Pytannia literaturoznavstva

17-28

Authors: Mychailo Kalinichenko

The article actualizes the necessity to specify methodological, historical and literary priorities, which may ensure the production of a biography of the creative work of Herman Melville, the author of the widely famous novel Moby-Dick. The urgency of the search for a principally new scholarly paradigm is conditioned by the crisis state of numerous North American biographies of the artist, which are primarily aimed at the exploration of documental materials. As the result of this scholarly devotion to obsolete positivistic, empirical models of thought, the existing variations of Melville's biography (including the authoritative two-volume biographical work of professor H. Parker) leave unanswered the issues of creative character: the connections of the writer with the social and cultural reality of the United States of the first half of the nineteenth century remain unreciprocated; the problem of Melville's artistic evolution also awaits proper solutions. The author of the article realizes a textual comprehension of the writer's creativity and personal life. Biographical circumstances of the process of his artistic maturation are reviewed in terms of their connections with the discursive practices of Melville's age.

41-51

Authors: Yulia Pavlenko

The article views the place of the fictional subject’s self-writing at workshops concerning autobiographical questions. The study reveals the repression of a particle “grafos” in the formula “auto-bio-graphy” and leads to the idea of the compensatory function of the self-writing practice analysis in that very situation. The change of the perspective on the research of self-writing appeals to the problematic of the method. The fictional subject’s self-writing represents a field of multiple crossings of different methodologies that examine ego-documents; therefore in this field the role of figures and metaphors is actualized. It is quite logical to describe the self-writing practice within the coordinates of the critical synthesis as the place of illustration and transmission of the values, as the dimension of self-reflectiveness, multi-generic reflectiveness, introspection, representation of author/reader relations, display of intertextuality (both declared by the author and unforeseen), play in autobiography, tension between fiction and reference. The fictional subject’s self-writing is not identical to the autobiographical writing of a real subject, though a lot of semantic fields and registers come across. The character writing the story of his life becomes that another who makes it possible to multiply the experience of the inner harmony research, to see the power of the writing work from one side approaching thus to its ontology. The key for understanding the figure of this another is deeply hidden in the interpretation of the fictional space metaphoric.

62-70

Authors: Sergey Tuzkov

The main motives of H. Lovecraft’s story “The Call of Сthulhu” are marked out in the article. They give the possibility to examine the writer’s creative activity in the context of the gothic tradition: doom of human civilization, overcoming the limits between modern and ancient worlds, between reality and dreams, perception of human life as mysticism and horror, aspiration to make the reader feel the reality of the fantastic plot. It is noted that these motives not only form the subject-composition structure of the story “The Call of Сthulhu” but at the same time unite H. Lovecraft’s works into the joint cycle. The advantage of this research is that H. Lovecraft’s prose is considered to be the link between E. Poe's novelistics and modern literature of “horror” genre. The thought that humanity is only one of the great variety of highly-advanced civilizations inhabited the Earth at different times becomes the main motive of H. Lovecraft’s works. The idea of projection of the consciousness of the ancient die off civilization representatives into the future is connected with this motive. In H. Lovecraft’s story the idea of the consciousness shift from one body into another is viewed in the context of the eternal subject of the fight of good and evil. In its turn the “dream in dream” motive creates the feeling of the current developments illusiveness with the characters of the story as well as with readers. In the result of the story “The Call of Сthulhu” analysis the conclusion that the atmosphere of fear, supernatural horror, mystery, appealing to infernal forces allows (in half-mystical or half-mythical way) to judge H. Lovecraft’s works as peculiar variations about the gothic themes is made. It is possible to claim with certainty that H. Lovecraft’s creative activity predetermined in many ways the development of the modern neo-gothic prose.

86-96

Authors: Yekaterina Shabal

The article is devoted to the analysis of the veiled form of implementation of author’s conciseness in the political novel “Notes of a Ukrainian Madman” by L. Kostenko. It is clarified that the author’s personal vision of occurrences of the beginning of the XXI century is given through the notes and actions of the main character. The personage put down political and social reports which he got to know from various mass media that is why artistic reality is depicted in form of notes. By giving the writer’s functions to the personage the author focuses her attention on contradictions between a complicated political situation in the country and a globalized reality in general, while statement of facts and faithful events in the piece of literature gave a possibility to express the essence of nationwide problems and interests. The novel gives details of factual and social basis. This paper provides the overview of a modern novel in terms of political genre variety. There is no term “a political novel” in Ukrainian Literary Studies encyclopedias and reference books nowadays. But literary scholars (V. Klymchuk, I. Motornjuk and others) prove that a political novel as a genre variety was finally formed in the XX century. “Notes of a Ukrainian Madman” by L. Kostenko is the author’s emotional response to the social realm, an attempt realize realia of today from the artistic point of view, it is a literary reflection of social and political life of the country.

107-115

Authors: Anna Kulik

In the twenty-first century biographical prose fiction has been at the top of its development. It is proved by the large number of biographical studies which have appeared in this area over the last decade. Writers have focused on innovation and experiment. Modern literary theorists consider documentalism to be a creative direction, genre and style that reflects modern trends. The popularity of biographical, essay and memoir genres confirms the need for a deep theoretical understanding of the problems of biographical literature and organizing of genre tumors. There is an urgent necessity in psychologization of scientific approaches to the study and interpretation of the problems of the artist and his work in the Ukrainian study of literature of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s. The literature confirms the psychology that becomes the dominant technique for the works of the genre biographical. This is evidenced by the diversity of psychological tools that are used by writers in order to modeling the nature of biographical character. Creating the image of an artist, the biographical writer focuses on psychology and psychoanalysis as a theory of the unconsciousness, as while examining historical life facts of a historical person, he transfers emotional state of the character, his thoughts, experiences, reveals the inner life of the character, builds its internal model of the world with the help of the artistic means.

126-136

Authors: Yuliia Levchuk

The article aims to explore the biographical facts as the factors of influence on the work of Lesia Ukrainka. In particular, children experience as a source of psychological complexes (relationship with mother) is regarded as one of the preconditions for the formation of dramatic thinking. Subsequently way to overcome these complexes has reached its logical conclusion by writing “The Obsessed”, thus forming a “perfect” cognitive genre model, the center of which is a drama. That is the way to forming the most organic form of genre has become central in the article. In particular, using theory of research verse, biographical and psychoanalytic methods, the author analyzed the cycles “The Journey to the Sea” (1888), “The Crimean Memories” (1890–1891) and “The Crimean Reviews” (1897–1898), and also “The Obsessed” (1901). The main attention in the research is concentrated in the analyses of work “The Winter Night in a the Foreign Country”, in which the author by the … person (Muse) mediation and the lyrical I is decide the existence problem. As a result the scientific work is ascertain, that lyrical person (what has named herself Lesia Ukrainka) can’t describe her feelings in this mode. In this way thinking a dramatist, what confirm a fact of the first place of dramatization as the mood predominance and as the special feature of thinking. Consequently, the period of Lesia Ukrainka’s creation to writing “The Obsessed” is the process subconscious searching and forming the dramatic genre, which in difference modes stay predominant during the next twelve years of literary work.

153-164

Authors: Kateryna Shakhova

The aim of the paper is to investigate the autobiographism as genre dominant of notes in “Teacher’s Notes” by Ulyana Kravchenko. The actuality of the article is an attempt to discover the genre aspect of “Teacher’s Notes” that is briefly discussed in the context of the other works of writer. So it needs more thorough analysis. The article deals with the autobiographical elements in the structure of the plot and their influence on the formation of the narrator image. The prototype of protagonist is a writer itself, the proto-plot is years of her life and work as a teacher in the town of Bibrka and village of Stoky. The author fills notes with her own emotions and feelings. That is why the static components dominate in notes, for example: descriptions, lyrical digressions, reflections etc. The self-characteristic in the text plays an important role as a result of certain events or actions, also reveals the narrator internal state. The writer sometimes resorts to philosophical reflections that accumulate her experience. The descriptions of the interior, appearance of the heroine, leitmotiv images of books and flowers are the indirectly ways of conveying the narrator image. Consequently the paper emphasizes on the genre uniqueness of “Teacher’s Notes”, for instance: narrative in the form of personal records; first-person narration, providing true psychological portrait of the heroine; autobiographical genre dominant, coupled with network of artistic means that help to show the narrator inner world; the genre marker “notes” in the name of the second part indicates the genre affiliation of the Ulyana Kravchenko’s work.

178-192

Authors: Oleksandr Volkovynskyi

The allegoric images in many of H. Skovoroda’s works gravitate towards symbolization, which prevents their unambiguous and literal interpretation. A significant role in the possible allegoresis of the fable “The Snake and the Frog” is played by the manifestation of symbols and mythologemes of the Ophites, which function at multiple structural levels: at the motif level – as elements and twists of the plot, at the eidological level – as literary allegoric images. That is why, in order to provide an in-depth interpretation, the search for hidden meanings of symbols and allegories should be added to a thorough explanation of H. Skovorada’s fable “The Snake and the Frog”. The fable “The Snake and the Frog” is an incarnation of the character –archetype dialectics. The Snake-character is a specific incarnation of the general permeating invariant capable of generating variable modifications. The Snake is an archetype possessing a fixed image-producing and symbolic nucleus, which becomes the basis for character modifications. The main (archetypal) function of the Snake is to teach, to lead to the hidden wisdom. The Snake allegorically embodies the ideas of circling, rotation and cyclic returns. The emphasized allegoric exclusivity of the character amplifies the motifs of mystic calling and purpose, of which only the chosen ones can become aware. The analogies and associative likenings indicate H. Skovoroda’s stance on the positive role of the Snake in man’s destiny. The name of the main Ophitic symbol (the Ouroborus) is manifested in the fable “The Snake and the Frog” through an anagram, when letters and sounds scattered in the text may form a word-theme. The anagram reading makes it possible to look beyond the external verbal decorations and discover the hidden meaning. Thus, the allegoresis of this work leads to arguing that H. Skovoroda largely adopted the symbolic emblems and the mysterial cult of the Ophites. The symbol of the World Serpent (the Ouroboros) is formed and functions in H. Skovoroda’s philosophy and aesthetics as ambivalent. The combination of the Gnostic Ophite and Christian traditions enabled H. Skovoroda to emphasize the idea of duality of the main imagistic and symbolic chain of the concepts “eternity”, “circular”, “cosmogonic”.

205-214

Authors: Tetiana Dynnichencko

The author puts task to interpret works by Gide “Strait is the gate” and “The Pastoral Symphony” as antinomian unity reflecting dialogical religious views of the writer. The author uses the following methods: biographical, comparative, socio-cultural and method of textual analysis. The writer was a hereditary Protestant and in his work a very large place occupied by revision of the traditional religious concepts of morality. A. Gide thought that basic to the doctrine of christianity – the humanity of Christ and he opposed it to the dogmas of the Church, embodied in the comments of the Apostle Paul (he treated them as to social stratification). Radical religious ideas A. Gide caused by such factors: energetic revolt against Puritan upbringing; categorical rejection of the dogmas of the Church and their socio-cultural priorities of the modernism. The original in the article is a comparative analysis of the works said in the aspects of the problematic, the construction of the plot, of characterization. The study reveals their antinomy in all three aspects: on the level of problems (diametric opposite of the main conflict resolution), the plot (the opposite direction of development), the construction of images of the main characters (images-antipodes). Thus, the author comes to the conclusion that the product of the Andre Gide’s “Strait is the gate” and “The Pastoral Symphony” is antinomian unity. Moreover, it is, as such, they reflect the inherent dialogic thinking of the writer, show some contradictions in his world and allow us to determine the evolution vector religious views of the author.

224-234

Authors: Oksana Schur

The article is dedicated to the phenomena of the artist’s narrative identity as a process. The purpose of the research is to analyze the points and ways of the writer’s representation and construction of his or her identity and autobiography. We use the Paul Riceur’s conception of identity and based on his terms of personal identity, and narrative identity, temporal dimension of the identity construction. The artist makes his identity story for all the life, it is changing and developing. For example, autobiographies, letters, memoirs and autobiographival fiction of Ukrainian writer Natalena Koroleva are very representative to illustrate these theoretical points. Koroleva’s biography is almost based on the information she said about her life, and there almost no documents to check this information. So, she accented on definite aspects of the identity: art, religion, ethnic, culture, gender. Koroleva defined herself as Ukrainian writer with Spanish roots who consciously became a part of Ukrainian culture but was a multicultural person. She also wrote about independent modern women as an example of free people. Consequently, for artist who writes an autobiography showing the life and ideological position and autorepresentation are more important than telling the documental things: dates, facts etc. Fiction forms are used for such identity and biographical constructions and stories, so, autobiography is near the fiction genre.

247-255

Authors: Viktoria Grivina

Article adopts Jacques Lacan’s concept of the “mirror stage” to study the mechanisms of the way the Author’s identity evolves in W. Burroughs’s Naked Lunch and Ch. Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Evolution of the Author is set against general process of personal growth. The study is primarily concerned with features of the Author’s evolution within transgressive fiction, as Chuck Palahniuk and William Burroughs are the key figures of this genre. Transgression presupposes addressing social taboos by explicating them, thus creating strong reactions within the readership. We argue and find evidence that Burroughs and Palahniuk in the process of facing their perfect images of the Author digress from what Lacan would consider normal development. When they are given a chance to produce a unified body of text, the writers chose unconscious strive for fragmentation instead. Fragmented images invade Naked Lunch and Fight Club. However the mirror stage in the case of Palahniuk and in the case of Burroughs differ. While Burroughs in the myth of the Interzone ends up rejecting the notion of unique Author as such, Palahniuk accepts the fact that he managed to form a new niche for transgressive fiction and stays true to this niche, continuing similar aesthetics in the works that follow.

266-277

Authors: Oksana Galchuk

The article analyses the main interpretation tendencies of the antique biographies in Ukrainian lyrics of 1920–1930s. The role of artistic connotations of someone else’s life in a force field of mature modernism has been studied, the typological characteristics of thede connotations have been discovered, those common for the symbolistic (Pavlo Tychyna) and neoclassic interpretation models of the antique text in partiqular (Eugen Malaniuk and “Kyiv” neoclassics). The dominant techniques and methods of integration of the antique biographies into the text have been revealed. They are citations, allusions, reminiscences, transformation of manes into images-symbols, adding to and transformation of traditional biography plots and so on. It was uncovered that historically real and literary-mythical antique characters of heroical andaesthetical types are the most often interpreted ones, with existential types to the lesser degree. The connection of principles of artistic interpretation of antique biographies with idea-aesthetical principles of creativity and worldview of a given author or tendency is emphasized. Thus, appealing to the life facts of antique figures, Eugen Malaniuk creates his own historiosophical concept. In poetry by neoclassics the biography fragments figures of the antique culture are replicated, thus the type “culturetrigger” prevails. The disappointed tragical “hero” prevail in symbolists’ works. Moreover, in Tychyna’s works “biography” of the myth figure transformation as well as rethinking of the antique concept of “heroic”. In general antique biographies play appeal, expressive, abstract and poetic functions that are inherent to intertext.

286-294

Authors: Oksana Levytska

Hardy’s personality as a writer and a man invariably accompanies John Fowles’ texts, he repeatedly clearly and sometimes with hints and allusions appeals to the creativity of this outstanding writer of the Victorian era, uses as an epigraph quotes from his texts, reveals little known facts of his biography, conducts the biographical analysis of his works, etc. John Fowles’ permanent appeal to Thomas Hardy’s personality the author himself explains by close proximity and affinity of writer's work. On the material of essays by John Fowles (“Hardy and the Hag”, “Thomas Hardy’s England”) and the novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman” is analyzed Fowles’ appeal to the biographical method of analysis of literary works. The writer’s opinions regarding methodologies of literature of the second half of the twentieth century with their formal search and the benefits of the appeal to biographism are found out. The features of biographical study of Thomas Hardy’s personality are analized in Fowles’ works, focus is made on the explaination of the characteristics of the English mentality, the use of the background in connection with the real historical time, the illustration of the writer’s complexes and so on. Special attention is paid to Hardy’s family mysteries as the illustrations of the dual nature of the Victorian epoch, and the key to the interpretation of the mental processes of creativity and the analysis of the novel “Beloved”. The identity of Thomas Hardy in Fowles’ works is the illustration of Englishness, an attempt to explain the peculiarities of the English mentality, creativity and attitude to their own publicity and vice versa – an expression of secrecy, isolation, and separation. The minutiae of Thomas Hardy’s biography, the details of his personal life John Fowles uses as a narration of customs and peculiarities of the Victorian era in his novel “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”. The usage of biohraphism is the way of connecting conditional and specific, real and fictional, Hardy's biography in Fowles’ novel is also the documentary text, the evidence of the era and the artistic reinterpretation of mysteries of writer’s personality.

309-318

Authors: Roman Tkachenko

This article is devoted to the artistic reception and modeling of V. Sukhomlynsky’s personality. Her image of the outstanding teacher is being analyzed in connection with the aesthetic ideas of socialist realism epoch. A researcher compares the I. Tsyupa’s story with B. Tartakovsky’s “Story about teacher Sukhomlynsky”. The war is a key moment of the Sukhomlynsky’s biography in the I. Tsyupa’s story, as well as in soviet history mythology on the whole. War is the concentrated expressing of those facts in the circle of which it was written into by artistic logic: cold, poverties, snow, ice, death, envy, spiritual vacuum, alienation. War is image of tests which it was fated to test to the hero. Faith in a man and progress defined the great vitality sense of creation of protagonist. In spite of aspirations of author to create a sanguineous and contradictory artistic world, a story has the signs of aesthetics of kitch. I. Tsyupa’s story “Creator of Kindness” is enough successful popularization of the Sukhomlynsky’s ideas and not always convincing artistic attempt to limit a personage by the scopes of epoch, ideology, standard conduct.