What did the heroes of Kipling's fairy tales eat? The works of R. Kipling. His books have a special place in children's literature. How a hump appeared on the camel's back

Book Just Tales

It is precisely the universal humanity poured out in this novel by Kipling, as in his other best works, that seems to isolate “Kim” from the ideology of this writer and introduce him to the stream of high literature.

The same can be said about another amazing creation of Kipling, which appeared in the same years - the book “Just Fairy Tales” (1902).

Like many other things by this writer, they were created gradually.

Just Tales is Kipling's most "universal" book. ( This material will help you write correctly on the topic of the Book Just Fairy Tales. A summary does not make it possible to understand the full meaning of the work, so this material will be useful for a deep understanding of the work of writers and poets, as well as their novels, novellas, short stories, plays, and poems.) In it he acted not only as a storyteller and poet, but also as an artist. For his family, this, I think, was not a surprise - he even kept notebooks in a special way: instead of ordinary notes, he covered them with some kind of squiggles, reminiscent of hieroglyphs, and interesting line drawings. But outside the family, of course, they did not know this, and when Kipling also emerged as a strong professional artist, who did not escape the influence of Burne-Jones, but was quite original, the public was amazed. Since then, Kipling's drawings have formed an unchanging, organic part of each individual edition of Just Fairy Tales.

True, in calling this collection of Kipling this way, one has to follow the tradition of Chukovsky’s translation, which conveyed this title exactly in this way, nothing more. In English it reads more like “Simple Stories.” However, such “simplicity” was only possible for Kipling.

In order to write these fairy tales, one had to first of all love children very much. Kipling's sister Trix, married to Mrs. Fleming, recalled that during walks he would strike up a conversation with every child he met. “It was an incomparable joy to watch him when he played with the child, because at that time he himself became a child,” she wrote. As for Just Tales, she says, it “anticipates any question a child might ask; in illustrations, he cares about exactly those details that the child expects to see.” The children repaid him with the same unaccountable love. Once, during a sea voyage, a ten-year-old boy, whom his mother could not calm down, rushed to Kipling, sat on his lap and instantly stopped crying. It is easy to understand how Kipling was adored by his own children and nephews. For them, he began to tell stories for the first time, which were later included in the collection “Just Fairy Tales.” After The Jungle Books, he was no longer afraid to consider himself a children's writer, and the first listeners of his fairy tales confirmed this opinion at every step. There were bedtime stories that Kipling told his daughter Effie (Josephine) in Vermont, and when repeated, she would not allow a word to be changed. If he missed a phrase or word, she immediately filled it in. There were other fairy tales intended for a large group of children - they were constantly altered until they acquired their final form. In America, the first version of the fairy tale “The cat walked by itself” appeared. It is also known that in Brattleboro the stories about the rhinoceros, the camel and the whale were first told. The researchers guessed that the last of them was born in America because “suspenders” are designated there by an American, not an English word, and the stations Winchester, Ashuelot, Nashua, Kini and Ficheoro, which the whale lists, are railway stations on the way to Brattleboro. When the family went to South Africa for three months in January 1898, there was a tale of a curious baby elephant and perhaps a leopard. Returning to England, Kipling created the fairy tale “How the First Letter Was Written”, before a new trip to Africa he wrote “The Crab Who Played with the Sea”, and in the first months of 1902 on the Rhodes estate - “The Moth Who Stamped His Foot” and "Cats" remade. This is how this book gradually came together. Each fairy tale was born when its time came. He drew illustrations for the book with great pleasure, also consulting with the children all the time.

Kipling’s nephews later told how in his English house “Elms” (“Elms”) they were invited into the study, a cozy room with a clerestory window, and Uncle Ruddy read to them about the sailor - very resourceful, smart and brave, about his braces: “ please don’t forget your suspenders, my dear.” In print, they recalled, “Just Tales” were nothing compared to what they heard. What pleasure they got when Uncle Ruddy told them in his deep, confident voice! There was something ritualistic about it. Each phrase was pronounced with a certain intonation, always the same, and without it they were just a shell. His voice had unique modulations, he emphasized certain words, highlighted certain phrases, and all this, they said, made his reading unforgettable.

In print, “Simply Fairy Tales” also remained an outstanding work of literature. And with all their simplicity - not only children's literature. Of course, the word “simplicity” applies to them with certain reservations. First of all, it should be noted that the poems accompanying these tales are distinguished by rare rhythmic and lexical sophistication, and the simplicity that distinguishes the main text of the tales is akin to the simplicity of a fable. These stories are simple because there is nothing superfluous in them.

But the main advantage of these tales is their extraordinary originality. The fairy tale tradition as a whole is distinguished by a certain “continuity”, and not only within the boundaries of any particular country. The common medieval roots of fairy tales are visible at every step, and it is extremely difficult to create something radically new in this area. Kipling was one of the few who succeeded. Of course, this cannot be said about all of his tales. “The Crab That Played with the Sea” directly correlates with the mythological plot set out in Walter Skeat’s book “Malay Magic” (1900), published a year earlier, and in the fairy tale “Where the Armadillos Came From” he seemed to subordinate himself to that “logic of the absurd” , which features “Alice in Wonderland! and “Through the Looking Glass” by his beloved Lewis Carroll - he knew both of these books almost by heart.

He was also familiar with Andrew Lang's book Myth, Ritual and Religion (1887), but from it he merely borrowed the names of the gods Nka, Nking and Nkong in The Tale of the Old Kangaroo. They find small quotes and reminiscences from the Bible and the Koran in Kipling. “The Moth That Stamped Its Foot” was created not without the influence of one of Robert Browning’s poems. Experts in Eastern literature also talk about the influence that Buddhist tales had on Kipling. But Kipling not only found a new, his own intonation. In most cases, he himself invented the plots of his fairy tales. According to Roger Lanceline Green, author of the famous book Kipling and the Children (1965), Just Tales gives the impression of something created out of nothing. We are not always even able to understand from what clay Kipling sculpted; his figures, and one cannot help but appreciate the genius with which he breathed life into them.” A characteristic feature of his tales, he continues, is, in his opinion, their “highly reliable unimaginability, proven with infallible logic.” To this we can add one more interesting feature of Kipling’s tales. Despite their peculiar ancient basis, they are full of modern details. In this respect, Kipling resembles Thackeray, in whose fairy tale “The Ring and the Rose” the hero, living in unknown times and in non-existent kingdom-states, cleans his boots with Warren's paste and does not generally refuse the benefits of modern civilization available to him.

Elizabeth Nesbit, who in her book A Critical History of Children's Literature (1953) diligently searches for the sources of Just Fairy Tales, also correlates them not with any specific works of folklore, but only with the general spirit of the ancient fairy tale tradition. According to her, “these stories, written in the knowledgeable twentieth century, represent such a skillful recreation of the primordial impulses that give rise to the many whys and whys of world folklore that it is even difficult to believe. Kipling, no worse than our prehistoric ancestor, grasps the main features or internal properties of an elephant and a camel, a leopard, a cat and a moth, and from all this he manages to weave a narrative in which everything shown is given an exhaustive explanation... But in any case, this is the same Kipling with with its unique style and aroma.” Gilbert Keith Chesterton said something similar about this book by Kipling in his review, published a month after its publication. “The special charm of these new Kipling stories,” he wrote, “is that they read not like fairy tales that adults tell children around the fireplace, but like tales that adults told each other at the dawn of mankind. In them, animals appear as prehistoric people saw them - not as species and subspecies and a developed scientific system, but as independent creatures marked with the stamp of originality and extravagance. The baby elephant is a weirdo with a shoe on his nose; a camel, a zebra, a turtle - all these are particles of a magical dream, watching which is not at all the same as studying biological species.”

Of course, Chesterton forgets that in Kipling’s tales the spirit of European expediency is quite strong, and no matter how incredible the way the baby elephant acquired its trunk, the author has no doubt that now he lives better than before. But the reviewer of the first edition of “Simply Fairy Tales” rightly noted the author’s understanding of the spirit of the world’s most ancient civilizations.

“Just Fairy Tales” is the last of Kipling’s works that have become firmly established among readers and are recognized as classics. They were published in October 1902, in other words, more than two months before he turned thirty-six years old - halfway through his life. It can be said that it was precisely at this time that the creative impulse Kipling received in India was exhausted. Of course, later he had successful stories and poems, but only from time to time. When the Nobel Committee awarded him the prize for literature five years later, it was given to a writer who had already done almost everything he was capable of - in the novel, in the short story, in poetry.

Sources:

    Rudyard Kipling Stories. Poetry. Fairy tales / Comp., preface, commentary. Yu. I. Kagarlitsky.- M.: Higher. school, 1989.-383 p.

    annotation:

    The collection of the remarkable English writer of the late 19th - early 20th century, Rudyard Kipling, includes the most significant stories, poems, and fairy tales written by him in different years.

    The publication is equipped with a preface, commentary, and also a dictionary of oriental words found in the works of R. Kipling.

Composition

English writer, prose writer and poet Rudyard Joseph Kipling Joseph Kipling (1865-1936) entered children's literature as the author of the famous story about Mowgli and the humorous and ironic "Fairy Tales", although the writer also had other works intended for children and youth. His tales closely united the traditions of English folk humor and folklore of those countries and continents that the writer knew: South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.

The books were created in close communication between Kipling and children. The writer thought of them as answers to the questions of his own children. Kipling told this about one of his daughters, Elsie, in verse, completing the tale of the baby elephant. Elsie's curiosity cannot be compared with Kipling's own: Each servant has his own name: “How”, “Why”, “Who”, “What”, “When”, “Where”. But the writer’s daughter - “a person of young years” - has not six, but “hundreds of thousands of servants” - “and there is no peace for everyone”: this is “five thousand where, seven thousand how, one hundred thousand why.” As a playful and ironic response to these countless where, how, why fairy tales were written. They are named: “Where did armadillos come from”, “Why does a camel have a hump”, “Where does a whale have such a narrow throat”, “Where does a rhinoceros have folded skin”, etc. Kipling’s tales follow the tradition of the so-called “etiological tales” (“ etiological" from the Greek words "reason", "concept, doctrine"), i.e. just those that explain something, for example, why a hyena's hind legs are shorter than its front ones, why a hare is cowardly. Etiological tales are known to all peoples of the world - there are many of them in African and Australian folklore. Of course, this does not mean that the writer was focused on reproducing any specific folk-poetic plot from the fairy-tale folklore of Africa and Australia. Kipling did not process existing fairy tales, but created his own, having mastered the general principles of folk tales.

His tales begin with a loving appeal to a child: “It’s only now, my dear boy, that the elephant has a trunk.” But the point, of course, is not only in the conversion itself. The entire artistic structure of the fairy tale bears the imprint of the live communication of the narrator with the child listening to him. As shown by researchers, Kipling even used specific children's vocabulary, which was completely understandable to children. Communication with a child is most noticeable in the special intonation of Kipling the storyteller: “It was a long time ago, my dear boy. Once upon a time there lived a Keith. He swam in the sea and ate fish. He ate bream, and ruff, and beluga, and stellate sturgeon, and herring, and the nimble, fast eel. Whatever fish he comes across, he will eat. He opens his mouth, and he’s done!” The fairy-tale narration is interrupted by interpolated replicas, specially intended for little listeners, so that they remember some detail, pay attention to something especially important for themselves.

About the Sailor, who was in the womb of the Whale, Kipling says: “The Sailor is wearing blue canvas trousers and suspenders (look, my dear, don’t forget about the suspenders!), and a hunting knife at the side of his belt. The Sailor is sitting on a raft, with his legs dangling in the water (his mother allowed him to dangle his bare legs in the water, otherwise he would not have dangled, because he was very smart and brave).” And whenever the subject of the Sailor and his blue trousers comes up, Kipling will not fail to remind again and again: “Please don’t forget about your suspenders, my dear!” This manner of Kipling the storyteller is explained not only by the desire to play up an essential detail in the development of the action: the Sailor used suspenders to tie up thin splinters that he inserted into Keith’s throat - “Now you understand why you should not have forgotten about the suspenders!” But even after everything has been told, at the very end of the tale, Kipling will again talk about the suspenders that were useful to the Sailor: “The blue canvas trousers were still on his feet when he walked on the pebbles near the sea. But he was no longer wearing suspenders. They remained in Keith's throat. They tied together splinters, from which the Sailor made a lattice.”

The cheerful inspiration of Kipling the narrator gives fairy tales a special charm. That's why he plays up some detail he likes, repeating it many times. For the same reason, the writer gives the child fantastic paintings imbued with everyday humor. The whale, sailing towards England, is likened to a conductor and shouts out the names of the stations: “It’s time to get out!” Transfer! Nearest stations: Winchester, Ashuelot, Nashua, Keene and Fitchboro.”

The poetic detailing of the action reveals the humorous and ironic intent of the fairy tale, bringing it closer to the cheerful humoresques of English folk children's poetry. In the fairy tale about the cat, the word “wild” is played out many times - the action takes place in a distant time, when tame animals were still wild: “The Dog was wild, and the Horse was wild, and the Sheep was wild, and they were all wild and wild and wandered wildly Wet and Wild forests. But the wildest was the Wild Cat - she wandered wherever she pleased and walked on her own.” Everything in the world was still wild - and it is said about people: “That evening, my dear boy, they dined on wild sheep, roasted on hot stones, seasoned with wild garlic and wild pepper. Then they ate wild duck stuffed with wild rice, wild grass and wild apples; then the cartilages of wild bulls; then wild cherries and wild pomegranates.” And even the legs of the Wild Horse and the Wild Dog are wild, and they themselves speak “wildly”. The varied use of the same word brings the narrative closer to a humorous joke.

By skillful repetition the writer achieves a remarkable comic effect. The stupid Jaguar, who decided to follow the advice of the Jaguar Mother, was completely confused by the smart Turtle and the cunning Hedgehog. “You say that I say that she said something else,” said the Turtle. “So what of that?” After all, if, as you said, she said what I said, then it turns out that I said what she said.” From such confusing speeches, the painted Jaguar feels that “even the spots on his back hurt.”

In Kipling's fairy tales, the same turns, words, expressions, phrases and even entire paragraphs are repeated many times: mother Jaguar gracefully waves her graceful tail, the Amazon is called a “muddy river”, and the Limpopo is called “dirty, muddy green, wide”, Turtle is everywhere “leisurely”, and the Hedgehog is “prickly-thorny”, the Jaguar is “painted”, etc. The whole combination of these figurative and stylistic devices gives fairy tales an unusually bright artistic originality - they turn into a fun game with words. Kipling revealed to his little listeners the poetry of distant travels, strange life on distant continents. Fairy tales call to the world of the unknown, mysteriously beautiful:

*From Liverpool Harbor
*Always on Thursdays
* uda go swimming
* To distant shores.
* They are sailing to Brazil,
* Brazil, Brazil,
* And I want to go to Brazil - To distant shores.

With his poetry of recognition of the world, spiritual health, irony and jokes, Kipling as a writer gained universal recognition among teachers. The best properties of his artistic talent were revealed precisely in fairy tales. Children really liked the story from “The Jungle Book” - about the brave mongoose fighter of cobras (“Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”). He exudes the poetry of tropical adventures, dangers and victories.

In other works, especially those intended for adult readers, negative aspects of the writer’s personality were also revealed. In them, Kipling appears as a militant ideologist of the English colonialists, glorifying in poetry and prose the “civilizing” role of the British Empire among “backward” peoples. Even before the revolution, Russian writers pointed out this feature of Kipling's worldview. A. I. Kuprin wrote: “And no matter how fascinated the reader is by this wizard, he sees because of his lines a real cultural son of cruel, greedy, merchant, modern England, a poet inspiring English mercenary soldiers to robbery, bloodshed and violence with his patriotic songs..."

The treasury of world culture includes those creations of Kipling that are marked by the spirit of humanism, subtle skill, observation, poetic courage and originality, closeness to the democratic traditions of folklore of English and other peoples. Along with fairy tales of foreign writers, folk tales from different peoples of the world are widespread in the reading habits of preschool children. These are fairy tales of the Slavic peoples (the Czech fairy tale “Goldilocks”; the Polish “Wonderful Apple Tree”; the Bulgarian “Ashes”, “The Boy and the Evil Bear”; the Serbian “Why the Moon Has No Dress”, etc.); fairy tales of other European nations (Hungarian “Two Greedy Little Bears”, French “The Goat and the Wolf”, English “The Tale of the Three Little Pigs”, Italian “Kittens”, etc.); fairy tales of the peoples of Asia (Korean fairy tale “Swallow”, Japanese “Sparrow”, Chinese “Yellow Stork”, Indian “Tiger, Peasant and Fox”, etc.). Fairy tales from peoples of different continents have significantly expanded the range of children's books. Together with the writers' fairy tales, they entered the "golden fund" of literature for preschoolers.

Municipal state-owned special (correctional) educational institution for students and pupils with disabilities "Special (correctional) primary school-kindergarten No. 10" Type V

extracurricular reading

Rudyard Kipling's tale

“Where did armadillos come from?”

Prepared and conducted:

Novokuznetsk urban district

Purpose of the lesson: introduce pupils to the works of R. Kipling; expand your reading horizons; develop expressive reading, improve reading technique, sense of humor; instill interest and love for books; develop a caring attitude towards books.

Material for the teacher

Rudyard Kipling is a poet and prose writer of great talent. An inexhaustible wealth of visual means, precise and bold language, vivid imagination, keen observation, extensive and versatile knowledge - all these wonderful properties, combined together, make Kipling a writer who belongs to all humanity.

Kipling’s playfully ironic “fairy tales” attract young readers with their unique invention, bright colors and lively spoken language. As if answering countless children’s questions “why” and “why”, the author tells with sly humor where the elephant’s trunk came from, why the leopard became spotted, how the camel got a hump, why the rhinoceros has rough skin in folds, why the whale has a narrow throat , how the first letter was composed and how the first alphabet was invented, how domestic animals appeared. Answering all these questions, Kipling gives free rein to creative imagination and at the same time makes children think about many things.


Kipling's tales are full of funny jokes and jokes. His tales are unexpectedly interrupted by appeals to young listeners. The main text is complemented by funny poems and expressive author's illustrations with witty explanations. These are all parts of a single plan.

"Where did armadillos come from"Decipher the title of the fairy tale

1620122151 393313101930 218161561516192429

Answer:"Where did armadillos come from?"

Questions about content

Did you like the fairy tale?

What impression did she make on you?

What do you remember most?

Where do the events described in the fairy tale take place? (On Amazon.)

Name the main characters of the fairy tale?

Tell us how the hedgehog and the turtle lived?

How did the jaguar spend his time?

Who explained to the jaguar how to catch turtles and hedgehogs?

What advice did the mother give to her son?

Tell us how the first meeting of a jaguar with a turtle and a hedgehog took place?

Why didn't the jaguar catch anyone?

Tell us how the animals confused the jaguar?

Did the jaguar try to catch the hedgehog and the turtle again?

How did the hedgehog and the turtle manage to deceive the jaguar?

What did the hedgehog learn?

What did the turtle learn?

What question does the fairy tale ask us?

What animals did the turtle and the hedgehog turn into?

Kipling wrote an entertaining, interesting tale, but it cannot be recognized as a scientific fact. Why?

Where can we get reliable information and scientific answers to the questions: who are armadillos? What is known about the life of a hedgehog and turtles? (Encyclopedias, reference books.)

Find the fairy tale heroes in the table

Horizontally: hedgehog, turtle, armadillo. Vertically: jaguar.

Digital dictation

The teacher reads statements to the children; if the children agree with the statement, they give 1 (one), if they disagree, they give 0 (zero).

1. The events in the fairy tale take place on the Amazon River.

2. The turtle ate frogs. (Green salad.)

3. The hedgehog ate snails.

4. The hedgehog was called Zlyuchka-Thorn.

5. The turtle was called Hasty. (Leisurely.)

6. The jaguar was called Painted.

7. The hedgehog is not afraid of water. (Fears.)

8. Mother taught the jaguar to catch turtles and hedgehogs.

9. The turtle pricked the jaguar. (Hedgehog.)


10. The hedgehog learned to curl up into a ball. (Turtle.)

11. The hedgehog and turtle turned into armadillos.
Answers: 101 101 010 01.

Test

2. On what river did the events take place?
a) On the Volga b) On the Amazon

3. What kind of water was in the river?

a) Cloudy b) Clean

4. Who was hunting for the turtle and the hedgehog?
a) Leopard b) Jaguar

5. What was the name of the hedgehog?

a) Spiny-thorn b) Spiny side

6. What was the name of the turtle?

a) Toropyshka b) Medlyanka

7. What was the name of the Jaguar?

a) Painted b) Clockwork

8. What did the turtle learn?

a) Swim b) Run

9. What did the hedgehog learn?

a) Swim b) Run c) Jump

10. What happened to the turtle and the hedgehog after swimming?

a) Scales b) Spines c) Shell

11. What animals did the hedgehog and the turtle turn into?

a) In jaguars b) In turtles c) In armadillos

Answer: 1 - in; 2 - b; 3 - a; 4 - 6; 5 - a; 6 - in; 7 - a; 8 - in; 9 - a; 10 - a I - c.

Decipher the fairy tale characters

I. Cross out all the repeated letters and read the word.

Answer: jaguar.

Answer: hedgehog.

2. Match the numbers from the right column with the letters of the left column and read the word.

Answer: turtle.

3. Read only Russian letters.

DBFWRPYOLHNEZQHWOSCYEUЦIW

Answer: armadillo

Game: “Guess who said it?”

1. “If, son, you find a Hedgehog, quickly throw it into the water. Hedgehog
will unfold on its own in the water. And if you find a Turtle, scratch it out of its shell with your paw.”

2. “I threw another animal into the water. He said his name was Turtle, but I didn't believe him. It turns out that it really was the Turtle. She dove into the water, into the muddy Amazon River, and I never saw her again. And so I was left hungry and I think that we need to move from here to other places. Here in the muddy waters of the Amazon, all the animals are so smart. Poor me can’t handle them.”

3. “After all, if, as you say, I said what she said, what I said, then it turns out that I said what she said. And if you think that she said that you should turn me around with your paw, and not throw me into the water along with my shell, I have nothing to do with it, don’t I?”

4. “You curl up so well - just like my brothers and sisters. Two holes you say? Okay, just don't puff so loudly, otherwise the Painted Jaguar will hear. Be brave! When you're done, I'll try to dive and stay under the water longer. You say it's very easy. The Painted Jaguar will be surprised! But how the shields on your shell have shifted! Before they were side by side, but now they are one on top of the other.”

Answers: 1. Jaguar mother. 2. Jaguar. 3. Turtle. 4. Hedgehog.

Recover corrupted text. Fill in the missing words

“Dear..., I’ll tell you again... about Distant and Ancient Times. Then there lived Zlyuchka-... Hedgehog. He lived on... a river.... he ate snails and various things. And he had... a Turtle... who also lived on the muddy Amazon River, ate various varieties and... lettuce. Everything was going... wasn't it, dear boy?

Words for reference:boy, fairy tale, thorn, muddy, amazon,friend, leisurely, green, good.

Answer:“Dear boy, I will again tell you a fairy tale about Distant and Ancient Times. Then there lived the Thorny Hedgehog. He lived on the muddy Amazon River, ate snails and various varieties. And he had a friend, the Slow Turtle, who also lived on the muddy Amazon River, ate various varieties and green salad. Everything was going well, wasn’t it, dear boy?”

Kipling's work is one of the most striking phenomena of the neo-romantic movement in English literature. His works show the harsh life and exoticism of the colonies. He dispelled the common myth about the magical, luxurious East and created his own fairy tale - about the harsh East, cruel to the weak; he told Europeans about powerful nature, which requires every creature to exert all its physical and spiritual strength.

For eighteen years, Kipling wrote fairy tales, short stories, and ballads for his children and nephews. Two of his cycles gained worldwide fame: the two-volume “The Jungle Book” (1894-1895) and the collection “Just Like That” (1902). Kipling's works encourage little readers to think and self-educate. To this day, English boys memorize his poem “If...” - the commandment of courage.

The title “The Jungle Book” reflected the author’s desire to create a genre close to the most ancient monuments of literature. The philosophical idea of ​​the two “Jungle Books” boils down to the assertion that the life of wild nature and humans is subject to a general law - the struggle for life. The Great Law of the Jungle determines Good and Evil, Love and Hate, Faith and Unbelief. Nature itself, and not man, is the creator of moral commandments (which is why there is no hint of Christian morality in Kipling’s works). The main words in the jungle: “You and I are of the same blood...”.

The only truth that exists for the writer is living life, not constrained by the conventions and lies of civilization. In the eyes of the writer, nature already has the advantage that it is immortal, while even the most beautiful human creations sooner or later turn to dust (monkeys frolic and snakes crawl on the ruins of a once luxurious city). Only fire and weapons can make Mowgli stronger than anyone in the jungle.

The two-volume “Jungle Book” is a cycle of short stories interspersed with poetic inserts. Not all short stories tell about Mowgli; some of them have independent plots, for example, the fairy tale short story “Rikki-Tikki-Tavi”.

Kipling settled his many heroes in the wilds of Central India. The author's fiction is based on many reliable scientific facts, the study of which the writer devoted a lot of time. The realism of the depiction of nature is consistent with its romantic idealization.

Another “children’s” book of the writer that has become widely known is a collection of short fairy tales, which he called “Just Like That” (you can also translate “Just Fairy Tales”, “Simple Stories”): “Where does the Whale have such a throat”, “Why does the Camel have a hump ", "Where did the Rhino get its skin", "Where did the Armadillos come from", "Baby Elephant, "How the leopard got its spots", "The cat that walked by itself", etc.

Kipling was fascinated by the folk art of India, and his tales organically combine the literary skill of the “white” writer and the powerful expressiveness of Indian folklore. In these tales there is something from ancient legends - from those tales that adults believed in at the dawn of humanity. The main characters are animals, with their own characters, quirks, weaknesses and strengths; they look not like people, but like themselves - not yet tamed, not classified into classes and species.

“In the very first years, long, long ago, all the land was brand new, just made” (hereinafter translated by K. Chukovsky). In the primordial world, animals, like people, take their first steps, on which their future lives will always depend. Rules of conduct are just being established; good and evil, reason and stupidity are just defining their poles, but animals and people are already living in the world. Every living being is forced to find its own place in an as yet unsettled world, to look for its own way of life and its own ethics. For example, Horse, Dog, Cat, Woman and Man have different ideas about good. The wisdom of man is to “agree” with the beasts forever and ever.

During the course of the story, the author more than once turns to the child (“Once upon a time there lived, my priceless, a whale in the sea who ate fish”) so that the intricately woven thread of the plot is not lost. There is always a lot of unexpected things in action - things that are only revealed in the end. The heroes demonstrate miracles of resourcefulness and ingenuity, getting out of difficult situations. The little reader seems to be invited to think about what else could be done to avoid bad consequences. Because of his curiosity, the baby elephant was forever left with a long nose. The Rhino's skin was wrinkled because he ate a man's pie. A small mistake or fault leads to an irreparable big consequence. However, it does not spoil life in the future, if you don’t lose heart.

Each animal and person exists in fairy tales in the singular (after all, they are not yet representatives of species), so their behavior is explained by the personality characteristics of each. And the hierarchy of animals and people is built according to their intelligence and intelligence.

The storyteller tells about ancient times with humor. No, no, and even modern details appear on its primitive land. Thus, the head of a primitive family makes a remark to his daughter: “How many times have I told you that you cannot speak in common language! “Horrifying” is a bad word...” The stories themselves are witty and instructive.

Introduction

Reading books is one of my favorite activities. Until recently, I was drawn to the plot. I loved being in unusual situations, mysterious places, overcoming difficulties together with the heroes of books, fighting for justice, looking for treasures. As I grew older, I began to pay attention to the style of sentences, the techniques with which authors achieve brightness and imagery of plots: epithets, metaphors, comparisons, which abound in the poems of M.Yu. Lermontov, A.S. Pushkin, I. Bunin, S. Yesenin, epics, Russian folk tales.

A fairy tale is a universal genre that covers all phenomena of surrounding life and nature. The Russian fairy tale genre is characterized by imagery, emotionality, accessibility, and expressiveness, which is manifested in phonetics, vocabulary, and syntax.

What techniques is the British fairy tale tradition based on? How is emotionality and imagery achieved in English fairy tales, when it is generally known that the English language is much poorer, more restrained and conservative? The object of my research was the animalistic tales of Rudyard Kipling from the collection “Just so stories”.

The subject of the study is the means of expressiveness of animal images, features of sentence construction, and poetics in these fairy tales.

Research hypothesis: after analyzing Kipling's tales from the point of view of style, vocabulary, and grammar, I will learn about stylistic devices and means of expressiveness of the English language, which in the future will help me better understand the culture of the people and the language, and will expand my knowledge in studying the English language.

Purpose of the study: to identify means of expression in the English language through a linguostylistic analysis of R. Kipling’s animalistic tales. In accordance with the hypothesis put forward, the subject and purpose of the study, specific tasks were identified:

characterize the features of R. Kipling’s artistic method;

consider the linguistic and stylistic features of the language of R. Kipling’s fairy tales;

identify the features of poetics and image systems.

The novelty of this work is due to its purpose, objectives and the very choice of research material. For the first time I turned to the analysis of an English text, in particular an animalistic tale.

The practical significance of the work lies in expanding knowledge about the culture of the language being studied, deepening knowledge in the field of vocabulary, grammar, and word formation. Determined by the possibility of using the material and research results in the further study of English oral folk art.

In accordance with the purpose and objectives of the work, the method of comparative analysis of the original text and its translation was used.

linguistic-stylistic feature of Kipling's tale

Main part

Before starting to analyze the fairy tales, I became acquainted with the writer’s work and discovered that Kipling began to “invent, imagine and write down fairy tales in response to the very first “What, Where and Why?” to his eldest daughter Josephine." D.M. Damage. Preface to the third edition of “Just so stories” .p. 5 Then other little listeners appeared (Josephine’s friends) and new fairy tales. This is how a whole collection of fairy tales about animals arose.

Kipling traveled a lot and saw a lot. He knew history, archeology, geography, ethnography, zoology well. The fiction in fairy tales is based on his encyclopedic knowledge, so the descriptions of animals, nature, and landscapes are very accurate and reliable. The plots of the tales are inspired by African folklore, but none of Kipling's tales have anything in common with the animal epic of the peoples of Central and South Africa. Thus, fairy tales are pure fiction, where the author, intertwining fiction with real facts, interestingly, witty and instructive tells children about how the world around them arose and developed. Konstantin Paustovsky wrote about R. Kipling: “His talent was inexhaustible, his language was precise and rich, his invention was full of plausibility, all his amazing knowledge, taken from real life, sparkles in abundance on the pages of his books.”

Rudyard Kipling was a wonderful storyteller and an amazing actor. When telling his stories to children, he opened his mouth exactly the way Keith did or said “Humph!” the way Camel could pronounce it. Therefore, Josephine asked her father to write down the fairy tales exactly as he told them, without changing a single word. The combination just so appears several times in the text. Talking about the emergence of the alphabet, Kipling insists that it happened exactly like this (it was just so): a curious Baby Elephant tries to find out why melons taste just so (why melons tasted just so), etc. This led to the name of the series “Just so stories”.

Three tales from the cycle were taken for research:

How the Whale got his throat (How Keith got his throat);

How the Camel got his hump;

The Elephant's Child (Elephant).

The tales are written in a “sublime style” in an entertaining form, they use a variety of words created by the author - possibly comic exaggeration and modification of words heard in India and Africa. Throughout the book, he addresses the reader “O my Best Beloved” (my dear, my dear), which creates an atmosphere of special intimacy between the narrator and the listener, between the author and the reader. In addition, as already mentioned, images of animals create special trust and reality. The text testifies to this. For example, talking about Keith, he said: “All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth - so!” (All the fish that he could find in the sea, he ate just like that), “He swallowed them all down into his warm, dark, inside cupboards and then he smacked his lips -so...” (He swallowed them all into a warm and dark closet , which was called the stomach of the Whale and smacked its lips like this....) R. Kipling. “How the Whale got his throat” pp. 30, 32. In the fairy tale about the Elephant’s Child “The Elephant’s Child” we read: “the Crocodile winked one eye like this.” Kipling even tries depict the Baby Elephant’s speech when the Crocodile grabbed him by the nose: “Led go! You are hurtig be!” (Dovoldo. I am more de god) R. Kipling “The Elephant's Child” pp. 81,82.

A fairy-tale narrative begins with a “beginning” that introduces the listener to the world of the distant past. He emphasizes the unusualness of the situation and, thus, seems to justify the unusualness of what is being described. For example: “Once upon a time” (How the Whale got his throat), “In the beginning of years, when the world was so new-and-all” (How the Camel got his hump), “In the High and Far -Off Times” (The Elephant's Child).

The composition of fairy tales is simple: it is usually based on three times (or multiple) repetitions of the same action. Repeated action, as a rule, is associated with the repetition of verbal formulas in the form of dialogue or some kind of remark. For example, in the fairy tale “How Keith Got His Throat,” the author three times asks the reader not to forget about the suspenders (“you must not forget the suspenders,” “Have you forgotten the suspenders?”, “now you know why you were not to forget the suspenders"). Or in the fairy tale “How the Camel Got His Hump,” the Camel constantly says only one word “Humph,” and the Horse, Dog, and Donkey address the Camel three times (“Camel, O Camel, come out and (trot, fetch, plough) like the rest of us”). In the fairy tale “The Baby Elephant,” the politeness of the Baby Elephant is emphasized by the repeated repetition of the adverb politely, and his curiosity by the repetition of the question “What does the Crocodile have for dinner?” (What does Crocodile eat for dinner?)

Kipling makes extensive use of retardation (slow development of action), which is achieved by the already mentioned technique of triplicity, as well as by detailing the description. The Python from the Baby Elephant tale is depicted as “Bi-Coloured -Python -Rock -Snake”, and the Crocodile is depicted as “yonder self-propelling man-of-war with the armour-plated upper deck” (warship with a live propeller and an armored deck). The rhythmic organization of speech and the use of consonances and even rhymes creates a special dimension to the narrative. At times it resembles the rhythm of lullabies. In the fairy tale “How the Whale Got His Throat,” the list of fish and sea animals that the Whale ate is written in the form of rhythmic and rhymed prose (the main meter is anapest) “He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate…. (He ate bream, and ruff, and beluga, and sturgeon, and herring, and herring aunt...). We again encounter the technique of rhythmic rhymed repetitions in the description of the moment how the Sailor behaved inside the Whale: “He stumped and he jumped and he thumped and he bumped and he pranced and he danced and he banged and he clanged, and he hit and he bit...” (he stomped and jumped, knocked and strummed, danced, pranced, threshed, pounded...). The fairy tale “Baby Elephant” is filled with rhyming epithets: “scalesome, flailsome tail” (the tail is like a threshing flail and is all covered with scales), “musky, tusky mouth” (toothed, fanged mouth), “a mere-smear nose” (tiny nose).

Against the background of a neutral or softly colored familiar colloquial context, Kipling widely uses two categories of stylistically colored words - children's vocabulary (the so-called nursery words) and literary and book vocabulary.

After reading the fairy tales “How the Whale got his throat”, “How the Camel got his hump”, “The Elephant's Child”, I identified the following children's vocabulary: twirly - whirly (eel twirl). This is a children's neologism, derived from verbs to twirl - to twist and to whirl - to twirl using the suffix -y, which gives the word a pronounced emotional connotation, humorous or affectionate, characteristic of children's vocabulary. L.S. Golovchinskaya Commentary on the third edition of “Just so stories” p. 225 The word nubbly. in the sentence “This man is very nubbly” (this man is not to my taste) is formed from the noun nubble (piece, lump) using the suffix -y. Fairy tale “How the Whale got his throat” p. 33 Adjective snarly -yarly ( grumpy, creaky), formed from the verb to snarl (growl, snarl) using the suffix -y and the word yarly, invented for rhyme by Kipling. Fairy tale “How the Camel got his hump” p. 45 The truncated children's word satiable is formed from the adjective insatiable (greedy). , insatiable), scuse me (excuse me) - a truncated children's word from excuse me and hijjus - a childish misuse of the adjective hideous (terrible, cruel). Fairy tale “The Elephant's child” p. 81

To create an unexpected, most often humorous effect, Kipling skillfully interweaves the narrative, which is conducted in a simple conversational manner, with words that he comes up with himself, modeled on children's vocabulary, and words-terms, book words and expressions, even archaisms. In the “cunning Fish”’s address to the Whale “Noble and generous Cetacean,” Kipling deliberately uses the term Cetacean to give importance and pomp to the speech. Fairy tale “How the Whale got his throat” page 30

The speech of Python and Crocodile from the fairy tale about the Baby Elephant abounds in archaisms: “Come hither, Little One,” said the Crocodile” (“Come here, my little one,” “yonder limped stream” (that transparent stream), this is how Python speaks about the Limpopo River. The words hither (modern here) and yonder (modern that) are archaisms.

To give fairy tales a special sound and intonation expressiveness, the author actively uses the technique of alliteration (repetition of homogeneous consonant sounds), synonymous rhymed repetition, epithets (figurative definition of the subject) Literature textbook for grade 8, part 2. M., “Prosveshchenie” 2008, p. 390 , 394.. I found the largest number of alliteration techniques in the fairy tale “The Elephant's Child”, and alliteration is accompanied by epithets and synonymous rhymed repetitions. For example: “the great grey-green, greasy Limpopo River” (sleepy, fetid, muddy green Limpopo River), “scalesome, flailsome tail”, “musky, tusky mouth”, “sloshy -slushy”, “slushy -squshy”. Thus, neologisms were formed, which subsequently entered the vocabulary of the English language as stable phrases: “ a man of infinite-resource-and-sagacity” (a man of boundless wisdom and ingenuity), Fairy tale “How the Whale got his throat” p. 32 “black and blue” (1. blue-black, 2. bad mood) Fairy tale “How the Camel got his hump” page 45, “In the High and Far-Of Times” (in ancient times), “crocodile tears” (crocodile tears) Fairy tale “The Elephant's child” page 80.

From a grammatical point of view, Kipling most often uses past tense verbs, which he also arranges in a rhyming sequence. For example, in the fairy tale “How the Whale got his throat” we read “He stumped and he jumped and he thumped and he bumped...and he stepped and he lepped”... The word lepped (irregular form of the past tense of the verb to leap (leapt) - “jump" formed by Kipling to rhyme with the word stepped - “to do pa.” In the sentence “I have stopped your ating,” the neologism ating is formed using the productive suffix -ing from the past tense form (ate) of the verb to eat. forming a rhyme with the word grating. “By means of a grating, I have stopped your ating.” Fairy tale “How the Whale got his throat” p.35

Conclusion

The British fairy tale tradition is a rich collection of vivid images, folk humor, extraordinary adventures, and magical events. British fairy tales are carriers of national identity, a kind of generalization of the British spirit and way of thinking. By absorbing folklore and literary material, enriched with borrowings from the culture of other peoples (as Kipling did), fairy tales represent a unique synthesis of images, plots, and ideas. It is in fairy-tale works that the author expresses many of his views on the world, art, and social relations; It is in fairy tales that the peculiarities of the artistic method, the love for colorful, rich descriptions, are fully manifested. I was convinced of this by reading and analyzing the tales of Rudyard Kipling. The author’s oriental appeal to the reader gives mystery and trust to the story, as well as an indication of ancient times when the event takes place, which in turn fascinates and arouses keen interest in the fairy tale. The repeated repetition of actions or descriptions at first causes a protest, but then you understand that Kipling is “conducting” a conversation with you, “wants” you to fully understand what he wants to say.

I saw the poetics of fairy tales through alliteration, synonymous rhymed repetition, and epithets. Children's words, Kipling's original neologisms, which play an expressive-emotional role in the text, and stable phrases give special emotionality and expression to fairy tales. I am sure that Kipling still has a lot of interesting words that develop and enrich the language, a lot of techniques and methods with the help of which a real miracle is created from ordinary letters, words and sentences - a fairy tale.

Literature

Rudyard Kipling. Just so Stories.-M.: Raduga, 2000.- 254

English-Russian dictionary. / Compiled by: V.D. Arakin, Z.S. Vygodskaya - M.: Russian language, 1998. - 848 pp.

Great Britain: Linguistic and regional reference book/ A.R.U. Room, G.A. Pasechnik-M.: Russian language, 1978.- 480 pp.

Literature. 8th grade Textbook for general education institutions. At 2 p.m. Part 2 / auto-composition. V.Ya. Korovina.-M.: Education, 2008.-339 pp.

R.D. Kipling Tales [Text] / R.D. Kipling M.: Children's literature, 1991.- 59 pp.