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THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ANCIENT GENRES IN SIGIZMUND KRZHYZHANOVSKY PROSE
Abstract
The up-to-date significance of the article is explained by scientists' permanent interest in genre definition and its development in Literature. The objective of the article is to define genres of Ancient Greek Literature and Philosophy and explore their existence in modern literature based on works of Sigismund Krzhyzhanovsky. The key methods used by the author of the article are historical and typological ones. The paper examines Krzhyzhanovsky's prose which transforms the ancient genre of Menippean Satire into a key element of his experimenting realistic prose. The results of the investigation can be further used in the study of the main poetic methods and approaches of the Russian and Foreign Literature of the 1920-30s.
Keywords
Sigismund Krzhyzhanovsky, genre, Literature, Menippean satire, intertextuality,
short story, Michael Bakhtin
AUTHOR
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
1. Introduction
In this article the author considers Sigizmund Krzhyzhanovsky prose as the inheritance of the Menippean satire genre. The peculiar feature of Krzhyzhanovsky prose is its allusions and reminiscences to numerous works of Literature, Religion, Philosophy. The writer's works are often referred to 'a post scriptum' to all existing literature and philosophy (Livskaya, 2012). In addition, they included references to contemporary inventions in biology and medicine, psychology and physics, archeology and other sciences. Their extraordinary intertextuality expands the semantic borders of
Krzhyzhanovsky's narration. His method of work can be called a method of "collage" from the various texts which are generated into a so-called meta-text, where the role of cultural quotations, attitude and interpretations of images and ideas of different stages of development of the world culture is very important.
2. Materials and Methods
In the Literature of the 1910s-20s, the center of gravity is transferred from a concrete historical artistic image to the comprehension of a person as a 'carrier of the soul', according to E. Etkind, 'Face to face with eternal time and infinity of the Life itself, with death, love as a metaphysical overcoming the impermanence of life, with God as the figurative and philosophical realization of the Absolute' (Etkind, 1997).
Michael Bakhtin was the first researcher who explored the characteristics of the Menippean satire as a genre in his work 'The Problems of Feodor Dostoesvky Poetics' (Bakhtin, 1979, 1994). Refering to his work, the authors of the article recall the features of the Menippean satire which are relevant to the understanding of the philosophy of Krzhyzhanovsky works. They are: 1) the combination of fantastic fiction with exceptional philosophical idioms; 2) the three-sided prose structure, as the action in Krzhyzhanovsky prose is transferred from the earth to the Olympus and into hell, which makes conversations with the dead possible; 3) the appearance of a specific type of experimenting fantastic fiction, which gives the opportunity to observe the life phenomena from an unusual point of view (Bakhtin, 1994).
The writer himself defined his own works as short stories, taking the 'passion for the experiment' (Perelmuter, 2004) as their fundamental structural feature. The classic test taken from a short story has occupied the central place in the composition system of Krzhyzhanovsky works.
The writer added innovative changes into the genre of a short story (Perelmuter, 1989). The short story, as is well known, is put into rigid framework of a small volume. Not having had the opportunity to enlarge it, Krzhyzhanovsky expands the short story from inside. Due to the writer's opinion, one needs to do everything to let a short story be told completely 'before the runs out of its three-page life' (Krzhyzhanovsky, 2001).
Bearing in mind the flexibility of the short story that ensures its ability to penetrate in other genres, as well as the formidable ability to display the exclusive events - tests, it is not surprising that the short story as a genre has turned out to be a perfect base for the Menippean satire rise (Burovtseva, 1998).
In Krzhyzhanovsky works a classic 'test' is implemented in a duel of a human being and philosophical concept of Nothing that like an ancient monster absorbs the earth from inside (Gasparov, 1990). The writer appeals to the plots and images of the Bible, thereby increasing the eschatological idea of his own works. In a number of short story ('The Phantom', 'The Crack Collector', 'Therefore', 'Itinerant 'strange'') Krzhyzhanovsky embodies the ambivalent dialog of a new human being with Nothingless. From the top of the Absolute, 'explored with emerald fires', Nothingless consistently penetrates into all spheres of life of a human being. They are Science, Poetry (or Art), Philosophy and Religion. Being the cornerstone of each of these 'temples', the human being loses his fight against the Nothing and often turns into ashes (Livskaya, 2012).
Due to Bakhtin's opinion, the Menippean satire and related to it genres have significantly influenced the formation of the early Orthodoxly Literature and its main genres (Bakhtin, 1979). Thus, in these genres classic Christian comparisons are formed, like a tempted (Christ, righteous) against tempting one, a prayer against an atheist, a righteous against a sinner, a need against a rich, etc.
in the Menippean satire firstly appears what can be described as a moral and psychological experimenting: demonstration of unusual, abnormal mental conditions, like madness of all kinds, double or wrong identity, strange dreams, uncontrolled passions, suicide (Bakhtin, 1979). The term 'discreat' in Krzhyzhanovsky prose leads to a human being destruction. A reader can find one of the images impersonates it in the so-called "conversation with yourself", which includes the signs of the ancient genre of colloquium (Bakhtin, 1994). Krzhyzhanovsky's short story called 'Jacobi and "as if" (1918) is a discussion of the famous philosopher with his antagonist, linguistic phenomenon 'as if' on the theme of Truth and Faith. The novel starts with a one-page summary representing the philosopher who works in his cabinet and there's a book 'The treatise on the divine things and their revelation' is in front of him. The search of the desired quote led him to page dedicated to Kant, and closer to the linguistic phenomenon of "as if" which in four letters unites ontology and names. 'Because in my name, - proudly declares the phenomenon, -all my genesis is' (Biryukova, 2006). The following dialog creates the frame of the novel's composition. From another point of view, the dialog is the author's interpretation of the ancient 'conversation with yourself'. The infernal word here is the linguistic embodiment of one of the internal "I am" of the philosopher (Livskaya, 2012). Krzhyzhanovsky uses the same composition means in the later novel "Therefore" (1922), where in front of the reader a battle between the Poet and 'therefore' word happens. In the context of the novel the word itself is the embodiment of non-existence, nothing (Perelmuter, 1989).
The short story called 'Just-just' (1922) is formally organized in the first person. The narrator defines himself as a judicial expert. The same 'I am' remains unchanged throughout the short story, or at least it seems so. But at the end of the story it becomes obvious that 'I am' definition hides not one, but even three different conscious nesses, three different points of view.
The first 'I am' of the narrator is the judicial expert himself. The peculiarity of his position influences some of his qualities: the desire to reach the limit, the final truth. He recognizes only the final result. Day by day the character uses the same routine from 'The truth' point to 'The False' point and back. The most frequent point of his destination is 'The false' stop.
The geometry of his mind determines the geometry of the space in which the first narrator is placed. The work of the expert is locked in his suitcase. His narrow body of his is buttoned down completely. The change of the narrator occurs after the expert's acquaintance with the fantastic creature, the King of Just-Just state. The change of the narrator (actual, not nominative: nominee, the name is still 'I am', or first person narration) entails a change of his consciousness. The second "I" is the same expert, but "slightly" changed, shifted from the usual meanings. The altered state of consciousness of the character, close to the poetic, 'updates' the visual picture of the world, '... Nothing seemed to change, and everything was transformed and new: the dead, silly-blue lotuses slightly wiggled brown outlines, dressing in a game of glare and looming shadows ... strokes of pictures ... touched by invisible brushes, showed new colors and lines, words ... a little bit, they barely moved along their meanings, a wide gap in other muffled worlds' (Krzhyzhanovsky, 2001). The poetically "shifted" from the previous meanings just a little bit, the second "I" is freed from the previous assignment: professional and personal, 'Amnesty to everyone', - I whispered joyfully and liberatedly, 'amnesty to all false, false, false, imaginary and false. Letters, words, thoughts, people, nations, planets and worlds' (Krzhyzhanovsky, 2001). The shift is completed on the physical level, when 'thousands of little instincts ... pulled the veins and capillaries, were busy in the confusion of nerve filaments, giving rise to a new, unexpected body in my body' (Krzhyzhanovsky, 2001). If the "I" of the expert was hidden in the closed space of his room, then the second "I" is poetic for the most part shown outside the room, in the city - open to the world
space. In the poetic world of Krzhyzhanovsky's prose there is a clear distinction between closed and open spaces.
A third narrator is born, in a sense synthesized from the two former 'I am' characters. The expert's 'I am was passed into the limit categories. Consciousness of the second, poetic 'I am', on the contrary, by breaking the constraining limit, the predestination of being, breaks through to 'other muffled worlds'. In essence, the final i am' of the character is stuck in the metaphysical gap between the limits of the first and the infinity of another consciousness, 'I used to try to go to work ... just not to think,' recalls the hero. - Now this is impossible. After what happened...' (Krzhyzhanovsky, 2001).
3. Conclusion
Thus, the analysis of individual works of Krzhyzhanovsky from the point of view of genre affiliation shows their substantial and essential proximity to the Menippean satire genre. The writer updates the genre features of the menippean satire in his works, bringing here philosophical problems that are not known to ancient models. He connects his short stories to the chain of genre tradition where it passed through its modernity (menippean satires of M. Bulgakov, A. Tolstoy, K. Vaginov), although the past links of this chain are familiar to him as well (menippean satires of A. Pushkin, F. Dostoevsky), including the ancient link (Apuleius, Lucian, Varron) and Early Christian (Gospels and Lives).
The article reveals the content of the genre notion of the Menippean satire in relation to the works of the Russian prose writer S. Krzhyzhanovsky. The main attention is focused on the philological analysis of a number of writer's short stories in order to reveal the features of the Menippean satire in them, to discover the author's innovation in the field of the genre of small prose. Not having the opportunity to unfold a short story because of its limited scope, the writer expands the semantic boundaries of the narration, saturating the narrative intertextually, turning it into a meta-text.
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