Typification

Typification is a mode of artistic generalization in which a writer selects, concentrates, and intensifies the most essential, recurring, characteristic traits of a certain range of phenomena or people, embodying them in a concrete-individual image. Typification is a fundamental principle of realist art, whose formula is 'a typical character in typical circumstances' (going back to Friedrich Engels and György Lukács's theory of realism). Through typification, a singular image acquires significance and becomes a bearer of the regular and socially meaningful. Typification is not identical with schematization: in a genuine work, the typical is inseparably joined with the vividly individual and unique. Different artistic methods typify differently: Classicism by the principle 'one trait — one character,' Romanticism through the exceptional and ideal, realism through social-psychological conditioning. Masters of social typification in Ukrainian literature are Ivan Karpenko-Kary, Panas Myrny, and Ivan Nechui-Levytsky.