use educational forms to attract the

younger generation to versatile creative activities, instigating free intellectual, emotional,

artistic and moral development of a personality in the society.

The elements of synthesis between two art forms — literature and music — are more or less

inherent in Russian children’s literature of the 1950–1980s. The basis of many children’s works in this

period were, the harmonious involvement of the “musical” principle of symphonic style and

polyphony in the artistic fabric of the story, a polyphonic flow of the main motives, their inter-

penetration and harmonious creative coexistence, or the illustrative nature of the musical “text”, the

emphasis and expressions of their contents, description of the characters and relations between them.

Thus, in R.Pogodin’s story “The Red Horses” harmonious “musical”, the combination of symphony,

architecture, fresco painting, smithing technique, craft that outgrew into art, live nature, and the flow of

the main motives — their inter-penetration and harmonious creative coexistence, are the guarantees of

humanism in its highest sense.

The use of pictorial means, particularly, ekphrasis, as well as musical citations and

allusions in the works of children’s writers, provides the option for extending artistic horizons

of prose in the aesthetic, spiritual, and moral development of children and adolescents.

Art synthesis in children’s literature of the 1950–1980s is a bright and efficient phenomenon.

Music, painting, ballet, architecture, theatre, radio, cinematography, and television, penetrating into the

works for children, appeal to enrich children’s imagination, picture bright images, shape almost visual

cinematographic contents. Theyallow the author to visually “show” not only the “ideas” of the time

period, but make the reader to actively share the characters’ feelings, to correlate his/her own life

with the lives of those who “bring up themselves”, who discover the world in its beauty and

complexity, since the purpose of synthesis is to influence the inner world of a person in a way, so he

will grow up new, gladly accepting life, harmoniously developing, beautiful and happy.

Many works of Russian children’s prose of the 50–80s of the ХХ century proved the tendency of

the immersion of movie techniques into literature. An expressive example of such synthesis is

V.Medvedev’s novel “The Wedding March” (1974). The script-like nature of the novel is written with

details like: the presence of characters, the life of which is closely connected with, the world of theatre,

cinema, ballet, circus — in other words, it was written with art forms, implemented like a script. The

script is based on the development of a conflict between the art, truly reflecting life and pseudo-art,

substituting the truth with something sophisticated and delusive.

Writers of the 1950–1980s. (А. Aleksin, V. Medvedev, Yu. Tomin, V. Krapivin, etc.) Actively

translated the texts of their books into cinematographic language, creating scripts. Working with

literary texts, is a perfect way to turn schoolchildren to reading and attentive watching films,

understanding the specificity of movies and word arts. The use of cinematographic interpretations

provides an impetus to reading a literary source and contributes to individual interpretation of the book

by each child.

Results

Main trends in the fulfillment of multi-aspect synthesis potential in Russian children’s literature of

the 1950–1980s, and its role in the moral, spiritual, and intellectual education of children and

adolescents. Besides, one should see how children and juvenile literature of the period is influenced by

the respective art forms, what new features are imparted to the verbal art, and the capability of the

literature itself to influence a growing and developing personality increase.

Conclusion

Making schoolchildren familiar with literary works based on the multi-aspect synthesis produces a

many-sided emotional impact appealing to children’s feelings. Fantasy, fairytale, anti-utopia,

humour — all vectors of children’s and juvenile literature, appear in various levels, to instill the values

empowering readers to think and feel freely, demonstrating the true and the false, and giving a real and

an imaginary freedom.

References

• Halizev, V.Е. (2005). Theory of literature. V.Е. Halizev. Мoscow (in Russian), 135.

• Huizinga, J. Homo ludens – access mode: http://rumagic.com/ru_zar/sci_philosophy/heyzinga/0/ Mineralov, Yu.I. (1999). The theory of art literature: poetics and individuality. Yu.I. Mineralov. Мoscow (in Russian).

• Mineralova, I.G. (1999). Russian literature of the Silver Age. Poetics of symbolism. I.G. Mineralova. Мoscow (in Russian).

• Mineralova, I.G. (2002). Children’s literature. I.G. Mineralova: teaching aid for university students. – Мoscow (in Russian),159.

• Vasilyev, S.A. (2007) “…Gold-writing of finest veins…” (Literature and other arts). S.А. Vasilyev: study guide. Мoscow (in Russian).

• Zavgorodnyaya, G.Yu. (2010). Styling and style of Russian classical prose. G.Yu. Zavgorodnyaya: monography. Мoscow (in Russian).