The content of the textbook is determined by the specifics of the subject - fiction - as a special type of creative activity. The textbook provides an interpretation of the main literary categories and concepts, reveals issues of the moral and social significance of literature, its specificity and aesthetic properties, provides materials on the latest achievements of domestic and foreign scientists, and examines methods of systematic analysis of a literary work based on the dialectical relationship between the categories of form and content. For students , graduate students and teachers of humanities universities.