Parallelism is psychological in the literature: examples

In this article, we will consider such a literary concept as psychological parallelism. Often this term causes some problems with the interpretation of its meaning and functions. In this article we will try to explain as much as possible what kind of concept it is, how to apply it in artistic analysis of the text and what is worth paying special attention to.

Definition

Psychological parallelism in literature is one of the stylistic devices. Its essence lies in the fact that the plot of the work is based on a consistent comparison of motives, pictures of nature, relationships, situations, actions. Usually used in poetic folk texts.

As a rule, consists of 2 parts. The first depicts a picture of nature, conditional and metaphorical, creating an emotional-psychological background. And in the second, the image of the hero appears already, the state of which is compared to the natural one. For example: a falcon is a fine fellow, a swan is a bride, a cuckoo is a longing woman or a widow.

History

However, it is necessary to go a little deeper into the past to fully understand what psychological parallelism is. Definition in literature, by the way, usually begins with a small historical reference.

So, if this method has come to literature from folklore, then it has rather deep roots. Why did people come to mind to compare themselves with animals, plants or natural phenomena? This phenomenon is based on naive syncretic ideas that the world around has its will. Confirmation of this is the pagan beliefs that endowed all life phenomena with consciousness. For example, the sun is the eye, that is, the sun appears as an active living being.

Such parallels evolved from:

• Complex similarity of characteristic features with life or action.
• The relationship of these signs with our understanding of reality, the laws of the surrounding world.
• The contiguity of various objects, which could be similar by the revealed features.
• Vital value and completeness of the described object or phenomenon in relation to mankind.

That is, initially psychological parallelism was built on the subjective representation of man about the world.

Kinds

We continue to study psychological parallelism. We already gave the definition, now let's talk about its types. There are several different approaches to the study of this stylistic phenomenon and, accordingly, several classifications. We give here the most popular of them - the authorship of AN Veselovsky. According to her, psychological parallelism happens:

• Two-termed;
• formal;
• polynomial;
• monomial;
• negative.

Binomial Parallelism

It is characterized by the following construction method. First comes a picture of nature, then a description of a similar episode of a person's life. These two episodes seem to echo each other, although they differ in object content. To understand that in them there is something in common, it is possible by certain consonances, motives. This feature is the hallmark of psychological parallels from simple repetitions.

For example: "When they want to rip off roses, we must wait until spring, when they want to love girls, it is necessary that they become sixteen" (folk Spanish song).

It should be noted, however, that folklore parallelism, which most often happens to be a two-membered one, is built primarily on the category of action. If it is removed, all other elements of the stylistic figure will lose their significance. The stability of this design is provided by 2 factors:

• To the basic similarity, bright similar details of the category of action are added, which they do not contradict.
• Comparison liked the native speakers, entered into the practice of the cult and for a long time it remained.

If both these moments are met, then the parallelism will turn into a symbol and will acquire a commonality. However, this fate does not expect all the two-termed parallelisms, even those built according to all the rules.

Formal parallelism

There are times when psychological parallelism is not immediately understandable and it is necessary to hear the whole text for its comprehension. For example: one of the folk songs begins with this line "A river flows, it will not stir up", then a description of the bride comes to which many guests came to the wedding, but no one can bless her, since she is an orphan; Thus, the similarity is traced - the river will not stir, and the bride sits gloomy, silent.

Here you can talk about default, and not about the lack of similarity. The stylistic reception becomes more complicated, the understanding of the work itself becomes more difficult, but the structure acquires greater beauty and poetry.

Polynomial parallelism

The concept of "psychological parallelism", despite the seeming complexity, is quite simple. It's another matter when we talk about varieties of this stylistic device. Although with regard to multi-term parallelism, usually with its detection, problems do not arise.

This subspecies is characterized by a one-sided accumulation of several parallels, which emanate simultaneously from several objects. That is, one character is taken and is compared immediately with a number of images. For example: "Do not crawl, dove, with a dove, do not wiggle, grass, with epic, do not get used, well done, with a girl." That is, before the reader there are already three objects to compare.

Such a one-sided enlargement of the images suggests that parallelism has gradually evolved, which gave the poet greater freedom of writing and the opportunity to display his analytical abilities.

That is why polynomial parallelism is called a relatively late phenomenon of folk poetic stylistics.

Monomial parallelism

The monotonous parallelism of the psychological is aimed at the development of imagery and the strengthening of its role in the work. This method looks like this. Imagine an ordinary two-member construction, where the first part refers to the stars and the month, and in the second they are compared to the bride and groom. Now remove the second part, leaving only images of stars and month. According to the content of the work the reader will guess that we are talking about a girl and a young man, but in the text they will not be mentioned.

This silence is similar to formal parallelism, but unlike it, there will not be mention here of the characters-people that are meant. So here we can talk about the appearance of a symbol. Over the centuries in the folklore there were established allegorical images, which are identified with only one meaning. Such images are used in monomial parallelism.

For example, the falcon is identified with the boy, the groom. And often in the works it is described how a falcon fights with another bird, how it is abducted, how he leads a sable to the crown. There are no references to people here, but we understand that we are talking about human relations between a young man and a girl.

Parallelism is negative

We proceed to describe the latter kind, which may be a psychological parallelism (examples are given in the article). The negative constructions of our stylistic device are usually used to create riddles. For example: "Roars, and not bull, strong, not rock."

Such a construction is constructed as follows. First, a common binomial or polynomial parallelism is created, and then the characterized image is removed from it and negative is added. For example, instead of "roars like an ox" - "roars, not bull".

In Slavic folklore, this technique was very popular and loved. Therefore, it can be found not only in riddles, but also in songs, fairy tales, etc. Later, it also migrated to the author's literature, being used mainly in fairy tales and stylistic attempts to recreate folk poetry.

From a conceptual point of view, negative parallelism seems to distort the very formula of parallelism, which was created to bring the images together, and not to separate them.

From folklore to the author's literature

When did the psychological parallelism of folk poetry migrate to classical literature?

It happened in times of vagrants, strolling musicians. Unlike their predecessors, they graduated from the classical music and poetry schools, so they mastered the basic literary devices of the image of a person who were characterized by great abstractness. In them there were few specifics and connections with reality. At the same time, like all stray musicians, they were quite familiar with folklore. Therefore, they began to bring his elements into his poetry. There were comparisons with the natural phenomena of the nature of the character, for example, winter and autumn - with sadness, and summer and spring - with fun. Of course, their experiments were rather primitive and far from perfect, but they laid the foundation for a new style, which later migrated to medieval literature.

So, in the 12th century, folk-song techniques gradually began to weave with the classical tradition.

What is the function of comparisons, epithets and metaphors of psychological parallelism?

First of all, it should be said that without metaphors and epithets there would be no very parallelism, since this technique is fully based on them.

Both of these trails serve to carry the sign of one object to another. Actually, even in this their function it is clear that without them it is impossible to compare nature with man. Metaphorical language is the main tool of the writer when creating parallelisms. And if we are talking about the function of these tropes, then it is precisely the transfer of traits.

The basic concepts (psychological parallelism) are related to descriptions, so it is not surprising that metaphors and epithets are the main place among them. For example, let's take the epithet "the sun went down" and make a parallelism from it. We will succeed: as the sun has set, the life of the falcon is clear. That is, the extinction of the sun is compared with the extinction of a young man's life.

Psychological parallelism in the "Lay of Igor's Host"

The "Word" can serve as an excellent example of folk stylistic devices, as it is in itself a part of folklore. For example, take the main character Yaroslavna, as her image is associated with nature and is often compared with her. Take the episode of crying the heroine. In one of the days she "at the dawn of a lonely cricket calls" - the parallelism between Yaroslavna and the bird.

Then you can recall the image of the narrator himself. His fingers, lying on the strings, are compared with the ten falcons that were put on the pigeons.

And one more example: the retreat of the Galichs to the Don is described as "do not stir the falcons into the wide fields." Here we see a pattern of negative parallelism.