The purpose of the article is to analyze and understand the theory of Alexander V. Mikhailov about “simple” and “difficult” texts in various types of art — in literature, music and their synthetic forms. To this end, the statements of the outstanding philologist are placed in a wide historical and artistic context (which they were directly aimed in Mikhailov’s text, but this context was only outlined there). Various reasons for the “complexity” (semantic closeness) of texts in ancient and modern art, various mechanisms of information transmission, as well as differences in the essence of the information itself are established. The specificity of the “simplicity” (openness of meanings) of most literary and musical texts of the 19th century is also substantiated.
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