The Genealogical Perspective in the Creation of European Literary Discourse in the Transgeneric Era. Theatre and the Grotesque

Abstract

The article reflects on the discrepancy between the Western and Eastern European conception of the grotesque theatre and the issue of the grotesque as a dramatic genre. Indeed, it shows on the examples of Polish, French, Spanish and Italian theatre how the grotesque cannot be considered as a literary genre, but rather as a privileged mode of expression of the twentieth century. The study focuses on the difficulties of defining the grotesque and the genre and analyses what could be called a grotesque genre in the twentieth century. By examining transgeneric and transdisciplinary devices of the grotesque and the European literary discourse on the grotesque, the article underlines the function of the grotesque as a tool for the modern reflexion on transgenericity.