CC BY
15MYTHOPOETICAL ASPECT OF TED CHIANG'S 'TOWER OF BABYLON' SHORT STORY
Abstract
The up-to-date significance of the article is proved by the scientists' permanent interest in main principles of postmodern prose, including postmodern text relationships with quoted sources. The objective of the paper is to define the mythopoetics as a key component of postmodernism and reveal the ways of its functioning in a text. Thus, the major methods used in the article are comparative, historical and typological. The authors focus on the interpretation of the biblical tradition of the Tower of Babylon in the eponymous short story by Ted Chiang. The comparative analysis of the both, original and poetic texts is necessary to identify the author's neo-myth growing up in the "Tower of Babylon" of Chiang on the foundation of the famous plot. The results of the research can be used in the further study of Ted Chiang's works, and postmodern Literature in general.
Keywords
postmodernism, the Bible, Ted Chiang, foreign literature, Tower of Babylon, mythopoetics
AUTHORS
Evgenia V. Livskaya
Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor, Literature Chair, Kaluga State University named after K.E.Tsiolkovsky, Kaluga, Russia 26, Stepan Razin Street, Kaluga, 248023, Russia E-mail: liv-evgeniya@yandex.ru
Maria A. Konkova
Undergraduate Student, Literature Chair, Kaluga State University named after K.E.Tsiolkovsky, Kaluga, Russia 26, Stepan Razin Street, Kaluga, 248023, Russia E-mail: j.constance@yandex.ru
1. Introduction
The Literature of the 20th century tends to axiological and aesthetical comprehension of the underlying causes of the cataclysms that have been accomplished, thus causing the appearance of poetic works with clearly expressed principles of artistic generalization, characterized by the use of mythopoetic elements. According to Schelling, the future of art refers to the return to the mythological way of thinking, and the syncretic unity of poetry, science, fantasy and logic (Schelling, 1999). The desire of writers to comprehend the eternal problems of being, to penetrate the complex, contradictory relations of a man and the world determine the postmodern 'to depict conflicts of universal or sacral content by using myth and transforming it, introducing a figurative type of fantasy (dreams, hallucinations, madness) up to create fictional, 'wonderful' world' (Livskaya, Konkova, 2017).
The current research is based on mythopoetics which is the important issue of postmodern prose. The study of a mythopoetic aspect of a literary work, mythopoetic allusions and motifs is one of the topical directions in the Literature of recent years (Losev, 2001). The concept of 'mythopoetics' is considered as, firstly, 'the functioning in the artistic
text of mythological images, motifs, allusions and reminiscences, secondly, the neo-mythology created by the authors - and new author myths' (Soldatkina, 2009). The Postmodern Literature identifies reality as irrational and chaotic, devoiding of cause-and-effect determinism. Often, writers turn to biblical texts and plots in order to transform the original tradition and embed it in the postmodernistic context of the Modern Literature.
2. Materials and Methods
The biblical story about the Tower of Babylon, outlined in the eleventh chapter of the Genesis, has received various implementations, reflections and interpretations over many centuries: from the iconography and 'Tower of Babylon by Peter Bruegel the Elder to the novel Generation P by V. Pelevin and modern science fiction (Chuprak, 2004). The paper refers precisely to the latter.
The American science fiction writer Ted Chiang enters the Literature with his debut short story 'The Tower of Babylon' in 1990. The same year Chiang was nominated for the Locus and Hugo Awards, won the Nebula Prize in the short story nomination (among other nominees and laureates were also writers such as Ursula Le Guin, Terry Bisson other) as well (Anders, 2002; Rothman, 2017).
Ted Chiang turns to the biblical myth of grandiose construction and turns it into a new structure within the framework of science fiction (in the 'Tower of Babylon' short story one can select its separate subgenres: sociological and alternative historical fiction). In parallel, the original motives of construction change from the process itself up to the people involved in it (Ivanova, Chernieva, 2017). In the short story Ted Chiang gives a non-canonical version of construction, radically changing the key element of the original myth. The biblical tradition says, 'and the Lord scattered them from there throughout the earth; and they stopped building the city,'- thus, the construction of the Tower of Babylon is limited to the decree of the Lord.
In the Chiang's story, the erection of the path to the 'heavenly vault' is separated from the divine intervention and is determined only by the universal goal of the mankind, 'And they said to each other: let's make bricks and burn them with fire. And they have bricks instead of stones, and earthen resin instead of lime ... "says the legend (The Genesis). Babylon is standing, and the Tower of Babylon is standing in it and people build it without the Lord's intervention - this is the beginning of Ted Chiang's rethinking process of the biblical legend. The transformation of the myth is implemented in a deliberately meticulously written detail. The scenes of constructing in Ted Chiang's story can be considered more specific in comparison with the original source. The Genesis says, 'they found a plain in the land of Sennar' (The Genesis), then the poetic time and space system is more complicated in the 'Tower of Babylon' story. A relative characteristic of the length of Sennaar appears in the story, 'A tower would lie across the Sennaar valley, it would take two days to go from one end to the other ... (Chiang, 2010). Secondly, the brief ''And the Lord scattered them from there throughout the whole land; and they stopped building the city. Therefore, the name given to him: Babylon ... ' is contrasted with a more complete geographical picture of Chiang's story. The protagonist of the story, Hillalla, was from Elam and was attracted 'to the construction of the tower; moreover, Babylon already exists at the time of construction' (Chiang, 2010). He [Hillalla] knew only that Elama copper was bought there. Copper ingots were loaded on ships, and they kept their way along Karun to the Lower Sea and from there they were already climbing up the Euphrates. (...) It [the tower] seemed to them for many leagues: thin as a thread of linen tow, the line swayed in a hot haze, heaving from a crust of dirt, like Babylon himself appeared ... ' (Chiang, 2010). The story in the 'Tower of Babylon' literally 'builds up' as the object itself is erected / ascended, 'A continuous caravan of bricks rises to the top, every day thousands
of pieces reach the top. Losing a brick does not mean anything to bricklayers. - Then he leaned closer. 'But there is one thing that they truly value more than human life ... A trowel'. - But why trowel? 'If the bricklayer drops his trowel, he will sit idle until a new one is delivered'. For four months he will not be able to work on food, so he will have to borrow' (Chiang, 2010).
The story of the Tower of Babylon is a specularly reflected original biblical story: Babylon becomes a refuge for masters from different ends of the earth, uniting for a similar purpose - 'to build a tower high to heaven' and dig through the firmament. For example, 'We are miners, called from the land of Elam' Or: 'That's right. I heard that miners from the western land will join us, but have not yet seen them. Do you know about them? - Yes, their homeland is the land that is called Egypt, but they don't dig ore like you. They mine stone'(Chiang, 2010).
In the biblical texts, legends about the Tower of Babylon and the Flood in terms of comparison are scattered (diverse) (the eleventh chapter of Genesis, containing the story of the tower, is preceded by the chapter on the flood which is the eighth) - there is no link between them although construction is indirectly related to the causes of widespread flooding. On the contrary, chronological narration in the 'Babylonian in Chiang's Tower of Babylon directly brings us to the flood as a logical outcome — the completion of construction, but openly declares that the Flood once happened: "Hilla calls for caution, and I am on his side," said Beli. "We have to make sure that we don't bring a second Flood on the world or at least dangerous rains on the Sennaarskaya valley." And then a stream of water poured from the tunnel. (...) Miners stumbled upon the vault (Chiang, 2010). 'The interchange, a description of the events after the flood and the death that was supposed by Hilla himself, are especially interesting: "Somehow, the vault of heaven was under the ground. Like earth and sky lay side by side, leaning on each other, although they were divided by many leagues. How is this possible? How can such remote places touch? (...) And then it dawned on him: a cylinder for seals. If you roll it over a soft clay plate, the carved cylinder left an imprint in the pattern. Two figures can appear at different ends of the plate, although they stand side by side on the surface of the cylinder (Chiang, 2010).
3. Conclusion
Ted Chiang brings the fantastic reality of the story closer, adapts it to the understanding of the modern reader-recipient: attention is paid to trifles. So, at the time of introduction to the story of Hillalla, the tower has already reached a great height, and the need for materials there, at its present height, has become aggravated. The text of the head of Genesis is not so firmly connected with the material world. About Babylon, the Bible says the following, 'Therefore, his name was given to him: Babylon, for the Lord confused the language of the whole earth, and from there the Lord scattered them throughout the earth ...' (The Genesis).
The narrative is built on the following key elements: the city found ('Moving from the east, they found a plain in the land of Sennaar and settled there ...') - construction ('we will build a city and a tower to the sky, and we will make a name for ourselves before we disperse over the face of the whole earth') - intervention ('And the Lord said: (...) let us go down and confuse their language there, so that one would not understand the speech of the other ...') - separation - and finally settlement ('earth and they stopped building the city ...') (Chiang, 2010).
Thus, in this work, only coincidental elements of the texts are considered; Ted Chiang, creating the "Tower of Babylon", introduced into it, as a foundation, many corrections that completely turned over and understanding of the tradition, and his perception by the
modern reader — the story is read as an independent work, in which, as in a prism, the biblical legend is refracted.
REFERENCES
Anders, L. (2002). A conversation with Ted Chiang. In SF Site. Interview. Retrieved October 4, 2012, from https://www.sfsite.com/09b/tc136.htm
Anikeev, I. V., Zhilyakov, S. V. (2013). On the question of the interpretation of culture (for example, the image of the 'Tower of Babylon'). Science Territory. № 4. P. 177-182.
Book of Genesis, Chapter 11. In Bible Online. Retrieved September 30, 2018, from https://www.bibleonline.ru/bible/rus/01 /11/4
Ivanova, L. V., Chernieva, Z. L. (2017). Mythologem of towers in modern visual art. Historical, philosophical, political and legal sciences, cultural studies and art history. Questions of theory and practice. № 12 (86): in 5 hours. Part 3. P. 67-70.
Chiang, T. (2010). Tower of Babylon. Moscow: AST. 384
Chuprak, K. A. (2004). Two paintings of Peter Breigel Senior, depicting the building of the Tower of Babylon. The Saint-Petersburg University Journal. Series 2. History. P. 120-123.
Losev, A. F. (2001). Dialectics of a myth. M. P. 261.
Livskaya, E. V., Konkova, M. A. (2017). Mythopoetics of Small Prose of the 1920s - 1930s: Metatext by S. Krzhizhanovsky and A. Grin. LIBRIMAGISTRI. V. 4. p. 11-16.
Rothman, J. (2017). Ted Chiang's soulful science fiction. The New Yorker. Retrieved January 7, 2017, from https://www.newyorker.com/culture/persons-of-interest/ted-chiangs-soulful-science-fiction
Schelling, F. (1999). Filosofiya iskusstva. M., 608 p.
Soldatkina, Y. V. (2009). Mythopoetics of the Russian epic prose of the 1930-1950s: the genesis and main artistic trends. Monograph. Moscow, 356 p.
FOREIGN LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE STRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION AS A NEW REALITY DURING HYPERMEDIA SPACE DEVELOPMENT
The paper focuses on the issues relating to information-induced foreign linguistic competence structure transformation. The fast growing social and economic system is established to fundamentally change the employment structure and labour market. The set of professional competences in education is noted to be proportional to the request for competence in the society. The limited number of professional competences is meant to be used in response to the development of such innovative areas, as digital economy, artificial intelligence, biotechnological social reality. The paper highlights the distinct advantage of social competence- generating reality over the field of educational life support. The "knowledge - competence" opposition, which is made by the scientific community discretely, is supposed to be erroneous. It is established that the KSC (knowledge, skills, competencies) foreign-language learning tradition naturally compliments a competency-
