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• On the Functions of the Figure of Narrative Metalepsis in the Narratives of “Old Writing”

  Alexander Efimenko

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  74

  This article, based on the works of Russian writers of the “old school,” analyses the functions of the narrative figure of metalepsis. The article points out the differences between the types of metalepsis: rhetorical and ontological. It then provides an overview of the typology of metalepsis functions, which are divided into diegetic and exegetical. The former includes the functions of introducing the figure of analepsis and the figure of prolepsis into the narrative, as well as the function of transitioning from one diegetic line to another. A separate function of metalepsis is the exegetical function, which is common to both types of metalepsis.

• The Function of the „Author’s Mask” in “The Soul of a Patriot or Various Epistles to Ferfichkin” by Yevgeni Popov

  Annamária Vass

  Views:

  350

  Playing with the author’s figure is not a new device in Postmodernism. One may refer to “Either/Or” by Søren Kierkegaard or “The Tales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkin” by Alexander Pushkin, or “The Fiery Angel” by Valery Bryusov. At the same time the foreword of “The soul of a patriot or Various epistles to Ferfichkin” proves that in Postmodernism this game is taken to the next level. The author who abandoned their fictional space and renounced theirauthorial role during Modernism returns and re-takes their formal place. However, he does not do it seriously but hiding behind the mask of the author – says Malmgren, introducing the term of the author’s maskinto literary discourse. In this analysis I state that Popov, using the author’s mask, turns the traditional interpretationof the author’s role inside out.  I conclude that, on the one hand, the author’s mask ridicules the concept by which the author’s biography is the key to his work. On the other hand, it makes fun of Vinogradov’s view, according to which there is always an abstract author hiding in the text who carries its real meaning. I come to the conclusion, that Popov uses this narrative technique to emphasise that it is impossible to look at a literary work as an arsenal of ultimate truths and statements. 

• Leonid Andreyev’s Panpsychic Drama “Requiem”

  Katalin H. Végh

  Views:

  80

  This article examines the role of Leonid Andreyev’s work in the emergence of the New Drama in Russia and, through an analysis of the play Requiem, highlights the genre-specific and formal characteristics of panpsychic dramas. The author emphasises that Andreyev’s panpsychic drama is a groundbreaking experiment that demonstrates just how far the concept of the dramatic genre can be expanded. The text of the panpsychic drama shows that eventfulness, previously considered one of the main criteria of drama, is by no means fundamental in the New Drama. In this way, the frequency of external events decreases, while the significance of internal events increases, and the role of mental and psychological events becomes increasingly important. On the other hand, Andreyev’s dramatic text already contains within itself an impoverishment of the referential function of artistic language, and the pursuit of the autonomy of tropes becomes the organizing principle of the drama’s structure. These phenomena give Andreyev's drama panpsyche special significance on the way to the contemporary understanding of the New Drama.

   

   

• Ekphrasis - Chameleon of Literary studies “Theory and History of Ekphrasis: Results and Prospects of Study” Siedlce, 2018

  9 p.

  Nóra Troitsky

  Views:

  507

  This article aims to highlight the various methods in which ekphrasis can be analysed and new interpretations of the phenomenon in the monograph “The Theory and History of Ekphrasis: Results and Prospects of the Study” published for the 15th year anniversary of the previous work “Ekphrasis in Russian Literature” (2002). The articles touch upon the history of the study of ekphrasis, its typology, the dynamics of its functions as well as the poetics of description in the history of literature, theory and classification, including the theme of narratology, and works containing analysis from autobiographical points of view. The novelty of the monograph is that it also includes contemporary fiction which provides an excellent opportunity to redefine and reinterpret the phenomenon.

• Scientists in Lyudmila Ulitskaya’s Novels

  Tünde Szabó

  Views:

  308

  This study focuses on a characteristic type of hero in Ulitskaya’s works and analyses the image of the scientist heroes and their poetic functions in three of the author’s novels (The Kukotsky Enigma, The Big Green Tent and Jacob’s Ladder). These heroes represent a special kind of syncretic thinking. Firstly, in their conversations and debatesthe genre code of the Socratic dialogue is activated, as Mikhail Bakhtin described it in connection with the development of the polyphonic novel. Secondly, these heroes, who always appear in pairs, invoke the duo of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, as well as certain characteristics of “Quixotism”, which has a central role in the critique of the role that intellectuals have played in Russian culture. It is against the above background that the role of 20th-century intellectuals gains a new interpretation in Ulitskaya’s three novels.