Problematics

Problematics is the totality of the problems raised in a literary work — the range of questions of a social, moral, philosophical, psychological, and national character that the author poses, comprehends, and to which he seeks to give an answer. Problematics concretizes the theme, giving it sharpness and topicality; it expresses the most important contradictions of the depicted reality that require resolution. One distinguishes social, moral-ethical, philosophical, national-historical, and psychological problematics. A rich, significant work usually raises not one but a complex of interconnected problems. For example, Panas Myrny's novel Do the Oxen Low When Mangers Are Full? raises a complex social-psychological problematics: the causes of the 'wasted force', the deformation of the personality under the pressure of an unjust order; the work of Lesia Ukrainka develops the philosophical and moral-ethical problematics of choice, fidelity, and freedom. The depth and topicality of the problematics, the ability to raise important, 'painful' questions of being, is one of the criteria of the social and artistic significance of literature.