Interaction between the big adventure form and the composition of a neo-romantic literature

Abstract

The subject of the study is the composition of a neo-romantic story, the object is the stories by Alexander Grin «The Headless Horseman (18th Century Manuscript)», «The Taboo», «Hundred miles along the river». The author examines such aspects as the neo-romantic compositional features of the small genre, which probably emerged as a result of appealing to adventure novels, and attempts to correlate the concepts of «neo-romantic literature» and «adventure literature». Grin’s short stories, describing one event, are typically divided into chapters. This contradicts the genre logic, since it slows down the pace of the narrative. Allusions to the adventure attributes cement the composition and imagery system of the neo-romantic story and adventure novel. The affinity of poetics makes it possible to project the theory of adventure composition onto the neo-romantic work. It allows systematizing the neo-romantic composition features. The analysis draw the following conclusions. Division short stories into chapters seems to be an allusion to the adventure novel, for which is a way of structuring a large number of events. Allusiveness and play with points of view reflect the principle of dialogicity. The reader’s perception of allusions to adventure works performs a genre-forming function for an adventure novel, placing it in the context of adventure literature. In a neo-romantic story, allusions open up the dialog and play with readers’ expectations and non-neo-romantic poetics. The principle of play is innate in adventure as a phenomenon: events are lived through by the protagonist for their own sake. Although the techniques are common, the goals of a neo-romantic story and an adventure novel differ. A neo-romantic story deals with the personality behind its usual reality, not extreme situations as such, and a single event is sufficient to achieve this goal.