Meaning of antithesis. Antithesis as an artistic technique

The concept of "antithesis" comes from the ancient Greek term, consisting of two parts: "thesa", which means "position", and "anti" - "against". Putting them together, we get the "opposite", that is, the "opposite". The antithesis, the definition and examples of which we will present to you in this article, is the opposition of composition elements, characters, images, words. This is an artistic technique in literature, which allows the writers and poets who use it to characterize the characters more fully, to reveal the author's attitude to different sides of the depicted, as well as to the characters themselves.

Condition required for antithesis

The essential condition necessary for one to be able to speak of such a technique as antithesis (examples of which we will give below) is subordination to the general concept of opposites, or some common point of view on them.

Such subordination does not have to be logically precise. For example, such proverbs as "Small spool, but expensive", "Rarely, but aptly", are constructed antithetically, although the concepts that are opposed in them cannot be called logically subordinate, such as, for example, "beginning" and "end", "light and darkness".

But in this context, they are considered as opposites because the words "small" and "rarely" are taken with a specification of the meaning in relation to the words "expensive" and "accurately" compared with them, taken in the direct meaning. Entering the antithesis, the tropes can hide even more its logical precision and clarity.

Verbal antithesis

There are many examples of this technique being used. Verbal antithesis occurs when some phrases or words with opposite emotional coloring or meaning are combined in one sentence or in a poetic phrase.

Take, for example, an excerpt from a poem by A.S. Pushkin:

"The city is magnificent, the city is poor

The spirit of bondage, a slender appearance ... ".

In the first line here, the antithesis ("poor" - "magnificent") of the epithets matched to the word "city" expresses Alexander Sergeevich's idea of ​​Petersburg, which is concretized in the second line by the antithesis of the corresponding epithets. Here, the external appearance of the city (in the text - "slender appearance") and the spiritual content of its life ("the spirit of bondage") are contrasted. In another poem by the same author, verbal antitheses are used to emphasize the inconsistency with the spirit of the "poor knight" of his appearance. It is said about this hero that he was "pale" and "twilight" in appearance, but "straight" and "bold" in spirit. Such opposition is a verbal antithesis. Examples of it in the literature are quite common.

An antithesis expressing complex emotional states

The antithesis serves to express not only the sides of the phenomenon and the object, as well as the author's emotionally colored attitude towards them, but also various complex emotional states. An example can be found in A.A. Blok in the poem "In the restaurant". The lyrical hero of the work met his beloved in the restaurant "impudently" and "embarrassedly", bowing with a "haughty look".

Often, various verbal antitheses are oxymorons. In other words, it is a combination of words that are opposite in meaning.

figurative antithesis

A figurative antithesis is a contrast that exists between two different images. It could be the characters in the story. Examples of antithesis from fiction are numerous: these are Lensky and Onegin, Molchalin and Chatsky, Stepan Kalashnikov and Kiribeevich, Pavel Petrovich and Bazarov, Napoleon and Kutuzov, and others. Pushkin's "Village"), in addition, to the disharmony of the hero's soul and universal harmony (Lermontov, "I go out alone on the road"), the image of free nature and the "dungeon" monastery (Lermontov, "Mtsyri"), etc. Figurative antithesis , examples of which we have just given, was a favorite technique of such a master of the style as Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky.

Compositional antithesis

There is also such a variation of this technique as compositional antithesis. This is one of the principles on which literary works are built. Compositional antithesis is the opposition of various episodes and storylines, scenes in dramaturgy and epic, stanzas and fragments in lyrical poems. Take as an example the novel by Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin "Eugene Onegin".

In it, in the third and fourth chapters, the failed relationship between Onegin and Tatiana is contrasted with the “happy love” of Lensky and Olga. In Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons, the antithesis of two conflicts (love and ideological) allows us to understand the true meaning of the views and beliefs of the nihilist Yevgeny Bazarov, as well as the main reason why they collapsed. Other examples can be cited.

Antithesis from literature presented in lyric poems

This technique is also widely used in various lyrical poems. For Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, these are, for example, "Elegy", "Poet and Crowd", "Poet", "Village" (an example of antithesis in Alexander Sergeyevich's poems is the opposition of the slavery of the people and a peaceful landscape), "To Chaadaev". Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov - "Poet", "Sail", "Dream", "Dispute", "Gratitude", "Why", "January 1st", "Leaf", "To the portrait". Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov - "Reflections at the front door", "Railway" and others.

Antithesis (Greek antithesis - opposition) - a comparison of opposite objects, concepts, phenomena, as well as compositional components (characters, images, landscapes, artistic details, etc.).

In their work, to enhance the imagery and expressiveness of speech, writers use special means called stylistic figures. Figure is an unusual construction of a sentence or a turn of speech, a special syntactic design of a phrase. One of the figurative and expressive means of speech is antithesis.

Refers to syntactic amplification figures. Antithesis example: "I swear on the first day of creation, I swear on its last day"(M.Yu. Lermontov); “They came together: wave and stone, Poetry and prose, ice and fire Not so different from each other”(A.S. Pushkin).

A whole work can be built on the use of antithesis. N. Zabolotsky has a philosophical poem "Swan at the Zoo", in which the poet contrasts the small oasis of the zoo, where a beautiful white swan lives, and the noisy metropolis with the screeching of trams, the squeal of car tires and the rumble of the bridge.

A kind of antithesis is an oxymoron (Greek oxymoron - acute stupidity) - a deliberate combination of words opposite in meaning in order to introduce a new concept (“dead souls” - N.V. Gogol, “sad joy” - S.A. Yesenin, "poor luxury" - N.A. Nekrasov).

Examples of antithesis in fiction

Let the moon shine - the night is dark.
May life bring happiness to people -
Spring in my soul of love
Will not change the stormy bad weather.
(A. Blok)

They came together: wave and stone,
Poetry and prose, ice and fire
Not so different from each other.
(A.S. Pushkin)

You are a prose writer - I am a poet,
You are rich, I am very poor
You are blush like a poppy color,
I'm like death, and thin and pale.
(A.S. Pushkin)

Our strength is truth
yours - laurel ringing.
Yours is censer smoke,
Ours is factory smoke.
Your power is a gold piece,
Ours is a red banner,
We will take,
let's borrow
and we will win.
(V. Mayakovsky)

All this would be funny
When would not be so sad.
(M. Lermontov)

Antithesis

Based on the studied material, we found out that in order to enliven speech, give it emotionality, expressiveness, figurativeness, they use stylistic syntax techniques, the so-called figures: antithesis, inversion, repetition, etc.

The object of study of this work is the antithesis, and its characteristic "habitat" - aphorisms and winged expressions.

Often sharply opposed concepts are compared in speech: honor is arrogance, work is rest, etc. This has a special effect on the imagination of listeners, evoking vivid ideas about the named objects and events. In order to characterize an object or phenomenon in a special way, one can find not only similarities and associations with another object or phenomenon, but also features of sharp contrast, differences in order to oppose one another. Such a technique based on a comparison of opposite or sharply contrasting characters, circumstances, images, compositional elements, concepts, phenomena and signs, creating the effect of a sharp contrast, is called antithesis. Antithesis is able not only to oppose concepts, but also to emphasize the paradoxical nature of the comparison (as in an oxymoron), the greatness of the object, the universality when contrasting properties are attributed to the object. Thus, the antithesis can weight the meaning, enhance the impression.

This stylistic figure, in a certain sense, opposes most other figures precisely in that it strictly observes all the rules of reason, the harmonious construction of pairs of oppositions without any violation of the basic logical norms. Antithesis is carried out in order to put concepts in contrast relations, and not only those concepts that are in principle opposite (antonyms), but also concepts that are usually not related by any relationship, but become conflicting when they are placed side by side.

In antithesis, a comparison of two phenomena occurs, for which antonyms are most often used - words with the opposite meaning: Every sweetness has its own bitterness, every evil has its own goodness (Ralph Waldo Emerson). The use of antithesis, the comparison of opposite concepts allows you to express the main idea more vividly and emotionally, more accurately express your attitude to the described phenomena. In everyday life, many things become clearer only when opposing one to the other: having known grief, people value moments of joy more. No wonder they say "Everything is known in comparison."

Antithesis, as a stylistic figure, gives the sharpest contrast to opposing things, causing clear images in the mind. Opposition sharpens the thought, helps to organize the text or its part, due to which parallel figures, especially antitheses, are used as text-forming means. The purpose of using antithesis is almost always achieved in oratory, in public speaking, and in works of art. But an incomparably deep effect from the use of antithesis is obtained in short and capacious statements, for example, a riddle, an aphorism, a proverb, a chronicle in a newspaper, since the key word in the definition is sharp. The sharpness and contrast are certainly noteworthy, we see a discrepancy. The result: a bright emotional coloring, expressiveness and, often, humor. When a stupid person pretends to be smart, and stupidity creeps out of him. When the evil one pretends to be kind, and we see that this is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

“Antithesis (Greek antithesis - opposition). A stylistic figure that serves to enhance the expressiveness of speech by sharply contrasting concepts, thoughts, images. Where the table was food, there is a coffin (Derzhavin). The antithesis is often built on antonyms: The rich man feasts even on weekdays, and the poor grieves even on holidays (proverb).

“Antithesis, a semantic figure of speech, consisting in the comparison of logically opposite concepts or images, subject to one idea or a single point of view. * The spool is small, but expensive (proverb). "Deceit and love" (F. Schiller).

They agreed. Wave and stone

Poetry and prose, ice and fire

Not so different from each other.

(A. Pushkin)"

Earlier in the work it was already indicated that the most common basis of antithesis is antonyms, for example: good - evil, well-fed - hungry. Also, various facts and phenomena can be contrasted according to all signs, both main and secondary. So two words world and chains, in the above A.I. Galperin's example, are not antonyms. They are involved in the antithesis of The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. An antonymous pair here are the verbs to lose and to win, but the words world and chains are also opposed, or rather their signs: world - all, everything and chains - slavery.

“The main figure of contrast is the antithesis. An antithesis is a statement containing an explicit opposition. Most often, this opposition is expressed in the use of antonyms, i.e. words with opposite meanings.

As a rule, in order to create an antithesis, it is necessary that the opposing concepts be in principle comparable, if we consider correlation as an operation in which both similarity and difference can be revealed. However, the antithesis, as a stylistic device, is revealed not only in opposition, but also in the addition of additional shades of meaning to words that do not express opposing concepts. Alien ships hung in the sky just like bricks do not hang in the sky (D. Adams. Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy-1). Antithesis is characterized by an unexpected comparison of distant objects, a play with the direct and figurative meaning of words, a paradoxical statement. In this case, the antithesis takes on the features of the oxymoron “Oxymoron, s. In lexical style: a semantic figure of speech, a combination of words that contradict each other in meaning, as a result of which a new concept is born. * The heat of cold numbers (A. Blok). Foreign land, my homeland! (M. Tsvetaeva) Submissive enthusiasm of the crowd (P. Chaadaev). Vertical horizons (V. Solovyov)” [Laguta 1999: 35]. Oxymoron, in turn, is considered by many to be a kind of antithesis, in which the emphasis is on the humorousness of the statement.

The advantage of the antithesis, as a figure, is that both parts mutually illuminate one another. There are several general options for using antithesis: when comparing images or concepts that contrast with each other, when expressing the contrasting essence of a single whole, when a shading of an image is necessary, and also when expressing an alternative.

The opposition of concepts and phenomena can also appear in large sections of the text, but it will be more of a contrasting opposition than a stylistic device of antithesis, just as phraseological units, the formation of which is based on antonyms, will not be an antithesis. For example: top and bottom, up and down, inside and out. A necessary sign of antithesis, which distinguishes it from any logical opposition, is emotional coloring, the desire for the uniqueness of opposition. But this is possible only in one case - in case of violations of the rules of analogy. The sign by which we correlate objects should not actually be obvious. The reader or listener is invited, to some extent, to think out the meaning for himself (hot, but not scalding; Chinese, but of high quality). Therefore, when counting on a "sharp" semantic effect, it is not recommended to take opposed (for example, antonymic) concepts anyway. This does not mean that the antithesis based on antonymy will become erroneous, but the emotional coloring will be almost invisible.

The relationship between antithetically opposed words in the proverb is more complex, and their semantic connection cannot be summed up under the strict concept of lexical antonymy (cf. mother-stepmother, wolf-brother, milk-water, water-fire, water-wine, night- day, God-hell, etc.).

Antithesis is widely used in prose and drama. She actively participates in the creation of the architectonics of any work. Titles are not complete without antithesis (“Treachery and Love” by Schiller, “Fathers and Sons” by Turgenev, “War and Peace” by Tolstoy, “Wolves and Sheep” by Ostrovsky, “The Prince and the Pauper” by Twain, “Thick and Thin” by Chekhov ...) Antithetical articulation is used in speech to combine opposites, to emphasize some quality in the characterization: “We are shamefully indifferent to good and evil” (M. Lermontov).

Comparison of antonyms in statements and aphorisms gives special significance to each of the objects named by them, which enhances the expressiveness of speech. Antonyms in such cases take on the logical stress, highlighting the semantic centers of the phrase. Sharpness and aphorism are given by antonyms to popular expressions: “So few roads have been traveled, so many mistakes have been made. (Yesenin)". Many aphorisms are built using antithesis: “There is nothing more stupid than the desire to always be smarter than others” (La Rochefoucauld). A phrase built on the antithesis sounds strong enough, easy to remember, makes you think.

Antithesis classification

Often the antithesis is emphasized by the fact that the nature of its location in the corresponding parts of the sentence is the same (parallelism).

According to the structure, the antithesis can be simple (single-term) and complex (polynomial). A complex antithesis involves several antonymic pairs or three or more opposed concepts. “Antitheses are of different types. Sometimes their poles are opposed to each other, according to the scheme “not A, but B”, sometimes, on the contrary, they are compared according to the scheme “both A and B” [Khazagerov http].

There is also a complex or extended antithesis. A detailed statement is created by including chains of definitions. The use of a detailed antithesis allows you to more vividly actualize the unexpected in an already familiar phenomenon.

It is also worth noting a special kind of antithesis - inside a synonymous pair: to calm down, but not to be silent, etc. Such figures make a strong impression and provoke the figurative development of the plot. The antithesis can even consist of the same words, i.e. be within the same token. Thus, one action can be contrasted with another action, the feelings of one against the feelings of another, and so on. The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided (Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel). - The basis of being a good manager is keeping the people who hate me away from the people who haven't decided yet.

There is also a contrast between two grammatical, voice or case forms of one word. Most often, case forms of the word are opposed. Such an antithesis is typical for short forms of eloquence that are aphoristic in nature: “Man is a brother to man”, “Man is a wolf to man”, “War is war”. By analogy, the motto "Peace to the world" was built; where the word "world" is used in different meanings.

Due to the parallelism of the construction of the antithesis, we can single out the rhythm-forming function of the antithesis, as well as the comparative, multiplicative and unifying function. These functions are often implemented together, but, as a rule, the antithesis singles out one function over the others.

Antithesis means- opposition. Stylistic, or verbal antithesis - setting a number of words opposite in meaning, antonyms.

An example of an antithesis

“I decay in the dust with my body, I command the thunders with my mind, I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am a god!” (G.R. Derzhavin. God, 1784).

Verbal antithesis often makes up the title of a literary work., becoming an oxymoron: "Shine and poverty of courtesans" (1838-47) O. Balzac. figurative antithesis is opposition of elements of the artistic world of the work, primarily characters. In many myths, everything bright, good, useful in the world and everything dark, evil, hostile to living beings is personified in the images of the first creators of the Universe, the twin brothers. Such are the ancient Iranian "Avesta" Ahuramazda (literally "the wise Lord") and the evil spirit Ahriman. Absolute antipodes appear in Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601) as Hamlet's father and his brother and murderer Claudius. Compositional, factually meaningful antithesis: the opposition of the idyllic and socio-critical parts in Pushkin's "The Village" (1819), the pathetic introduction and the story about the fate of the unfortunate petty official in his "The Bronze Horseman" (1833).

Contrast, a stylistic figure of contrast in artistic or oratory speech, which consists in a sharp opposition of concepts, positions, images, states, interconnected by a common structure or internal meaning.

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Antithesis in literature

The figure of antithesis can serve as a principle of construction for entire poetic plays or separate parts of works of art in verse and prose. For example, Petrarch F. has a sonnet (translated by Verkhovsky Yu. N.), entirely built on the antithesis:

And there is no peace - and there are no enemies anywhere;
I fear - I hope, I freeze and burn;
I drag myself in the dust - and soar in the sky;
Alien to everyone in the world - and the world is ready to embrace.

She is in captivity of captivity, I do not know;
They do not want to own me, but the oppression is severe;
Cupid does not destroy and does not break the shackles;
And there is no end to life and torment - the edge.

I am sighted - without eyes; nem - I emit cries;
And the thirst for death - I pray to save;
I hate myself - and I love everyone else;
Suffering - alive; with laughter I sob;

Both death and life are sadly cursed;
And this is the fault, oh donna, - you!

Descriptions, characteristics, especially the so-called comparative ones, are often built antithetically.

For example, the characterization of Peter the Great in Pushkin's Stanzas A. S.:

Now an academician, then a hero,
Either a navigator, or a carpenter ...

Sharply shading the contrasting features of the compared members, the antithesis, precisely because of its sharpness, is distinguished by too persistent persuasiveness and brightness (for which the romantics loved this figure so much). Many stylists therefore treated the antithesis negatively, and on the other hand, poets with rhetorical pathos, such as Hugo or Mayakovsky, are noticeably fond of it:

Our strength is truth
yours - laurel ringing.
Yours is censer smoke,
ours is factory smoke.
Your power is a gold piece,
ours is a red banner.
We will take,
let's borrow
and we will win.

The symmetry and analytical nature of the antithesis make it very appropriate in some strict forms, as, for example, in the Alexandrian verse, with its clear division into two parts.

The sharp clarity of the antithesis also makes it very suitable for the style of works that strive for immediate persuasiveness, as, for example, in works of declarative political, with a social tendency, agitational or moralistic, etc. Examples can serve.