L. Vygotsky about artistic creativity. Vygotsky L. S. Imagination and creativity of a teenager Vygotsky on children's creativity

Vygotsky L.S. - Imagination and creativity in childhood. Psychological essay. 3rd ed. (M. Education. 1991)
The book by the famous Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) examines the psychological and pedagogical foundations of the development of children's creative imagination. First published in 1930 and republished by Prosveshchenie in 1967, this work has not lost its relevance and practical value. The book is equipped with a special afterword, in which yes-
there is an assessment of the works of L. S. Vygotsky. areas of children's creativity.
Teachers and parents will find in the book a lot of useful information about the literary, theatrical and visual creativity of preschoolers and primary schoolchildren.

About the author:
L. S. Vygotsky wrote both serious scientific works (for example, “Thinking and Speech”) and several popular science works (for example, Educational Psychology).
Brochure “Imagination and creativity in childhood. Psychological, essay” is one of them. Its first edition dates back to 1930, the second - 1967. Why was there a need for a third edition? This is due to the following circumstances. First of all, with the fact that this brochure sets out ideas about imagination and creativity that are not yet outdated in science. These ideas, illustrated with clear examples, are presented clearly and simply, which allows the general reader to easily understand their rather complex content. At the same time, in recent years, the interest of the reading public, and above all teachers and parents, in the peculiarities of children's imagination and creativity has sharply increased. And finally, in our popular scientific psychological literature there are few books that, combining the depth of content with the vividness of presentation, can satisfy such interest.

Books by L.S. Vygotsky on the website:
Psychology
Psychology of art

From myself: I searched for this book on the Internet for a long time until I accidentally came across it. An excellent book on child psychology and pedagogy.

ISBN: 5-09-003428-1

Publisher: Education

Year of publication: 1991

Pages: 96

Quality: Very good

About the author: Vygotsky Lev Semenovich (1896-1934) - an outstanding psychologist. The founder of one of the most significant areas of psychology and child development. He, his school, students and followers play one of the most important roles in the development of Russian psychology. more…

Material from Dachess

Vygotsky L. S.– M.: Education, 1991. – 93 p.: ill./Psychol. essay: Book. for the teacher. – 3rd ed. –

The book by the famous Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) examines the psychological and pedagogical foundations of the development of children's creative imagination. First published in 1930 and republished by Prosveshchenie in 1967, this work was not included in the six-volume collected works of the psychologist, but did not lose its relevance and practical value. The book is equipped with a special afterword, which evaluates the works of L.S. Vygotsky in the field of children's creativity.
Teachers and parents will find in the book a lot of useful information about the literary, theatrical and visual creativity of preschoolers and primary schoolchildren.

CONTENTS Chapter I. Creativity and imagination 3 Chapter II. Imagination and reality 8 Chapter III. The mechanism of creative imagination 20 Chapter IV. Imagination in a child and teenager 26 Chapter V. “The pangs of creativity” 33 Chapter VI. Literary creativity at school age 36 Chapter VII. Theatrical creativity at school age 61 Chapter VIII. Drawing in childhood 66 Appendix 79 Afterword 87

A few excerpts from the book:

The first form of connection between imagination and reality is that any creation of the imagination is always built from elements taken from reality and contained in a person’s previous experience. It would be a miracle if the imagination could create out of nothing, or if it had other sources for its creations than previous experience. (8 – 9)

Here we find the first and most important law to which the activity of the imagination is subject. This law can be formulated as follows: the creative activity of the imagination is directly dependent on the richness and diversity of a person’s previous experience, because this experience represents the material from which fantasy constructions are created. The richer a person's experience, the more material his imagination has at his disposal. This is why a child’s imagination is poorer than an adult’s, and this is explained by the greater poverty of his experience.
If you trace the history of great inventions, great discoveries, you can almost always establish that they were the result of vast experience accumulated previously. It is from this accumulation of experience that all imagination begins. The richer the experience, the richer, other things being equal, the imagination should be. (10)

Already from this first form of connection between fantasy and reality it is easy to see to what extent it is wrong to oppose them to each other. The combining activity of our brain turns out to be not something completely new in comparison with its preserving activity, but only a further complication of this first one. Fantasy is not the opposite of memory, but relies on it and arranges its data into new and new combinations. The combining activity of the brain is ultimately based on the same thing - the preservation in the brain of traces of previous excitations, and the whole novelty of this function comes down to the fact that, having traces of these excitations, the brain combines them into combinations that have not been encountered in its actual experience . (eleven)

It remains to be said about the fourth and final form of connection between fantasy and reality... The essence of this latter lies in the fact that the construction of fantasy can represent something essentially new, which has not been in human experience and does not correspond to any really existing object; however, being embodied outside, having taken on material embodiment, his “crystallized” imagination, having become a thing, begins to really exist in the world and influence other things.
Such imagination becomes reality. Examples of such crystallized, or embodied, imagination can be any technical device, machine or tool. They are created by the combining imagination of man, they do not correspond to any pattern existing in nature, but they exhibit the most convincing, effective, practical connection with reality, because, having become incarnate, they became as real as other things, and exert their influence on the environment around them. world of reality.
Such products of the imagination have gone through a very long history, which perhaps should be outlined in the shortest possible schematic way. We can say that in their development they described a circle. The elements from which they are built were taken by man from reality. Inside a person, in his thinking, they underwent complex processing and turned into products of the imagination.
Having finally incarnated, they returned to reality again, but they returned as a new active force, changing this reality. This is the full circle of the creative activity of the imagination. (16)

...this phenomenon reveals to us the last and most important feature of the imagination, without which the picture we have drawn would be incomplete in its most essential aspects. This trait is the desire of the imagination for embodiment; this is the true basis and driving principle of creativity. Any construction of the imagination, based on reality, strives to describe a full circle and become reality.
Arising in response to our desire and impulse, the construction of the imagination tends to become reality. The imagination, due to the impulses inherent in it, strives to become creative, that is, effective, active, transforming what its activity is aimed at. In this sense, Ribot rightly compares daydreaming and lack of will. For this author, this unsuccessful form of creative imagination is perfectly analogous to impotence of will. For him, imagination in the intellectual sphere corresponds to will in the sphere of movements. People always want something - whether it be something empty or important; They also always invent for a certain purpose - will it be

IMAGINATION IN A CHILD AND ADOLESCENT

The activity of creative imagination turns out to be very complex and depends on a number of very different factors. It is therefore completely clear that this activity cannot be the same in a child and an adult, because all these factors take on different forms in different eras of childhood. That is why, in each period of child development, the creative imagination works in a special way, characteristic of the particular stage of development at which the child stands. We have seen that imagination depends on experience, and a child’s experience develops and grows gradually; it is distinguished by deep originality in comparison with the experience of an adult. The child’s attitude to the environment, which with its complexity or simplicity, its traditions and influences stimulates and directs the creative process, is again completely different. The interests of a child and an adult are different, and therefore it is clear that a child’s imagination works differently than an adult’s.

How does a child’s imagination differ from the imagination of an adult and what is the main line of its development in childhood? There is still an opinion that a child has a richer imagination than an adult. Childhood is considered to be the time when fantasy is most developed, and, according to this view, as the child develops, his imagination and the power of his fantasy decline. This opinion was formed because a number of observations of the activity of fantasy give rise to such a conclusion.

Children can make everything out of everything, Goethe said, and this undemandingness, the unpretentiousness of children's imagination, which is no longer free in an adult, was often taken for the freedom or richness of children's imagination. Further, the creation of a child’s imagination sharply and vividly diverges from the experience of an adult, and from here conclusions were also made that the child lives in a fantasy world more than in the real one. Then there is inaccuracy, distortion of real experience, exaggeration and, finally, the desire for fairy tales and fantastic stories, characteristic of a child.

All this taken together served as the basis for the assertion that fantasy in childhood works richer and more varied than in a mature person. However, this view is not confirmed by scientific consideration of this issue. We know that a child's experience is much poorer than that of an adult. We know, further, that his interests are simpler, more elementary, poorer; finally, his relationship with the environment also does not have the complexity, subtlety and diversity that distinguish the behavior of an adult, and these are all the most important factors that determine the work of the imagination. A child’s imagination, as is already clear from this, is not richer, but poorer, than the imagination of an adult; In the process of child development, imagination also develops, reaching its maturity only in an adult.

That is why the products of real creative imagination in all areas of creative activity belong only to already mature imagination. As one approaches maturity, the imagination begins to mature, and in adolescence - in adolescents with the onset of puberty - a powerful upsurge of imagination and the first rudiments of the maturation of fantasy are combined. Further, authors who wrote about imagination pointed out the close connection between puberty and the development of imagination. This connection can be understood if we take into account that at this time the teenager matures and summarizes his extensive experience; so-called permanent interests mature, children's interests quickly fade away and, in connection with general maturation, the activity of his imagination receives final form...

A child can imagine much less than an adult, but he trusts the products of his imagination more and controls them less, and therefore imagination in the everyday, cultural sense of the word, i.e., something that reveals Whether real or fictitious, a child, of course, has more than an adult. However, not only the material from which the imagination is built is poorer in a child than in an adult, but also the nature of the combinations that are added to this material, their quality and variety are significantly inferior to the combinations of an adult. Of all the forms of connection with reality that we listed above, the child’s imagination, to the same extent as the imagination of an adult, possesses only the first, namely the reality of the elements from which it is built. Perhaps just as strongly as in an adult, the real emotional root of a child’s imagination is expressed; As for the other two forms of communication, it should be noted that they develop only over the years, very slowly and very gradually. From the moment the two curves of imagination and reason meet at point M, further development of the imagination proceeds, as the line MN shows, parallel to the line of development of reason XO. The discrepancy that was characteristic of childhood has disappeared here; the imagination, having closely united with thinking, now keeps pace with it.

“Both of these intellectual forms,” said Ribot, “now stand before each other as rival forces.” The activity of the imagination “continues, but having previously been transformed: “it adapts to rational conditions, it is no longer pure imagination, but mixed.” However, this does not happen for everyone; for many, another option develops, and this is symbolized in the drawing by the MNp curve quickly descending and signifying the decline or curtailment of the imagination. “Creative imagination declines - this is the most general case. Only those especially richly gifted with imagination are an exception; the majority little by little enters into the prose of practical life, buries the dreams of their youth, considers love a chimera, etc. This, however, is only a regression, but not destruction, because the creative imagination does not disappear completely from anyone , it happens only by chance.”

And indeed, where even a small share of creative life remains, imagination also takes place. That in adulthood the creative life curve often goes down is a well-known fact. Let us now take a closer look at this critical phase of MX, which separates both periods. It, as we have already said, is characteristic of that transitional age, which now interests us primarily. If we understand that peculiar pass that the imagination curve is now crossing, we will receive the key to a correct understanding of the entire process of creativity at this age. During this period, a deep transformation of the imagination occurs: from subjective it turns into objective. “In the physiological order, the cause of such a crisis is the formation of an adult organism and an adult brain, and in the psychological order, it is the antagonism between the pure subjectivity of the imagination and the objectivity of rational processes, or, in other words, between the instability and stability of the mind.”

We know that the transitional age is characterized in a number of respects by the antithetical, contradictory, polarity of the moments that characterize it. This is precisely what determines the fact that age itself is critical or transitional: neither the age of the disturbed childhood balance of the organism nor the as yet undiscovered balance of the mature organism. So the imagination during this period is characterized by a turning point, destruction and the search for a new balance. That the activity of imagination in the form in which it manifested itself in childhood is curtailed in adolescents is very easy to notice from the fact that in a child of this age, as a mass phenomenon or as a rule, the passion for drawing disappears. Only individuals continue to draw, for the most part those who are especially gifted in this regard or are encouraged to do so by external conditions such as special drawing classes, etc. The child begins to be critical of his drawings, children's schemes cease to satisfy him, they seem too objective to him, he comes to the conviction that he does not know how to draw, and gives up drawing. We see the same collapse of children's imagination in the fact that the child loses interest in the naive games of earlier childhood, in fantastic fairy tales and stories. The duality of the new form of imagination, which is emerging now, can be easily seen from the fact that the most widespread and massive form of imaginative activity at this age is literary creativity. It is stimulated by a strong rise in subjective experiences, the expansion and deepening of the adolescent’s intimate life, so that at this time he creates a special, his own inner world. However, this subjective side strives to be embodied in an objective form - in poetry, a story, in those creative forms that a teenager perceives from the adult literature around him. The development of this contradictory imagination proceeds along the line of further withering away of its subjective moments and along the line of increasing consolidation of objective moments. Usually, very soon again, as a rule, the mass teenager’s interest in his literary work fades, the teenager begins to be critical of him, as he was previously critical of his drawing; he begins to be dissatisfied with the insufficient objectivity of his writings, and he leaves writing. So, the rise of the imagination and its profound transformation - this is what characterizes the critical phase.

At the same time, two main types of imagination appear with all clarity: plastic and emotional, or external and internal imagination. These two main types are characterized mainly by the material from which fantasy constructions are created and the laws of this construction. The plastic imagination uses primarily the data of external impressions; it builds from elements borrowed from the outside; the emotional, on the contrary, builds from elements taken from within. We can call one of them objective, and the other subjective. The manifestation of both types of imagination and gradual differentiation are characteristic of this particular age.

In this regard, it is necessary to point out the dual role that imagination can play in human behavior. It can equally lead and lead a person away from reality. Janet says: “Science itself, at least natural science, is impossible without imagination. With its help, Newton sees the future, and Cuvier sees the past. Great hypotheses, from which great theories are born, are creations of the imagination.” However, Pascal, with all justice, calls the imagination a crafty teacher. “It instills,” says Compeyre, “much more errors than it forces one to discover the truth. It induces the unwary scientist to leave aside reasoning and observation and accept his fantasies as proven truths; it pushes us away from reality with its delightful deceptions; it, according to Malebranche’s strong expression, is a minion who brings disorder into the house.” In particular, adolescence very often reveals these dangerous sides of the imagination. It is extremely easy to satisfy oneself in the imagination, and retreating into daydreaming, escaping into an imaginary world often turns a teenager’s strength and will away from the real world.

Some authors even believed that the development of daydreaming and the associated isolation, isolation and self-absorption is an indispensable feature of this age. More accurately, one could say that all these phenomena constitute the shadow side of this age. This shadow of daydreaming that falls on this age, this dual role of imagination makes it a complex process, the mastery of which becomes extremely difficult.

“If a practical teacher,” says Groos, “wants to correctly develop the precious ability of creative imagination, then he will have a difficult task - to curb this wild and timid horse of noble origin and adapt it to the service of good.”

Pascal, as already said, called the imagination a crafty teacher. Goethe called him the forerunner of reason. Both were equally right.

The question arises: does the activity of imagination depend on giftedness? There is a very widespread opinion that creativity is the lot of the elite and that only those who are gifted with a special talent should develop it in themselves and can be considered called to creativity. This position is not correct, as we have already tried to explain above. If we understand creativity in its true psychological sense, as the creation of something new, it is easy to come to the conclusion that creativity is the lot of everyone to a greater or lesser extent, and it is also a normal and constant companion of child development.

In childhood, we meet so-called child prodigies or miracle children, who at an early age reveal the rapid maturation of some special talent.

Most often you see prodigies in the field of music, there are prodigies-artists who are less common. The example of the child prodigy Willy Ferrero, who became world famous about 20 years ago, reveals an extraordinary musical talent at a very early age. Such a child prodigy sometimes conducts a symphony orchestra at the age of 6-7, performing very complex musical works, masterfully playing a musical instrument, etc. It has long been noted that in such premature and excessive development of talent there is something close to pathological, i.e. i.e. abnormal.

But much more important is the rule, which knows almost no exceptions, according to which these prematurely mature child prodigies, who, if they had developed normally, should have surpassed all geniuses known in the history of mankind, usually lose their talent as they mature, and creativity does not create them and has not yet created a single work of any value in the history of art. Typical features of children's creativity are best revealed not through child prodigies, but through ordinary normal children. This, of course, does not mean that giftedness or talent does not manifest itself at an early age. From the biographies of great people we learn that the inclinations of this genius often manifested themselves in some at an early age.

“As examples of precocity we can cite three-year-old Mozart, five-year-old Mendelssohn, four-year-old Haydn; Handel became a composer at the age of 12, Weber at 12, Schubert at 11, Cherubini at 13. In the plastic arts, the vocation and ability to create manifest themselves noticeably later - on average, about fourteen years; in Giotto they were discovered at ten years old, Van Dyck at ten, Raphael at eight, Greuze at eight, Michelangelo at thirteen, Dürer at fifteen, Bernini at twelve, Rubens and Jordanes also developed early. In poetry there is no work that has some non-personal meaning before the age of sixteen.”

But these traces of future genius are still very far away! Before genuine great creativity, they are only, like lightning, long foretelling a thunderstorm, they are indications of the future flourishing of this activity.

Abstract for chapter 1. Creativity and imagination.

L.S. Vygotsky defines creative activity as “human activity that creates something new, no matter whether this creation created by creative activity is some thing in the external world or a known structure of the mind or feeling, living and revealed only in the person himself” [p. 3].

Vygotsky says that all human activity can be divided into two types, which have their own characteristics: reproducing, or reproductive, and combining, or creative.

Reproducing activity is the preservation of a person’s previous experience, ensuring his adaptation to familiar, stable environmental conditions. This activity is based on the plasticity of the human brain, which refers to the ability of a substance to change and retain traces of this change.

The result of creative or combining behavior is not the reproduction of impressions or actions that were in a person’s experience, but the creation of new images or actions. The brain not only preserves and reproduces a person’s previous experience, but it also combines, creatively processes and creates new positions and new behavior from the elements of this previous experience. Creative activity makes a person “a being turned to the future, creating it and modifying his present.”

It is this creative activity, based on the combining ability of the brain, that is called imagination or fantasy in psychology. Imagination is the basis of all creative activity and manifests itself in all aspects of cultural life and makes artistic, scientific and technical creativity possible. Therefore, the everyday definition of imagination as everything that does not correspond to reality and cannot have any practical serious significance is not correct.

Creativity is not the preserve of only a select few people, geniuses who have created great works of art, made great scientific discoveries, or invented some improvement in technology. Creativity exists wherever a person imagines, combines, changes and creates something new, no matter how small that new thing may seem. A huge part of everything created by humanity belongs to the combination of many grains of individual creativity.

Of course, the highest expressions of creativity remain the prerogative of geniuses, but creativity is a necessary condition for human existence in the everyday life around us, for the existence of everything that goes beyond routine.

Creative processes are revealed already in early childhood - in children’s games, which always represent a creative processing of experienced impressions, their combination and the construction of a new reality from them that meets the needs and desires of the child himself. It is the ability to create a structure from elements, to combine the old into new combinations that is the basis of creativity.

The roots of creative combination can also be found in animal games, which are often a product of motor imagination, but these are only the beginnings of creative imagination, which received their high development only in humans.

Abstract for chapter 2. Imagination and reality.

L.S. Vygotsky notes that creative activity does not arise immediately, but slowly and gradually, developing from simpler forms to more complex ones, and in each period of childhood it has its own form and then becomes directly dependent on other forms of our activity.

The essence of the first form is that any creation of the imagination is always built from elements taken from reality and contained in a person’s previous experience.

Scientific analysis of the most fantastic constructions (fairy tales, myths, legends, dreams, etc.) convinces that the most fantastic creations represent a new combination of elements that were drawn from reality and subjected to distorting or processing activity of the imagination. Examples of this are the hut on chicken legs, the mermaid, the learned cat who tells fairy tales.

The imagination is capable of creating new and new combinations, first combining the primary elements of reality (cat, chain, oak), then secondarily combining fantasy images (mermaid, goblin), etc. The last elements from which the most distant from reality fantastic idea is created will always be impressions of reality.

Based on the latter, Vygotsky formulates the law: the creative activity of the imagination is directly dependent on the richness and diversity of a person’s previous experience, because this experience represents the material from which fantasy structures are created. This means that the richer a person’s experience, the more material his imagination has. That is why a child’s imagination is poorer than an adult’s, despite its apparent external wealth.

From this, Vygotsky concludes: in order to create a solid foundation for a child’s creative activity, it is necessary to expand his experience.

Consequently, combining activity is only a further complication of preserving activity. Fantasy relies on memory, arranging its data in new combinations.

The essence of the second form is the connection between the finished product of fantasy and some complex phenomenon of reality.

Explaining this situation, Vygotsky gives an example where, from the stories of historians or travelers, one can imagine a picture of the Great French Revolution or the African desert. Here, the creative activity of the imagination does not reproduce what was perceived in previous experience, but creates new combinations from this experience, modifying and processing elements of reality, relying on existing ideas.

Thanks to this, imagination becomes a means of expanding a person’s experience, because he can imagine something that he has not seen, can go far beyond the limits of his own experience, assimilating with the help of imagination someone else’s historical or social experience. Here experience relies on imagination.

The essence of the third form lies in the emotional connection between the activity of imagination and reality.

This connection, on the one hand, is manifested in the fact that every emotion strives to be embodied in images that correspond to this specific feeling, “selecting” impressions, thoughts and images that are in tune with the momentary mood that possesses us. Every feeling has not only an external expression, but also an internal one, which is reflected in the selection of thoughts, images and impressions, which is the law of double expression of feelings. Fantasy images serve as an internal expression of our feelings and provide an internal language for our feelings.

Feeling selects individual elements of reality and combines them into a connection that is determined from within by our mood, by the logic of the images themselves. Taking this feature into account, psychologists have identified the law of a common emotional sign, when impressions or images that have a common emotional sign, i.e. that produce a similar emotional effect tend to group together without any obvious connection by similarity or contiguity.

But, on the other hand, there is feedback - when imagination influences feelings. This is called the law of emotional reality of the imagination. Any fantasy construction affects feelings: the construction itself may not exist in reality or may not correspond to it (as in illusions), but the feeling it evokes is actually experienced by a person and captures him.

Those emotions that are evoked by artistic fantastic images from books or theatrical productions are completely real and are experienced truly deeply and seriously. The psychological basis for this is the expansion, deepening and creative restructuring of feelings.

The fourth form is that fantasy, embodied in things, begins to really exist.

The construction of a fantasy can be something completely new, has not been in human experience and does not correspond to a really existing object, but, having been embodied in things, it begins to really exist and influence other things (various technical devices, machines or tools).

Such products of imagination go through a certain circle of their development: first, elements taken from reality undergo complex processing and turn into products of imagination, after which they are embodied and thus return to reality, but as a new active force that changes this reality.

Such a circle can also be described by imagination. And here, for the act of creativity, both intellectual and emotional factors are involved, because Human creativity is driven by both thought and feeling, where thought gives flesh and consistency to the feeling.

Vygotsky also notes that works of art can have an impact on the social consciousness of people due to the fact that they have their own internal logic. Fantasy images are not combined randomly, as in dreams or daydreams, but follow their internal logic, which is determined by the connection established by the work between its own and the outside world.

In works of art, distant and outwardly unrelated features are often combined, but not alien to each other, but connected by internal logic.

Abstract for chapter 3. The mechanism of creative imagination.

The creative process includes three main stages: accumulation of material, processing of accumulated material (dissociation and association of impressions) and a combination of individual images, bringing them into a system, building a complex picture.

The accumulation of material includes external and internal perception, which is the basis of creativity. This is what the child sees and hears.

Processing of accumulated material includes dissociation of perceived impressions and association.

In the process of dissociation, the impression, as a complex whole, is divided into parts, individual parts are highlighted preferentially in comparison with others and are preserved, others are forgotten.

The ability to highlight individual features of a complex whole is important for all creative work of a person on impressions. Dissociation is followed by a process of change, a process of exaggeration and understatement of individual elements of impressions, characteristic of the imagination of both children and adults.

Exaggeration, caused by the child’s interest in the outstanding and unusual, causing a feeling of pride associated with the imaginary possession of something special, allows the child to practice operating with quantities that were not in his experience. And this manipulation of quantities - smaller or larger - allowed humanity to create astronomy, geology, physics, and chemistry.

Association is a combination of dissociated and changed elements, occurring on a different basis and taking various forms from the purely subjective to the objectively scientific.

The course of the listed processes (stages) of creative imagination depends on several basic psychological factors.

The first factor is the human need to adapt to the environment. Vygotsky writes: “The basis of creativity is always maladjustment, from which needs, aspirations and desires arise” [pp. 23-24].

It is the needs or aspirations that set in motion the process of imagination and provide the material for its work.

Among other obvious factors, Vygotsky includes experience, needs and interests in which these needs are expressed, combinatorial ability and exercise in this activity, the embodiment of products of imagination in material form, technical skill, traditions, etc.

Another, less obvious, but important factor is the environmental factor. Outwardly, it seems that the imagination is guided only by the feelings and needs of a person, does not depend on external conditions and is determined by subjective reasons. But the psychological law says that the desire for creativity is always inversely proportional to the simplicity of the environment. An invention or scientific discovery appears only when the necessary material and psychological conditions are created. Creativity is a historically successive process, where each subsequent form is determined by its predecessors. That is why there are more different inventors in the privileged classes.

Abstract for Chapter 4. Imagination in a child and adolescent.

The activity of the creative imagination depends on a number of different factors, which take different forms at different age periods: the experience, environment and interests of the child differ from those of the adult.

There is an opinion that a child has a richer imagination than an adult, and that as the child develops, the power of fantasy and imagination declines. This was based on the following ideas: children's fantasy is undemanding and unpretentious, unlike the fantasy of an adult; the child lives more in a fantasy world, he is characterized by a love of fairy tales, exaggeration and distortion of real experience.

However, it is known that a child’s experience is poorer, his interests are simpler, more elementary, his relationships with the environment do not have the same complexity, subtlety and diversity as those of an adult. Consequently, a child’s imagination is poorer than that of an adult. It develops during the development of a child and only reaches its maturity in an adult.

The imagination begins to mature as it approaches maturity: in adolescence, a powerful rise in imagination and the beginning of the maturation of fantasy are combined. Vygotsky says that there is a close connection between puberty and the development of imagination. The teenager sums up his accumulated experience, permanent interests mature, and the activity of his imagination receives final form against the background of general maturation.

The basic law of imagination development is formulated by Vygotsky as follows: imagination passes through two periods in its development, separated by a critical phase.

In childhood, the development of imagination and the development of reason are very different, and it is the independence of the child’s imagination from the activity of reason that is an expression of the poverty of the child’s imagination. A child can imagine much less than an adult; he trusts the products of his imagination and controls them less; he has a poorer character of combinations of elements of reality, their quality and variety. A child has only two forms of connection between imagination and reality: the reality of the elements and the reality of the emotional basis of the imagination. Other forms develop only over the years.

The turning point in the development of imagination is adolescence, after which imagination and reason are closely connected. The activity of the imagination adapts to rational conditions and becomes mixed. However, for many, the creative imagination declines under the influence of the “prose of life,” but it does not disappear completely, but becomes an accident.

The critical period in the development of imagination coincides with adolescence. Here imagination is transformed from subjective to objective. The reason for this from a physiological point of view is the formation of an adult organism and an adult brain, and from a psychological point of view - the antagonism between “the subjectivity of the imagination and the objectivity of rational processes”, i.e. "instability and stability of mind." Like the critical age itself, imagination during this period is characterized by a turning point, destruction and the search for a new balance. Manifestations of childhood imagination activity are curtailed under the influence of a critical attitude towards the products of this activity: most teenagers stop drawing, they lose interest in naive games of an earlier age, fantastic fairy tales and stories. But literary creativity becomes a form of imagination activity - the writing of poems and stories, which is stimulated by a strong rise in subjective experiences, deepening of intimate life, the formation of one’s inner world, and over time also declines under the influence of the same critical attitude. Thus, the critical phase is characterized by the rise and profound transformation of the imagination.

In the critical phase, two types of imagination are distinguished:

1. plastic, or external, which uses data from external impressions, builds from elements borrowed from outside, and
2. emotional, or internal, building from elements taken from within. The first can be considered objective, and the second – subjective.

Vygotsky points to the dual role of imagination in human behavior, expressed in the fact that it can both lead and lead a person away from reality; it can be a source of great theories, or it can push one away from reality, inclining one to accept one’s fantasies as proven truths.

To the question about the dependence of the activity of imagination on talent, Vygotsky answers that from a psychological point of view, creativity as the creation of something new is a normal and constant companion of child development and is inherent in everyone to a greater or lesser extent. Moreover, there is a rule according to which child prodigies lose their talent as they mature. Of course, giftedness and talent manifest themselves at an early age, but these are only the makings of future genius, which are still very far from truly great creativity.

Abstract for chapter 5. “The pangs of creativity.”

It is difficult to create because the need for creativity does not always coincide with its capabilities, which gives rise to a painful feeling of suffering. Creativity is often associated with the experience of the simultaneous desire to express one’s feeling in words, to infect another person with it, and the feeling of being unable to do this.

It is the desire of the imagination for embodiment, as its most important feature, that is the basis and driving principle of creativity.

The imagination strives to become creative: effective, active and transforming what the activity of this imagination is aimed at; his constructions strive to be realized.

Vygotsky shares daydreaming and creative imagination: “In its normal and complete form, the will ends in action, but for indecisive and weak-willed people, the vacillations never end, or the decision remains unfulfilled, unable to be realized and confirmed in practice. Creative imagination in its full form strives to externally confirm itself with a deed that exists not only for the creator himself, but also for all others. On the contrary, among pure dreamers the imagination remains in their inner sphere in a poorly processed state and is not embodied in artistic or practical invention. Daydreaming is the equivalent of weak will, and dreamers are unable to exercise creative imagination” [p.35]. Here daydreaming is compared with lack of will, and creative imagination with will.

An ideal, as a construct of creative imagination, is a vital force only when it guides a person’s actions and actions and strives for embodiment. Thus, the formation of imagination has a general significance that affects all human behavior.

The annotation for chapters 1-5 was completed by Irina Vladimirovna Surova

Abstract for chapter 6 Literary creativity at school age.

L.S. Vygotsky, starting to consider literary creativity, compares it with drawing. Drawing is a typical creativity of young children and, especially preschool children. It is gradual and for most children, interest in it wanes by the beginning of school age. Its place begins to be taken by new, verbal or literary creativity, which dominates, especially during puberty in a teenager.

The development of written speech lags behind the development of children's oral speech. The reason for this mainly lies in the varying degrees of difficulty of each means of expression for the child. When a child is faced with a more difficult task (using written language), he copes with it at a lower level, exhibiting speech characteristics characteristic of a younger age.

Difficulties in written speech, first of all, arise due to the fact that it has its own laws that differ from the laws of oral speech, which are not sufficiently accessible to the child.

Younger schoolchildren, when transitioning to written speech, lack an internal need for writing, i.e. The child often does not understand why he needs to write. Therefore, the development of children's literary creativity immediately becomes much easier and more successful when the child writes on a topic that is internally understandable to him and encourages him to express his own inner world in words.

L.S. Vygotsky quotes Blonsky and Tolstoy, who describe how, from their point of view, written literary creativity in children should be developed. Blonsky advises choosing the most suitable types of literary works for children, namely: notes, letters, short stories. Summarizing the recommendations of Blonsky, L.S. Vygotsky emphasizes that the task is to create in the child a need for writing and help him master the means of writing. L.N. Tolstoy, describing his experience of working with peasant children, says: in order to cultivate literary creativity in children, you need to give them only incentives and material for creativity. L.N. Tolstoy suggests using four techniques:

• offer the widest selection of topics that are serious and of interest to the teacher;
• for samples of children's literary creativity, give only children's essays;
• while examining children's essays, do not make comments to children about the neatness of the notebook, spelling and, most importantly, about the construction of sentences and logic;
• the gradual complication of topics should not lie in volume, not in content, not in language, but in the mechanism of the matter - the process of composing.

L.S. Vygotsky criticizes L.N. Tolstoy for his idealization of childhood.

According to L.N. For Tolstoy, a newly born child is ideal, and all upbringing and training does not develop it, but spoils it.

L.S. Vygotsky, on the contrary, considers the view of the perfection of the child’s nature, and, consequently, the denial of the meaning and possibility of education, to be incorrect. Vygotsky is convinced that education in general, and the cultivation of literary creativity in children in particular, is not only possible, but also completely inevitable. He emphasizes that Tolstoy himself was engaged in education, directing the creative process of children. And he sums it up: proper upbringing consists in awakening what is in a child, helping him develop and directing this development in a certain direction.

L.S. Vygotsky analyzes the creativity of street children. Verbal creativity in these children mostly takes the form of songs sung by children and reflecting all aspects of their lives; it is distinguished by the genuine seriousness of literary speech, the brightness and originality of children's language, real emotionality and specific imagery.

L.S. Vygotsky examines the connection between the development of literary creativity and adolescence. At this age, the new factor of puberty, the sexual instinct, becomes very important. Because of this, the previously found balance is disrupted. A characteristic feature of this age is increased emotionality, increased excitability of the child’s feelings. And during this period, it is the word that makes it possible to convey complex relationships, especially of an internal nature, as well as movements, dynamics, and complexity of events with much greater ease (than drawing).

Speaking about the research of Giese, Vakhterov and Schneerson, L.S. Vygotsky turns to the concept of agrammatic speech of a child. During this period, the child’s speech lacks indications of connections and relationships between objects and phenomena. Stern identifies the era of the appearance of subordinate clauses indicating this connection in the fourth, highest, phase of the development of child speech.

Vakhterov analyzed children’s speech from this side and came to the conclusion that along with the child’s development, the frequency of using oblique cases also increases. The same thing is found in terms of the use of parts of speech. All this indicates that by the age of twelve and a half, the child moves to the stage of understanding relationships that are conveyed by the grammatical form of oblique cases.

The results of studies of children's oral and written speech are presented (Schlag, Gut, Linne, Solovyov, Busemann, Revesh, etc.).

Mentioning the rapid development of oral speech (compared to the development of written language), Vygotsky agrees with the conclusions of some authors who identify three main eras in the development of children's creativity:

• 3-7 years: oral verbal creativity;
• from 7 years to adolescence: development of written speech;
• the end of adolescence and the period of adolescence: the literary period.

The superiority of oral speech over written language persists even after the end of the first period, and the transition to written speech immediately complicates and discolors children's speech. Australian researcher Linke notes that a 7-year-old child writes as a 2-year-old could speak.

Busemann, highlighting the coefficient of activity in children’s literary creativity, came to the conclusion that oral speech is more active, while written speech is of higher quality. This is also confirmed by the fact that written speech is slower.

Children's collective literary creativity is characterized by the following features:

• combining fantasy
• emotional approach
• the desire to bring emotional and figurative construction into external verbal form
• children's creativity is fed by impressions coming from reality

L.S. Vygotsky compares the relationship of children's creativity to adult creativity, on the one hand, with the relationship of children's play to adult life, on the other.

Based on this analogy, L.S. Vygotsky suggests developing and stimulating children’s literary creativity like a game, namely: offering children certain tasks and topics that involve the emergence of a number of specific impressions in children.

The best stimulus for children's creativity is an organization of children's lives and environment that creates the needs and opportunities for children's creativity.

The primary form of children's creativity is syncretic creativity - it has not yet separated individual types of art. This syncretism points to the common root from which all other types of children's art were divided - children's play. The connection between children's artistic creativity and play is, according to Vygotsky, as follows:

• the child creates his work in one step, rarely works on it for a long time;
• the inseparability of children's literary creativity, like games, with the child's personal experiences

The meaning of children's literary creativity is that it promotes the development of creative imagination and enriches the emotional life of the child. And although this creativity cannot raise a future writer in a child, it helps the child master human speech.

Abstract for chapter 7. Theatrical creativity at school age.

The closest thing to children's literary creativity is children's theatrical creativity or dramatization. This type of children's creativity is closest to the child for two reasons:

• the drama is based on an action performed by the child himself and, therefore, it is directly related to the personal experiences of children;
• Drama has its roots in play and is therefore the most syncretic type of children's creativity: literary composition, improvisation, verbal creativity, visual and technical creativity of children, and, finally, the game itself.

From Petrova’s point of view, children’s dramatic creativity is spontaneous and does not depend on adults. It makes it possible through imitation to understand unconscious mental movements (heroism, courage, self-sacrifice). In addition, this form of creativity gives children the opportunity to bring their fantasies to the external plane (which adults do not do).

Petrova says that in the process of children's theatrical creativity, the intellectual, emotional and volitional spheres of the child are excited, without undue stress at the same time on his psyche.

L.S. Vygotsky, pointing out that children's theatrical creativity should not be reduced to reproducing adult theater, speaks of the importance of the very process of children's creativity in any of its forms - it is necessary for children to create, create, exercise creative imagination and its implementation. This point of view stands in contrast to the idea of ​​many teachers that this form of creativity contributes to the early development of children's vanity, unnaturalness, etc.

Children's theater cannot be an exact copy of an adult theater, transferred to children's conditions. The child must understand what he is doing, what he is saying and why all this is needed. The highest reward for a child is not the approval of adults, but the pleasure of the process itself, done for oneself.

In this type of creativity, like dramatization, the effective form of image through one’s own body most closely corresponds to the motor nature of children’s imagination and is therefore often used as a teaching method.

Abstract for chapter 8. Drawing in children's creativity.

Drawing is the predominant form of creativity for a child at an early age. According to various sources, between the ages of 10 and 15 years, there is a period of decline in interest in drawing, after which interest increases again, but only among gifted children. Thus, according to Lukens, the drawings of an adult are not much different from the drawings of a child 8-9 years old.

Kershensteiner, based on data from his systematic experiments, divided the entire process of development of children's drawing into 4 stages, without taking into account the scribbling stage.

1. First stage. Scheme. The drawings of this period are characterized by:

• sketchiness: Man is depicted as a cephalopod;
• drawing from memory, not from life;
• depiction in the drawing of details that are important, in the child’s opinion, but not always necessary;
• X-ray imaging method;
• inconsistency and implausibility of the details of the drawing.

Selly says that children at this stage of drawing development are more symbolists than naturalists. In their drawings, children highlight only the most important (in their opinion) features and limit themselves to their depiction. Psychologists agree that at this stage the drawing is a graphic story about the depicted object.

2. Second stage. An emerging sense of form and line. The child gradually begins not only to list the specific features of an object, but also to convey the formal relationships of the parts. Drawings at this stage are characterized by:

• a mixture of formal and schematic images;
• more details;
• more believable details;
• no gaps.
• However, this stage cannot be strictly distinguished from the previous one.

3. Third stage. A believable image. Here the diagram disappears, and the drawing takes on the appearance of a silhouette, or contours. The drawings still lack plasticity and perspective, but the image is already real. Children rarely go beyond this stage without additional training. This happens from the age of 11, when a certain percentage of children with certain abilities begin to stand out.

4. Fourth stage. Plastic image. Individual parts of an object are depicted convexly using light and shadow, perspective appears, and movement is conveyed.

It would seem that drawing from observation should be easier than from memory. But it turned out, after analyzing all 4 stages of the drawing, that this is not so. Children's drawing researcher Professor Bakushinsky explains it as follows. At the first stage, the motor-tactile form and the same method of orientation come to the fore in perception. During this period, the action is more important than the result, and this action has a strong emotional overtones. The role of vision in mastering the worlds is increasingly increasing and subjugates the motor-tactile apparatus. In the new period, the child is again interested in the process, but now it is the process of contemplating the world around him.

The fourth stage develops in children, according to Kershensteiner, who are either gifted, teachable, or living in a favorable environment. And this is no longer a spontaneous, spontaneously arising activity of children. This is creativity associated with certain skills and abilities.

Data from Levinstein's research are presented.

Vygotsky emphasizes that the development of children's artistic, as well as any other creativity, should be free, not forced and optional.

In adolescence, a child is not satisfied with a drawing made somehow; he needs certain skills. This problem is twofold - on the one hand, it is necessary to cultivate creative imagination, and on the other, the very process of translating what is conceived on paper requires a special culture. Every art requires a certain technique of execution, and the more complex this technique is, the more interesting it is for children. Thus, a love of work develops in children and adolescents.

Children's creativity manifests itself wherever it is possible to direct children's interest and attention to a new area in which a person's creative imagination can manifest itself.

In conclusion, L.S. Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of focusing pedagogical work on the development and exercise of the child’s imagination, which is one of the main forces in the process of preparing him for the future.

The annotation for chapters 6 - 8 was completed by student E.A. Georgievskaya.

Chapter I. Creativity and Imagination 3

Chapter II. Imagination and reality 8

Chapter III. The mechanism of creative imagination 20

Chapter IV. Imagination in a child and teenager 26

Chapter V. “The Pangs of Creativity” 33

Chapter VI. Literary creativity at school age 36

Chapter VII. Theater creativity at school age 61

Chapter VIII. Drawing in childhood 66

Appendix 79

Afterword 87

Conclusion

AFTERWORD

Peru of the outstanding Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) owns both serious scientific works (for example, “Thinking and Speech”) and several popular science works (for example, “Educational Psychology”).

Brochure “Imagination and creativity in childhood. Psychological essay" - "the bottom of them. Its first edition dates back to 1930, the second - 1967. Why was there a need for a third edition? This is due to the following circumstances. First of all, with the fact that this brochure sets out ideas about imagination and creativity that are not yet outdated in science. These ideas, illustrated with clear examples, are presented clearly and simply, which allows the general reader to easily understand their rather complex content. At the same time, in recent years, the interest of the reading public, and above all teachers and parents, in the peculiarities of children's imagination and creativity has sharply increased. And finally, in our popular scientific psychological literature there are few books that, combining the depth of content with the vividness of presentation, can satisfy such interest. I hope that the brochure L.S. Vygotsky will be able to do this.

It should be said that in its text the author used numerous factual material available from other psychologists, however, the originality of the interpretation of the psychological nature of imagination and creativity given in the brochure is internally connected with the original theory of the child’s mental development created by L.S. Vygotsky in the late 20s. It was thanks to this theory that the name of its author then became famous throughout the world. Its main ideas became the foundation of the scientific school of L.S. Vygotsky, to which many major Soviet and foreign scientists belong. One of the main such ideas is associated with the affirmation of the creative nature of human activity in general and the child in particular. Several chapters of the brochure are devoted to a thorough analysis of the features and mechanism of imagination as an important mental ability of a person, and its connection with creativity. First of all, L.S. Vygotsky substantiates the following points in detail, which are very important for psychology and pedagogy.

The first position consistently reveals the importance of imagination for a person’s creative activity, which manifests itself in all aspects of his cultural life. “In this sense,” writes L.S. Vygotsky, “everything that surrounds us and what is made by the hand of man, the whole world of culture, in contrast to the world of nature, - all this is a product of human imagination and creativity based on this imagination” (p. 5 of this edition).

The second position is aimed at showing the presence of creativity in the everyday life of all people: creativity is a necessary condition for their existence. “And everything that goes beyond the limits of routine and that contains even an iota of newness owes its origin to the creative process of man” (p; 7). If we understand creativity, then it can be detected in a person already in very early childhood, although, of course, the highest expressions of creativity are inherent only in a certain part of people.

The third position is related to the characteristics of the connections between imagination (or fantasy) and reality. L.S. Vygotsky convincingly shows that any image, no matter how fantastic, contains certain features of reality, is based on a person’s experience, and reflects his emotional mood. Moreover, a significant part of the images of the imagination finds its objective embodiment in machines, tools and in works of spiritual culture of people.

In the fourth position, the psychological mechanism of creative imagination is described in detail. This mechanism includes the selection of individual elements of an object, their change (for example, exaggeration, understatement), the combination of changed elements into new holistic images, the systematization of these images and their “crystallization” in the subject embodiment. The well-known “pangs of creativity” are precisely related to the desire of imaginary images to be realized. “This is the true basis and driving principle of creativity,” writes L.S. Vygotsky (p. 34).

All these provisions still retain their scientific significance. At the same time, it should be noted that thanks to logical and psychological research conducted in recent decades, the understanding of the general nature of imagination has been clarified. To those features that were described by L.S. Vygotsky added such a new essential feature as a person’s grasping in the image of imagination of the integrity of a certain object before identifying its parts. Thanks to this feature of the imagination, a person can create, for example, plans for his mental and objective actions, carry out various types of experimentation, etc. Based on the ideas outlined above, L.S. Vygotsky traces in his brochure the development of imagination in childhood, its manifestations in the literary, theatrical and visual creativity of schoolchildren. It is emphasized that at each age level, imagination and creativity have their own specific features, closely related to the volume and nature of the child’s everyday and emotional experience.

Thus, in preschool age, the level and characteristics of a child’s imagination are primarily determined by his play activities. “A child’s game,” writes L.S. Vygotsky, “is not a simple memory of what has been experienced, but a creative processing of experienced impressions, combining them and building from them a new reality that meets the needs and desires of the child himself” (p. 7). Modern research shows (see the works of D.B. Elkonin, N.Ya. Mikhailenko; S.L. Nososelova and others) that the play of preschool children, especially if it is carried out with the skillful guidance of adults, contributes to the development of their creative imagination , allowing them to come up with and then implement plans and plans for collective and individual action.

Creativity and the need to create arise in preschoolers thanks to their play activities. Since, in our opinion, the essence of a person’s personality is connected with his need and ability to create, then personality begins to develop in preschool age.

L.S. Vygotsky makes very subtle psychological differences between the characteristics of creative imagination in children and adolescents, showing the deep originality of imagination in the latter. This dispels the widespread belief that a child has a richer imagination than an adult. In fact (since the level of imagination depends on the depth and breadth of a person’s experience) this mental ability is more developed in an adult than in a child.

L.S. Vygotsky strongly objects to the idea that creativity is the lot of a select few: “If we understand creativity in its true psychological sense, as the creation of something new, it is easy to come to the conclusion that creativity is the lot of everyone to a greater or lesser extent; it is also a normal and constant companion of a child’s life.” development" (p. 32). From this conclusion, formulated by our wonderful psychologist, stems a sublime and optimistic pedagogical idea associated with nurturing the creative abilities of children. And the following remark by L.S. is very characteristic. Vygotsky: “The typical features of children’s creativity are best elucidated not on child prodigies, but on ordinary normal children” (p. 32).

A significant part of the brochure under consideration is devoted to the problems of artistic creativity of schoolchildren. Considering the peculiar features of their literary creativity, L.S. Vygotsky specifically notes that the child must “grow up” to it, acquire the necessary personal internal experience, therefore only in adolescents can serious manifestations of literary creativity be observed. L.S.’s judgment is interesting. Vygotsky about the great importance that it has for the development of the imagination of adolescents and their emotional sphere (see p. 61).

Agreeing with L.S. Vygotsky that inclusion in literary creativity requires important psychological prerequisites, it can be noted that, in accordance with new research materials (see the works of Z.N. Novlyanskaya, G.N. Kudina, etc.), a significant part of these prerequisites can appear in children even at primary school age, and not in adolescence, however, with the use of special means of introducing these children to the field of literature.

Of great interest are the statements of L.S. Vygotsky about the advisability of proper pedagogical support for the theatrical creativity of schoolchildren, about its internal connection with acts of motor dramatization, with the objective embodiment of images of the imagination (see pp. 62, 64, etc.). Analyzing the issue of “attenuation” of visual creativity in adolescence, L.S. Vygotsky rightfully connects the possibility of its preservation in adolescents with their mastery of the culture of pictorial representation (see p. 78). His thoughts on the need for strong support in school for everything that contributes to the development of technical creativity in children, making a serious contribution to the development of their imagination, are original (see pp. 77-78).

Psychological essay on children's imagination and creativity, written by L.S. Vygotsky more than 60 years ago, retains its cognitive potential, which is advisable for our teachers and parents to master. A careful reading of this essay will support their desire to organize such an upbringing of children, which will primarily be aimed at developing their creative imagination - the psychological core of the personality. “Creating a creative personality,” wrote L.S. Vygotsky, - directed towards the future, is prepared by creative imagination, embodied in the present” (p. 79). One cannot but agree with these words.

Full member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR V.V. Davydov

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L. S. VYGOTSKY

IMAGINATION AND CREATIVITY OF A TEENAGER

The most significant feature of fantasy in adolescence is its division into subjective and objective imagination. Strictly speaking, it is only during adolescence that fantasy is formed for the first time. We agree with the statement of Wundt, who believed that a child does not have a combining fantasy at all. This is true in the sense that only the teenager begins to identify and recognize the indicated form as a special function. The child does not yet have a strictly defined function of imagination. The teenager is aware of his subjective fantasy as a subjective and objective fantasy that cooperates with thinking, he is also aware of its true limits.

As we have already said, the separation of subjective and objective aspects, the formation of poles of personality and worldview characterizes the transitional age. The same disintegration of subjective and objective moments characterizes the fantasy of a teenager.

Fantasy seems to split into two channels. On the one hand, it becomes at the service of the emotional life, needs, moods, feelings overwhelming the teenager. It is a subjective activity that gives personal satisfaction, reminiscent of children's play. As the psychologist we have already quoted correctly says, it is not the happy who fantasizes, but only the dissatisfied. An unsatisfied desire is a motivating stimulus for fantasy. Our fantasy is the fulfillment of a desire, a correction to an unsatisfactory reality.

That is why almost all authors agree on this feature of a teenager’s fantasy: for the first time it turns to the intimate sphere of experiences, which is usually hidden from other people, which becomes an exclusively subjective form of thinking, thinking exclusively for oneself. A child does not hide his play, a teenager hides his fantasies and hides them from others. Our author says correctly that a teenager hides them as a deepest secret and would rather admit his misdeeds than reveal his fantasies. It is the secrecy of fantasy that indicates that it is closely connected with the internal desires, motivations, drives and emotions of the individual and begins to serve this entire side of the teenager’s life. In this regard, the connection between fantasy and emotion is extremely significant.

We know that certain emotions always evoke in us a certain course of ideas. Our feeling strives to be cast into known images, in which it finds its expression and its discharge. And it is clear that certain images are

a powerful means of evoking, exciting a particular feeling and discharging it. This is the close connection that exists between the lyrics and the feeling of the person who perceives it. This is the subjective value of fantasy. It has long been noted that, as Goethe put it, feeling does not deceive, judgment does. When we construct any unreal images with the help of fantasy, the latter are not real, but the feeling they evoke is experienced as real. When a poet says: “I will shed tears over a fiction,” he recognizes the fiction as something unreal, but the tears he shed belong to reality. Thus, in fantasy the teenager lives out his rich inner emotional life, his impulses.

In fantasy, he also finds a living means of directing emotional life, mastering it. Just as an adult, when perceiving a work of art, say a lyric poem, overcomes his own feelings, so too, with the help of fantasy, a teenager enlightens, makes clear to himself, and embodies his emotions and desires in creative images. Unlived life finds expression in creative images.

We can thus say that the creative images created by the imagination of a teenager perform for him the same function that a work of art performs in relation to an adult. This is art for yourself. These are poems and novels composed for oneself in the mind, dramas and tragedies acted out, elegies and sonnets composed. In this sense, Spranger very correctly contrasts the fantasy of a teenager with the fantasy of a child. The author says that although a teenager is still half a child, his fantasy is of a completely different kind than that of a child. She is gradually approaching the conscious illusion of adults. Spranger figuratively says about the difference between a child’s fantasy and a teenager’s imagination that a child’s fantasy is a dialogue with things, while a teenager’s fantasy is a monologue with things. The teenager recognizes his fantasy as a subjective activity. The child does not yet distinguish his imagination from the things with which he plays.

Along with this channel of fantasy, which serves primarily the emotional sphere of the teenager, his fantasy also develops along another channel of purely objective creativity. We have already said: where in the process of understanding or in the process of practical activity it is necessary to create some new concrete structure, a new image of reality, the creative embodiment of some idea, then fantasy comes to the fore as the main function. With the help of fantasy, not only works of art are created, but also all scientific inventions, all technical designs. Fantasy is one of the

manifestations of human creative activity, and it is in adolescence, coming closer to thinking in concepts, that it receives widespread development in this objective aspect.

It would be wrong to think that both channels in the development of fantasy in adolescence sharply diverge from each other. On the contrary, both concrete and abstract aspects, as well as subjective and objective functions of fantasy, often occur in adolescence in a complex interweaving with each other. Objective expression is colored in bright emotional tones, but subjective fantasies are often observed in the field of objective creativity. As an example of the convergence of both channels in the development of imagination, we could point out that it is in fantasies that a teenager first gropes for his life plan. His aspirations and vague impulses are cast in the form of certain images. In fantasy, he anticipates his future, and therefore creatively approaches its construction and implementation.

Vygotsky L. S. Pedology of a teenager // Collection.
cit.: In 6 vols. - M., 1984. - T. 4. - P. 217-219.