Antithesis is a means of expression that is often used in the Russian language and in Russian literature because of its powerful expressive capabilities. So, antithesis definition is a technique in artistic language when one phenomenon is contrasted with another. Those who want to read about the antithesis on Wikipedia will certainly find various examples from poems there.

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I would like to define the concept of “antithesis” and its meaning. It is of great importance in language because it is a technique that allows compare two opposites, for example, “black” and “white”, “good” and “evil”. The concept of this technique is defined as a means of expressiveness, which allows you to very vividly describe an object or phenomenon in poetry.

What is antithesis in literature

Antithesis is an artistic figurative and expressive means that allows you to compare one object with another based on oppositions. Usually, as an artistic medium, it is very popular among many modern writers and poets. But you can also find a huge number of examples in the classics. Within the antithesis can be opposed in meaning or in their properties:

• Two characters. This most often happens in cases where a positive character is contrasted with a negative one;
• Two phenomena or objects;
• Different qualities of the same object (looking at the object from several aspects);
• The qualities of one object are contrasted with the qualities of another object.

Lexical meaning of trope

The technique is very popular in literature because it allows you to most clearly express the essence of a particular subject through opposition. Typically, such oppositions always look lively and imaginative, so poetry and prose that use antithesis are quite interesting to read. She happens to be one of the most popular and known means of artistic expression of a literary text, be it poetry or prose.

The technique was actively used by the classics of Russian literature, and modern poets and prose writers use it no less actively. Most often, the antithesis underlies contrast between two characters in a work of art when a positive hero is opposed to a negative one. At the same time, their qualities are deliberately demonstrated in an exaggerated, sometimes grotesque form.

Skillful use of this artistic technique allows you to create a lively, imaginative description of characters, objects or phenomena found in a particular work of art (novel, story, story, poem or fairy tale). It is often used in folklore works (fairy tales, epics, songs and other genres of oral folk art). When performing a literary analysis of a text, it is imperative to pay attention to the presence or absence of this technique in the work.

Where can you find examples of antithesis?

Antithesis examples from literature can be found almost everywhere, in a variety of genres of fiction, ranging from folk art (fairy tales, epics, tales, legends and other oral folklore) to the works of modern poets and writers of the twenty-first century. Due to its characteristics of artistic expression, the technique is most often found in the following genres of fiction:

• Poems;
• Stories:
• Fairy tales and legends (folk and author's);
• Novels and stories. In which there are lengthy descriptions of objects, phenomena or characters.

Antithesis as an artistic device

As a means of artistic expression, it is built on the opposition of one phenomenon to another. A writer who uses antithesis in his work selects the most characteristic features of two characters (objects, phenomena) and tries to reveal them most fully by contrasting each other. The word itself, translated from ancient Greek, also means nothing more than “opposition.”

Active and appropriate use makes the literary text more expressive, lively, interesting, helps to most fully reveal the characters of the characters, the essence of specific phenomena or objects. This is what determines the popularity of the antithesis in the Russian language and in Russian literature. However, in other European languages ​​this means of artistic imagery is also used very actively, especially in classical literature.

In order to find examples of antithesis during the analysis of a literary text, you must first examine those fragments of the text where two characters (phenomena, objects) are not considered in isolation, but are opposed to each other from different points of view. And then finding a reception will be quite easy. Sometimes the whole meaning of a work is built on this artistic device. It should also be borne in mind that the antithesis can be explicit, but maybe hidden, veiled.

Finding a hidden antithesis in an artistic literary text is quite simple if you read and analyze the text thoughtfully and carefully. In order to teach how to correctly use a technique in your own literary text, you need to familiarize yourself with the most striking examples from Russian classical literature. However, it is not recommended to abuse it so that it does not lose its expressiveness.

Antithesis is one of the main means of artistic expression, widely used in the Russian language and in Russian literature. The technique can easily be found in many works of Russian classics. Modern writers also actively use it. Antithesis enjoys well-deserved popularity because it helps to most clearly express the essence of individual heroes, objects or phenomena by contrasting one hero (object, phenomenon) with another. Russian literature without this artistic device is practically unthinkable.

Material from Uncyclopedia

Antithesis (from the Greek ἀντίθεσις - opposition) - a comparison of contrasting or opposing images.

"Peace to the huts, war to the palaces." Artist M. Chagall.

In a broader sense, antithesis refers to any juxtaposition of opposing concepts, situations, or any other elements in a literary work. These are the contrasts between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the novel “Don Quixote” by M. Cervantes, the jester and the main characters of W. Shakespeare, Olga and Tatiana in “Eugene Onegin” by A. S. Pushkin, the Snake and the Falcon in “The Song of the Falcon” by M. Gorky, Makar Nagulnov and grandfather Shchukar in “Virgin Soil Upturned” by M. A. Sholokhov.

The emergence of antithesis goes back to those initial stages of cultural development, when the primary perception of the world as a chaotic kingdom of chance was replaced by a certain ordering of ideas based on the principle of duality: sea - land, sky - earth, light - darkness, right - left, north - south, even - odd . The myths of many peoples of the world tell about the first creators of the Universe - twin rivals, with one of the brothers creating everything light, good, useful, the other - everything dark, evil, hostile to man.

Various concepts or characters turn out to depend on the characteristic by which they are compared. The hero of a fairy tale is opposed, on the one hand, by enemies like the Serpent Gorynych or Koshchei the Immortal (the antithesis of a hero - an enemy), on the other, by his siblings (the antithesis of a hero - an imaginary hero). The same opposition has different meanings in different contexts. The opposition “white - black” has one meaning in the Serbian song: “The plowman’s hands are black, but the loaf is white,” where it is close to the Russian proverb: “The work is bitter, but the bread is sweet,” and the other is at the beginning of the poem by A.A. Bloc “Twelve”, affirming the purity and holiness of the revolution: “Black evening. / White snow".

Finally, the third meaning is expressed in the poem by V.V. Mayakovsky “Black and White” (recording in Russian letters the English expression “Black and White” or “Black and White”): “White work / is done by white, / black work is done by / black” . Behind the opposition of two colors in V.V. Mayakovsky there is a racial and at the same time class antagonism, characterizing the internal troubles of outwardly prosperous America.

Typically, antithetical concepts are expressed by words that are opposite in meaning - antonyms. These are the antithetical titles “Mozart and Salieri” (A. S. Pushkin), “Wolves and Sheep” (A. N. Ostrovsky), “Fathers and Sons” (I. S. Turgenev), “War and Peace” (L . N. Tolstoy), “Crime and Punishment” (F. M. Dostoevsky), “Fat and Thin” (A. P. Chekhov), “The Living and the Dead” (K. M. Simonov), “Cunning and Love” (I. Fr. Schiller), “Red and Black” (Stendhal), “The Prince and the Pauper” (M. Twain), directly or indirectly pointing to the conflicts underlying these works.

Naturally, in fairy tales and fables - genres where the characteristics of the characters are clear and definite, often antithetical titles are antonyms: “Truth and Falsehood”, “The Man and the Master” (fairy tales), “The Wolf and the Lamb”, “Leaves and Roots” ( fables by I. A. Krylov). Proverbs are often based on antithesis (see Proverbs and sayings), for example: “Work feeds, but laziness spoils.” As a strong means of emotional influence, the antithesis is used in oratory, in slogans and calls: “Peace to the huts, war to the palaces!” (slogan of the Great French Revolution of 1789–1799).

It happens that the terms of the opposition in the second part follow in the reverse order (compared to the first), as if crosswise, in the form of the letter χ (in the Greek alphabet - the letter hee, hence the name of this figure - chiasmus(See Repeat). Socrates is credited with an aphorism that combines chiasmus with repetition: “Eat to live, not live to eat.”

The antithesis can extend to an entire dialogue, which, in turn, can develop into an independent work. This is the genre of debate (dispute). These are the Sumerian disputes created thousands of years ago: “summer and winter” or “silver and copper” (remember Pushkin’s “Gold and Damask Steel”), and the “Debate of the Belly (Life) and Death”, known to many people, which has repeatedly attracted the attention of painters, playwrights and poets, up to M. Gorky (“The Girl and Death”) and A. T. Tvardovsky (chapter “Death and the Warrior” in the poem “Vasily Terkin”).

A.P. Chekhov said about one of his heroes (Laevsky in the story “Duel”) that he is “a bad good man.” The hero of Yu. V. Trifonov’s novel “Time and Place,” Antipov considers himself a “lucky loser.” In this case, we have before us a special type of antithesis - an oxymoron, or oxymoron (translated from Greek - “witty-stupid”), a combination of contrasting values ​​that create a new concept. “I love nature’s lush withering” (A.S. Pushkin); “But I soon comprehended the mystery of their ugly beauty” (M. Yu. Lermontov). And if the title of I. A. Krylov’s fable is based on the opposition of two characters - “The Lion and the Mouse”, then F. M. Dostoevsky, giving the name to his hero, resorts to the oxymoronic combination Lev Myshkin (the novel “The Idiot”). An oxymoron is sometimes included in the titles of works: “The Living Corpse” (L. N. Tolstoy), “Gypsy Nun” (F. G. Lorca), “The Peasant Young Lady” (A. S. Pushkin), “Dead Souls” ( N.V. Gogol).

Of particular note is the so-called imaginary antithesis. Thus, in N.V. Gogol’s “The Tale of How Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich,” the opposition of Ivan Ivanovich to his neighbor Ivan Nikiforovich, so categorical in appearance, turns out to be untenable and imaginary upon closer examination. This technique, which represents one of the varieties of parody, goes back to folklore: “Erema’s purse is empty, but Thomas has nothing,” “Erema is in someone else’s, but Thomas is not in his own,” “Here they buried Erema, but Thomas was buried.”

Thus, the antithesis, serious and parodic, is found in prose and poetry, in myth and fairy tale, in genres large and small.

Since the birth of literary art, writers and poets have come up with many options to attract the reader's attention in their works. This is how a universal technique of contrasting phenomena and objects arose. Antithesis in artistic speech is always a game of contrasts.

Definition of antithesis

To find out the exact meaning of the scientific term antithesis, you should consult an encyclopedia or dictionary. Antithesis (derived from the Greek “opposition”) is a stylistic figure based on contrastive opposition in speech practice or fiction.

Contains sharply opposed objects, phenomena and images that have a semantic connection or are united by one design.

How to explain in simple language what an antithesis is and for what purpose it is used in the Russian language? This is a technique in literature based on the juxtaposition of different contrasting characters, concepts or events. This technique is found as a basis for constructing entire large novels or parts of literary texts of any genre.

The following can be contrasted in a work as an antithesis:

• Two images or heroes, called antagonists in literature.
• Two different phenomena, states or objects.
• Variations in the quality of one phenomenon or object (when the author reveals the subject from different sides).
• The author contrasts the properties of one object with the properties of another object.

Usually the main vocabulary from which a contrasting effect is created are antonymic words. Proof of this are the popular proverbs: “It’s easy to make friends, it’s hard to be separated,” “Learning is light, and ignorance is darkness,” “The slower you go, the further you will go.”

Examples of antithesis

Areas of application of antithesis

The author of a work of art of any genre needs expressiveness of speech, for which antithesis is used. In the Russian language, the use of opposing concepts has long become a tradition in the titles of novels, stories, plays and poetic texts: “War and Peace”; “The Prince and the Pauper” by M. Twain, “Wolves and Sheep” by N. S. Ostrovsky.

In addition to stories, novels and sayings, the technique of opposition is successfully used in works intended for agitation in politics and the social sphere and oratory. Everyone is familiar with mottos, chants and slogans: “He who was nobody will become everything!”

Contrast is often present in ordinary colloquial speech, such examples of antithesis: dishonor - dignity, life - death, good - evil. To influence listeners and present an object or phenomenon more fully and in the right way, a person can compare these phenomena with another object or phenomenon, or can use the contrasting characteristics of objects for contrast.

Useful video: what is antithesis, antithesis

Types of antithesis

In the Russian language there can be various options for contrasting phenomena:

• In terms of composition, it can be simple (includes one pair of words) and complex (has two or more pairs of antonyms, several concepts): “A rich man fell in love with a poor woman, a scientist fell in love with a stupid woman, a ruddy woman fell in love with a pale woman, a good man fell in love with a harmful woman, a golden man fell in love with a copper half-shelf.” (M. Tsvetaeva). Such an expanded expression unexpectedly reveals the concept.
• An even greater effect from the use of contrasting concepts is achieved when used together with other types of figures of speech, for example with parallelism or anaphora: “I am a king - I am a slave - I am a worm - I am God!” (Derzhavin).
• A variant of opposition is distinguished when the external structure of the antithesis is preserved, but the words are in no way connected in meaning: “There is an elderberry in the garden, and a guy in Kyiv.” Such expressions create the effect of surprise.
• There is a contrast between several forms of a word, often in the same case. This form is used in short, bright statements, aphorisms and mottos: “Man is a wolf to man,” “To Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s,” “Peace to the world.”

Take note! On the basis of the antithesis, a special technique was born - an oxymoron, which some experts consider as a type of this figure of speech, only with an emphasis on humor and irony. Examples of oxymorons in Alexander Blok’s “The Heat of Cold Numbers” or in Nekrasov’s “And the Poor Luxury of the Attire...”

Application in fiction

Research shows that in literary texts the opposition of images is used more often than other figures of contrast. Moreover, it was used in foreign literature as often as in poetry and prose of Russian and Soviet writers. Its presence allows us to enhance the reader’s emotional sensations, more fully reveal the author’s position and emphasize the main idea of ​​the work. Good examples of the use of antithesis and the definition of the term are contained in Wikipedia.

Examples in prose

Russian realist writers Pushkin A.S., Lermontov M.Yu., Tolstoy L.N., Turgenev I.S. actively used a technique based on the contrast of concepts in their works. Chekhov has a good example in the story “Darling”: “Olenka grew plump and was all beaming with pleasure, but Kukin was losing weight and turning yellow and complaining about terrible losses...”

Turgenev’s novel “Fathers and Sons” already in its title contains a hidden confrontation between two eras. The system of characters and the plot of the novel are also based on opposition (conflict between two generations: older and younger).

In foreign literature, O. Wilde’s novel “The Picture of Dorian Gray” is an excellent example of the technique of contrast in a work of the Romantic era. The contrast between the hero’s beautiful face and his low spiritual qualities is an analogy of the opposition of good to evil.

Chekhov A.P. "Darling"

Examples in verses

Any famous poet can find examples of the use of antithesis in his poems. Poets of different movements widely used this technique. Among the writers of the Silver Age (Marina Tsvetaeva, Sergei Yesenin, Konstantin Balmont), antithesis was a favorite method:

“You, sea of ​​strange dreams, and sounds, and lights!

You, friend and eternal enemy! An evil spirit and a good genius!

(Konstantin Balmont)

During the period of classicism, poets also loved this method of creating expressiveness. An example in the poem by G.R. Derzhavina:

“Where was the table of food,

There is a coffin there."

The great Pushkin often included contrasts of images and characters in poetic and prose texts. Fyodor Tyutchev has vivid examples of the unfolding confrontation between heaven and earth:

“The kite rose from the clearing,

he soared high into the sky;

And so he went beyond the horizon.

Mother Nature gave him

Two powerful, two living wings -

And here I am in sweat and dust,

I, the king of the earth, am rooted to the earth!”

Antithesis it means– opposition. Stylistic or verbal antithesis is the placement next to words of opposite meanings, antonyms.

Example of antithesis

“I decay with my body in dust, I command thunder 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 forms the title of a literary work, becoming an oxymoron: “The brilliance and poverty of courtesans” (1838-47) by O. Balzac. The figurative antithesis is contrasting elements of the artistic world of the work, primarily characters. In many myths, everything that is bright, good, and useful in the world and everything that is dark, evil, and hostile to living beings is personified in the images of the first creators of the Universe, the twin brothers. Such are Ahuramazda (literally “the wise Lord”) and the evil spirit Ahriman in the ancient Iranian “Avesta”. Hamlet's father and his brother and murderer Claudius appear as absolute antipodes in William Shakespeare's Hamlet (1601). Compositional, in fact, meaningful antithesis: the opposition of the idyllic and socially critical parts in “The Village” (1819) by A.S. Pushkin, the pathetic introduction and the story about the fate of the unfortunate petty official in his “The Bronze Horseman” (1833).

Antithesis is a sharp rhetorical opposition of images, states or concepts interconnected by internal meaning or general structure. in literature? Numerous examples where opposing or sharply contrasting concepts and images are juxtaposed to enhance the impression explain this. Moreover, the stronger the contrast, the brighter the antithesis.

A.S. Pushkin used such comparisons as “poetry - prose”, “wave - stone”, “ice - fire”. N.A. Nekrasov and S.A. Yesenin they turn into oxymorons: “poor luxury”, “sad joy”.

The role of antithesis is manifested in exact subordination, for example: “I caught up with snowstorms while I was writing about the summer”; “There was an honest conversation, but everything was muddied.”

But this does not have to be done, for example: “Okay, they sang, but they didn’t get it out,” “The praise sounds beautiful, but it’s bitter.” Here are some concepts started singing And didn't pull it out, sounds And bitter are not in a logical subordination of opposites like water and flame or light and darkness, but the concepts are taken with a certain specification, although there is no precision and logical clarity, as is often found in proverbs.

How to make the antithesis expressive?

Enhancing expressiveness is achieved in the following ways:

The contrast can be semantic: “Having twisted everything, we got to the point.” Both words and constructions are contrasted.

Antithetical concepts (containing opposition) can collectively express something common, for example, antithesis in literature, as seen in Derzhavin’s hero, where he calls himself both a king and a slave, portrays a contrasting

The antithetical image often plays a supporting role in the contrasted one, which is the main one. The expressed object is characterized by only one member of the antithesis, where the second has a purely auxiliary function: “Ideal forms do not require content.”

Comparison can express the choice of alternative solutions: ““To share or not?” - thought the calculator.”

You can use phonetic similarity, for example, “teach - get bored.”

The antithesis may contain not two, but more contrasting images, i.e. be polynomial.

Antithesis: examples from literature

Contrasts in works are used in titles, character characteristics, images and themes. What is antithesis in literature? The general definition does not fully reveal its meaning. It becomes clearer and more multifaceted when analyzing famous works.

Roman L.N. Tolstoy "War and Peace"

The title of the work is rich in meaning, despite the fact that a simple antithesis is used. Peace is presented as the antithesis of war. In drafts, the author tries to vary this word, trying to find the best solution.

In the work, Tolstoy creates two poles: good and evil or peace and enmity. The author sharply contrasts the characters with each other, where some are the bearers of life, while others are the bearers of discord. Throughout the novel, comparisons “wrong - right”, “spontaneous - reasonable”, “natural - ostentatious” constantly appear. All this is manifested through images, for example, Natasha and Helen, Napoleon and Kutuzov. The antithesis “false - true” is manifested in the absurd situation of a duel in which Pierre Bezukhov found himself.

Roman F.M. Dostoevsky "Crime and Punishment"

Dostoevsky's methods are completely different, since he has slightly different views on man. His heroes combine good and evil, compassion and selfishness. The internal trial of conscience over Raskolnikov is the greatest punishment for the crime. Dostoevsky's heroes have a dispute not between personalities, but between their ideas, leading to a moral tragedy. Before the crime, Raskolnikov was and after the author gives him a description of the killer.

Roman I.S. Turgenev "Fathers and Sons"

The shift in public consciousness in the mid-19th century was reflected in the novel Fathers and Sons, in which the main character is contrasted with everyone around him. The main thing here is the conflict of generations, the cause of which is attachment. Conflicts with friends are caused by differences of beliefs and uncompromisingness. Defending their ideals and defeating the enemy becomes the goal in itself of the heroes.

Some of them look funny because of their limitations. Trying to overcome it, they try to implement new ideas in order to assert themselves. Turgenev uses the technique of antithesis as At the same time, living images, their relationships are better revealed, and the plot develops.

Thus, it becomes clear what antithesis is in literature. The works of the classics clearly demonstrate this

Conclusion

To compare contrasting or opposing concepts, in order to enhance the impression, antithesis is used. Examples from literature indicate that it can be the main principle of construction of both individual parts and the whole work.