Genre Attribution Research Articles

Short Story The Root of All Evil by Graham Greene: Genre and Poetics

The article considers the problem of genre attribution of the short story The Root of All Evil by Graham Greene, which is defined as novella by the French criticism and as a story by the Russian criticism, and correlation of its poetics with the genre model. The importance and topicality of solving this problem lies in the fact that this is the first study of the genre specificity and poetics of one of Greene’s short stories written in the comic mode, which opens the prospect of a comprehensive study of the whole body of his short prose (not studied yet). The research is based on the theory of the genre (M. Bakhtin, N. Leiderman, R. Welleck and O. Warren, etc.), according to which the genre is a form of artistic cognition of the world, has genre memory (the semantic core of the genre) and sets the parameters of the artistic world-modeling and reading of the text, and also uses the genological, textual, structural-analytical and narratological principles of analysis, which allowed to make the following conclusions. First, the presence in the work of such characteristic features of the novel genre as an unusual case or incident underlying the plot; one dominant storyline and the dynamism of unfolding of events with their accumulation; an unexpected turn of the plot (novelistic pointe) and a comic beginning inherent in a significant number of short stories. Secondly, the semantic content of the work corresponds to the artistic model of the novelistic genre, which is characterized by a mockery of the undue, defective, false (in this case religious dogmatism) and the assertion of a healthy and full-fledged element of being. The method used in the work and the results obtained are promising both for further study of Graham Greene’s small prose and for similar fields of research.

Проблема жанровой классификации фэнтези как вида приключенческой литературы

The paper addresses the issue of genre attribution of today’s Russian fantasy literature. The author attempts to build a taxonomy of fantasy genres upon their subject or themes, and upon artistic functions as suggested by M.S. Kagan, with a focus on the flaws of these approaches. Instead, the author suggests to use genetic-typological method based on tracing the evolution of adventure fiction as a whole. Since fantasy comes as the newest stage in the evolution of adventure literature, such an approach is the most relevant. Making use of the works by A.Z. Vulis and D.D. Blagoy on the history and genre taxonomy of adventure novel, the author concludes that a large-scale adventure meta-genre must be recognized. Its theoretical conceptualization only begins in the 18th–19th centuries, with the coming of a new literary movement — that of realism. The first kind of novel which is considered to be true ‘adventure novel’ in the modern sense is the Robinsonade. Thus, the taxonomy of the meta-genre can be divided into two parts: historical (describing its evolution before Defoe) and typological (covering the fiction from the 19th to 21st centuries). While the first part is structured with the use of genetic approach, the approach for the second part is mainly thematic. Modern fantasy literature combines both key types of adventure, geographical and historical, conflating a ‘travel’ novel of the Robinsonade with a historical adventure novel. Fantasy literature thus ‘retracts’ the outgrown genre subtypes. This trend is exemplified by the following movements in contemporary Russian literature: ‘sword and sorcery’ fantasy (“The Keeper of Swords” by N. Perumov; “Wolfhound” by M. Semyonova); historical and pseudo-historical fantasy (“Heavens Rejoice” by A. Valentinov; “Gleams of Aeterna” by V. Kamsha); and ‘rogue’ fantasy (“Chronicles of Siala” by A. Pekhov) which is derived from picaresque novel and piracy novel. Romance gives birth to romantic fantasy (“Anachron” by V. Benkovskiy and E. Khaetskaya); the field of crime literature can be linked to the forming of detective fantasy (“Under the Sign of Manticore” and “The Mockingbird” by A. Pekhov). Gothic novel gives rise to all sorts of ‘dark’ fantasy (“Senor’s Wanderings” by A. Dashkov; “The Nightwatcher” by O. Divov) and science fiction to ‘science’ fantasy and steampunk (“The Clandestine City” by V. Panov). Finally, social adventure novel, with the introduction of mythopoeia, becomes what in modern publishing practice is known as urban fantasy (the “Watches” hexalogy by S. Lukyanenko). A typological approach reveals that true fantasy subgenres have little originality of their own: each proves to be nothing more than a recent stage in the evolution of some branch of the whole adventure fiction meta-genre. Most rapid development happens where mythopoeia as a speculative device is organic and integral. On the contrary, romance and crime story traditions are originally endowed with another set of intentions, which does not allow the fantasy elements to dominate without ruining the structure of suspense natural of this or that genre.

Hommage mit doppeltem Boden

AbstractThe article focuses on the memoir written by Lea Goldberg on the poet Avraham Ben Yitzhak (Pegisha im Meshorer, 1952). It presents the results of a phenomenological reading of the memoir. The author maintains that by paying attention to the intention of the text as well as to its cultural, intellectual and emotional dichotomies, one reveals the resolution at the end of the memoir of an inner conflict implicit throughout the entire text. This reading results in a re-definition of the appropriate genre attribution for this work (which we may call polemical memoir) and yields a new key to understanding the artistic and intellectual conflicts that characterize a wide range of poetic phenomena in Goldberg’s poetry.

영화 〈블루프린트〉 속에 투영된 인간복제 모티프의 특성

현실세계에서의 인간복제에 관련된 생명과학의 급속한 발전은 앞서거니 뒤서거니 영화 속에 투영되며, 멀지 않은 미래에 대한 다양한 인간 군상의 시나리오와 그에 파생되는 화두를 우리에게 던지고 있다. 특히 체세포복제술이 보편화된 이후로 인간복제는 영화 속에서도 보다 새롭고 구체적인 모습으로 그려지고 있는 데, 이 글에서는 그 중에서도 인간복제의 다양한 철학적 문제들에 대한 성찰이 투영된 영화 <블루프린트>를 중심으로 영화 속의 인간복제 모티프의 특성에 대해 고찰해보았다. 이 글은 체세포복제술 개념의 출현과 발전이 철학적 인간학의 문제로 귀결되고, 특히 복제인간의 자기동일성과 비자연성의 문제가 영화 <블루프린트>에서 캐릭터의 욕망과 딜레마로 투영되는 것을 살펴보았다. 또한 원본인간과 복제인간이자, 실제 낳고 기른 친모와 딸이라는 이중적인 관계의 설정과 장르적 특성을 배제한 드라마타이즈는 이 작품이 위와 같은 문제의식에 천착하고 있음을 반증하고 있다고 보았다. 그리고 이에 적절히 부응하는 서사적 평행성을 갖는 플롯 설계와 더불어 다양한 영화적 표현과 기법 들을 통해 일관된 접근 태도와 주제 의식으로 인간복제 모티프의 특성을 효과적으로 강화하고 있음을 고찰하였다. Rapid development of life sciences about human cloning in real world is reflected alternately ahead and behind in the movies and it brings up the conversation topics about the scenario of diverse human life in the near future. This study is the consideration of the characteristic of the human cloning motif in movies, focused on the feature film <Blueprint> which consider human cloning a philosophical point of view. The emergence and evolution of somatic cell cloning conclude the problem of philosophical anthropology. And identity and un-naturality of human clone boils down to desire and dilemma of character in <Blueprint>. The dramatize to the exclusion of genre's attribution and the setting of twofold relationship between original and clone as well as real mother and daughter prove the critical mind of <Blueprint> as stated above. This study also reported it reinforces the characteristic of the human cloning motif in movies that plotting with parallel narrative and the consistent attitudes with various cinematic expression and techniques.

Introduction to the special issue

PurposeTo introduce the special issue on “Genres of digital documents.” While there are many definitions of genre, most include consideration of the intended communicative purpose, form and sometimes expected content of a document. Most also include the notion of social acceptance, that a document is of a particular genre to the extent that it is recognized as such within a given discourse community.Design/methodology/approachThe article reviews the notion of document genre and its applicability to studies of digital documents and introduces the four articles in the special issue.FindingsGenre can be studied based on intrinsic genre attributes or on the extrinsic function that genre fulfills in human activities. Studies on intrinsic attributes include classifications of genres as clusters of attributes, though these classifications can be problematic because documents can be used in flexible ways. Also, new information technologies have enabled the appearance of novel genres. Studies on extrinsic function include ways to use genre for education or information accesses, as well as the use of genre as a lens for understanding communications in organizations. The four articles in the special issue illustrate these approaches.Originality/valueThe paper provides a framework that organizes the range of research about genres of digital documents that should be helpful to those reading this research or planning their own studies.