The essence of the genetic approach to the study of foreign literature

The article analyzes the genetic approach in the study of foreign literature aimed at analyzing the evolution of a literary work in the process of its creation. Works of art are used in lessons for documentary illustration of certain realities. This is especially noticeable when interdisciplinary connections are established between literature and the history of the creation of a work. Teachers do not consider that the writer's philosophical views are largely involved in the creation of literary sources. Therefore the facts of reality are primarily used to express the worldview of the artist. The author can create pictures that, in terms of their content, are far from the truth, or even contradict it. The main thing for him is to outline an individual image, a panorama, a picture of the world, to embody in them his subjective vision of what is depicted. Teachers do not take into account the fact that any writer belongs to a certain generation, was born, and works in a specific historical era. Consequently, he falls under the «captivity» of views, trends, and approaches to understanding that dominated in his time. The artist himself is an intellectual product of his time. He broadcasts worldview principles obtained from the social environment in which he had to live and work. The worldview level of the society of a particular era is rarely taken into account by them. This becomes especially striking when works on historical subjects are studied. Teachers «test» their content to the realities of long-gone times, forgetting that the author's time had a much greater impact on the artistic material, entering it in the form of dominant standards of thinking. As observations have shown, the awareness of practicing teachers in the field of the evolution of literary work is minimal. They are weakly oriented to the trends of world philosophical thought, they almost do not associate the development of the art of speech with them. This makes it impossible for high school students to form a clear understanding of the connections between literature and the intellectual space created by the efforts of civilized peoples. It includes not only artistic thinking but also other types of human mental activity, in particular scientific.