The article updates the problem of forms and methods of teaching literature in secondary and higher education. In particular, the experience of Methodist scientists and lexicographers of past generations is analyzed for the purpose of creative rethinking and improvement. The research states that in the 19th -at the beginning of the 20th century, the main forms that ensured continuity in the teaching of literature and literary education were a literary conversation, a lecture, and an essay. At

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... e same time, attention is focused on the considerable blurring of the contemporary terminology regarding the interpretation of didactic tools, in particular, such interchangeable categories as «form» and «method» of education. Literary conversation, as a transitional educational form based on both school methods and academic methods of higher education, was characterized by a whole series of features, among which modern researchers single out the following: a large layer of independent educational activity of students, the possibility of using works of art for conversation , which go beyond the school curriculum; application during the conversation of academic techniques characteristic of higher education (reports, abstracts, opposition, discussion). Methodists differently formulated the meaning of the lecture in teaching literature in secondary school. Considering the lecture as a method of higher education, the teachers emphasized the originality of the lecture in the literature classes, pointing out the psychological, didactic and methodical features of the use of the lecture method in the school historical-literary course. The essay, being the final form of knowledge control of gymnasium graduates and, at the same time, an entrance exam to higher school, was one of the main forms of education that ensured continuity in the teaching of literature. At the same time, the teaching of written speech in literature classes was not limited to the content of the «literacy» discipline itself, as evidenced by the broad humanitarian theme of the works. The work contributed to the strengthening of skills in writing texts related to Журнал «Перспективи та інновації науки» (Серія «Педагогіка», Серія «Психологія», Серія «Медицина») № 9(14) 2022 288 a wide range of humanitarian knowledge, which is necessary in both philological and non-philological higher education, as well as in the circle of social and public tasks of a gymnasium graduate and in the course of his literary self-education.