Literary Game Research Articles

«Рисунок пером»: игровой текст в аспекте его восприятия

In this article the countertext method is tested as an experimental psycholinguistic procedure in relation to the peculiarities of perception of a literary game text. A game text can be understood as a work in which a language game performs plot-forming and meaning- forming functions and requires the recipient to decode game codes which are unique to the author’s idiostyle. In this regard, the depth of understanding of the text depends on the level of its complexity, partially determined by the leading gaming technique, and the interpretation strategy that corresponds with the degree of formation of linguocultural and linguocreative competencies. The object of reader reception in this study is the novel by S.D. Krzhizhanovsky “Drawing by feather” (1934). The game technique used in it is grotesque, which highlights the author’s idea through intertextuality and linguistic allusive- symbolic markers. Game codes lead to implicatures that one need to decode, thus make perception of this text peculiar. The results obtained during the experiment with philology students demonstrate the variety of aspects of perception of the author’s intention and degrees of understanding of the text. Specific strategies relevant for the analysis of game text are identified: situationally compensating plot and orienting strategies, dialogue and intertextual strategies, the game “connection” strategy, and the strategy of metalinguistic commentary, which is relevant for philology major respondents. The study determines the prospect of refining the procedure of the experimental method of countertext.

Interview with Astrid Ensslin

Astrid Ensslin is Professor for the Dynamics of Virtual Communication Spaces at the University of Regensburg. She has been a Director of the Electronic Literature Organization since 2018. Amongst her key roles in the e-lit community have been Co-Director of the Electronic Literature Directory, convener of the ELO Fellows scheme and, since 2019, Principal Editor of the Bloomsbury Electronic Literature book series. She has published 12 books and over 70 peer-reviewed articles on aspects of digital fiction, literary hypertext, literary games and many other topics relevant to the Hypertext community.

Let Us Rejoice by Drinking and Talking Beautifully: Sympotic Poetics as a Function of Culture

The article explores the concept of sympotic poetics in European culture as a distinctive form of discourse. This tradition originated in the Greek civilisation during the archaic period as a technique for socialisation within aristocratic culture and subsequently developed in Roman culture during the imperial period. Sympotic poetics thrived in medieval and modern Europe, where new forms of literary games, rooted in the intellectual traditions of antiquity, emerged. The article examines the beginnings of scholarly literary discussion and reviews selected examples of sympotic discussion practices in European culture.

Mythological Burlesque, Parody, and Literary Games, from Epicharmus to Aristophanes

Mythological Burlesque, Parody, and Literary Games, from Epicharmus to Aristophanes

Mythological heroes, historical figures and characters of world literature in the works of Margaret Atwood

The subject of the research in this article is Margaret Atwood's literary game, which includes work with myths, world history and literature. Margaret Atwood (b. 1939) is a well-known modern Canadian writer, poet, literary critic and critic. Her works include the novel The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and its sequel, The Testaments (2019), as well as the fantasy trilogy The Mindless Addam (2003-2013). No matter what M. Atwood writes about, her works are always a story, a complex and multilevel narrative, in the center of which stands the figure of the narrator. Having begun her literary activity in the heyday of postmodernism, M. Atwood combines many features of this trend in her work: literary play, rethinking archetypal images and traditions, deconstruction. Taking as a basis the achievements of foreign and domestic researchers of M. Atwood's work, as well as research in the field of literary studies by M. Atwood herself, we describe how M. Atwood studies, analyzes and recreates well–known patterns on a new basis – in Canadian literature. The main conclusions of the study are: 1) Being a representative of young Canadian literature without a well-formed cultural and literary layer, M. Atwood borrows from the global literary tradition, as well as mythology and folklore, heroes and images that she seeks to "instill" on new Canadian soil. 2) M. Atwood's deconstruction is not the destruction, analysis of an established tradition, but, on the contrary, an attempt to create it through appropriation and assimilation of other people's traditions. 3) M. Atwood, as a rule, takes ancient Greek and European myths and fairy tales as a basis. 4) Working with the characters of wandering plots and textbook works (Shakespeare), M. Atwood often resorts to overturning the established idea of characters, creating doppelgangers and "werewolves".

Концептуальные стратегии пост(соц)реализма (роман А. Тургенева «Чтобы Бог тебя разорвал изнутри на куски!»)

The article is devoted to the analysis of the text of Andrei Turgenev’s fiction novel “So that God tears you to pieces from the inside!”, published as a separate book by the Moscow publishing house “Eksmo” in 2008. The research was undertaken in order to identify and comprehend the imitation strategies of the critic Vyacheslav Kuritsyn, who acted as a novelist under the pseudonym Andrey Turgenev. The authors of the work prove that the “precedent” pseudonym of the author, allusively associated with the name of the Russian classic Ivan Turgenev, gives rise to the idea of a literary game started by the critic-writer to create an imitation text, the so-called “secondary” text. However, the authors emphasize that the classical Turgenev traditions were ignored by the modern writer. On the one hand he tried to combine the visual techniques of Fellini cinema in the novel text, and on the other hand, to reproduce the techniques and practices of the Moscow conceptualists D. Prigov, L. Rubinstein, V. Sorokin, etc. The scientific novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time the various aspects of the Kuritsyn-Turgenev novel are analytically examined, the axiological angles of the author’s playing position are revealed, and the dialogical connections of the novel are explicated. As a result, it is proved that (along with stylistic blunders) the dignity of the Kuritsyn-Turgenev genre experiment consists of an appeal to fundamental issues of literature and creativity, a semantically significant wealth of intertextual references to modern Russian and world literature.

Zabawy literackie pracowników Biblioteki Polskiej Akademii Umiejętności: powinszowania imieninowe dla dyrektora Karola Piotrowicza z 1938 r.

Literary games of the employees of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences: 1938 name day greetings for Karol Piotrowicz The paper is a preliminary study for the biography of Karol Piotrowicz (1901–1940), a respected historian, Jagiellonian University professor, academic activist and a publisher. Since 1931 to 1939, he has also been the Director of the Scientific Library of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences; he successfully managed and modernised the Library. In Summer 1939, he was called into the Polish Army, and after the September Campaign was taken into Soviet slavery. In April 1940, in Kharkov, together with hundreds of other Polish prisoners, he was murdered by Russians. He bereaved wife and two daughters who stayed in Krakow. Among the Karol Piotrowicz’s family documents kept by his grand daughters Teresa Wolska and Elżbieta Wolska, there are still some personal documents of Piotrowicz which will by donated to our Library in the future. Now we present the edition of one of these papers. It is a humorous work by some librarians, Karol Piotrowicz’s employees, given to him for his name day on November 4, 1938. It consists of 10 pages and contains a bibliography of works allegedly written by the library employees which is light-heart and full of allusions, accurately pointing at their professional interests as well as private passions and even weaknesses. The following pages contain short poems, anecdotes, humoresques and riddles. The author is not given but it may be assumed that the text was mainly created by Władysław Ogrodziński, a writer and a culture activist who became famous in the post-war period. Such literary games practice was known among that time librarians and archivists. Some similar works written in the Jagiellonian Library or Ossolineum have also survived. The small miscellany presented here is not only a moving piece of work and a preliminary study for Karol Piotrowicz’s biography but also an interesting example of a bottom-up culture of our Library in the 1930s.

“Residual Meanings” and the Aesthetic of Intermediality in Pavel Saltzman’s Central Asia in the Middle Ages

This article analyses Central Asia in the Middle Ages, an unfinished novel by Pavel Saltzman (1939–1950), first published in 2018. In the novel, the aesthetic of film editing and the discursive “madeness” of the narrative used by the author, which refers both to the literature of German Romanticism and to Eastern historical and literary sources, transforms an example of artistic avant-garde into a fundamentally new work in terms of artistic features. According to the article, the literary game of the Gothic novel employed by the author gives Saltzman’s text the dynamics of a spectacular film text, which conceals several symbolic and associative meanings. These include the adventurous narrative itself, the medieval historical plot, the inevitable associative parallels with the tragic pages of the history of the twentieth century, and the philosophical and aesthetic comprehension of man and their place in the world in the spirit of the German Romantics and modern postmodernism simultaneously. The research methods in relation to this literary text rely on the semiotic theory of Yu. M. Lotman and B. A. Uspensky. The results of the study are determined both by the author’s approach and modern literary and cultural studies concepts of Aage A. Hanzen-Löve, I. S. Kukui, and O. D. Burenina-Petrova. The novel is analysed for the first time according to the directions of “residual” memory of the author’s text that are relevant to this work, primarily in intertextual connection with E. T. A. Hoffmann’s The Devil’s Elixirs, as well as according to the cinematic ways of expressing the narrative. The author proves that Saltzman’s text relies on the principle of compositional film editing, which brings it into the sociocultural discursive practice. Additionally, the article traces intertextual links between the two novels in the plot and thematic aspects, concluding that the text is original for modern literature and determining the prospects of its transfer in sociocultural practice.

AUTHOR, NARRATOR, HERO IN M.YU. LERMONTOV’S NOVEL A HERO OF OUR TIME: NARRATIVE POETICS

The article is devoted to the analysis of the correlation between the figures of the real author and the fictional author-narrator in the novel by M.Yu. Lermontov A Hero of Our Time. It is shown that as a result of the inclusion in the text of the second edition of the novel (1841) of the author’s preface, containing Lermontov’s polemic with the reviewers of the first edition, there was an interference of the “I” of the real creator of the work and the “I” of the fictional author, to whom the stories Bela, Princess Mary and the preface to the diary of the protagonist are attributed. It is significant that some of the biographical features of Lermontov and the fictional author coincide, and the two prefaces overlap. Thanks to all this, the effect of a non-trivial literary game arose, based on the illusion of the authenticity of the events set forth in the novel: the real author seems to get acquainted with Pechorin. This game is fundamentally different from the Sternian play and violation of the boundaries of the real and the fictional in A.S. Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, whose main characters are represented both by real persons and creations of the author’s imagination. Unlike Pushkin and many contemporary Russian prose writers, Lermontov does not expose, but, on the contrary, hides the fictional, purely literary nature of his narrative. At the same time, the creator of A Hero of Our Time does not resort to literary hoax, does not directly try to pass off either the first-level narrator or Pechorin as the real authors of the novel or part of it. The story of A. von Chamisso The Extraordinary Story of Peter Schlemil could serve as a model for such a game, in which the central character, who tells a fantastic story of the events of his life, is an acquaintance of the author and his real-life friends.

Этические основы, социально-моделирующий потенциал и творческие аспекты литературной игры для младших школьников «На асфальте города…»

Изложена методическая концепция, рассмотрен порядок организации и проведения, оценены педагогические возможности и текущие результаты Всероссийского литературно-игрового конкурса «На асфальте города…», основанного на одноименном рассказе томского фантаста Виктора Колупаева и проходящего при учредительстве Томской областной универсальной научной библиотеки им. А. С. Пушкина с 2015 г. по настоящее время. В ходе анализа материалов семи сезонов игры (названий, рисунков и описаний «городов для инопланетян», перечней игровых ролей, особенностей презентации проектов) прослеживается этическая, социально ориентированная и творческая составляющая деятельности конкурсантов, выявляются принципы взаимодействия источников игрового конструирования (текст опорного рассказа, «фантастический стандарт», разнообразные фоновые знания, включая и специфические, связанные с этноконфессиональными традициями и краеведческой информацией), характеризуются меры оптимизации педагогических эффектов игры. Исследование показало, что эмоциональное принятие этического посыла опорного рассказа, которое определяет общую направленность игровой деятельности, в большинстве случае является безусловным, в то время как социальные установки и творческое самовыражение игроков могут требовать педагогического регулирования. The article outlines the methodical concept, views the procedure of organization and holding and evaluates pedagogical capabilities and current results of the All-Russian literary game contest “Cities on the Asphalt...”, which is based on the short story of the same name by Tomsk fantasy and science fiction writer Viktor Kolupaev and has been held under the foundation of the Tomsk Regional Universal Scientific Library named after A. S. Pushkin since 2015 to the present. The author analyzes the game content produced in seven seasons (names, drawings and descriptions of “cities for alien”, lists of game roles, features of project presentation), traces the ethical, socially-oriented and creative component of the contestants’ activities, identifies the principles of interaction between sources of game design (the text of the reference short story, “fantasy and science fiction standard”, a variety of background knowledge, including specific ones related to ethno-confessional traditions and local history information), characterizes the measures to optimize the pedagogical effects of the game. The study showed that the emotional acceptance of the ethical message of the reference short story, which determines the general orientation of the game activity, is in most cases unconditional, while the social attitudes and creative self-expression of the players may require pedagogical regulation.

Valery Bryusov and Urban Folklore: a game with genre tradition

The subject of the study is a literary game with the genre tradition of urban romance and factory (working) songs in the poetry of the poet of the Silver Age Valery Bryusov. The object of the study is Bryusov's genre palette and his creative searches in relation to the extensive development of genres of domestic and foreign literature, as well as folklore. The authors consider in detail such aspects of the topic as Bryusov's genre strategies, his playing with genre constants and the deliberate distortion of the genre "grid" of the working song with the involvement of features of another, related genre of violent urban romance. Special attention is paid to the catamnesis of Bryusov's texts: their further embodiment in music as songs, both purposeful and spontaneous. The main conclusions of the study are observations on the stylization of folklore in the literature of the Silver Age and reflections on the genre nature of the works of one of the most significant collections of poems by Bryusov, “Urbi et orbi” (1903). A special contribution of the authors to the study of the topic is their consistent tracing in Bryusov's "songs" of the presence of references to specific realities included in the apperceptive base of the reader and the author himself. The novelty of the research lies in the appeal to the genre of urban romance and factory song in Bryusov's work and in the expansion of the evidence base of observations on the genre diversity of the work of this poet and prose writer.

Brazil—A New Republic of African Letters?

AbstractToday, it is not the former colonial metropolis (Portugal), but a former colony (Brazil) that has become the main legitimizing center of African literature in the Portuguese language. It is also in Brazil that the largest number of studies on African literature written in other languages is produced. To illustrate this state of affairs, we begin by demonstrating how the work of Alain Mabanckou has penetrated the literary market and the Brazilian academy. After contextualizing the historical institutional dependence that characterizes French-speaking African literature in relation to the “center” (Paris) and situating Mabanckou in this dynamic, we look at how his work arrived in Brazil, the growing interest that it has awakened, and the type of studies conducted there. In the last part of the article, we show that Mabanckou is not an isolated phenomenon and is part of a historical process that began more than fifty years ago: due to the flow of translations and academic studies on works from different linguistic contexts, Brazil helps to unsettle the linguistic self-centeredness that characterizes African literary studies and reduces distances between “center” and “periphery” that guide the world literary game.

Дружеская переписка И. В. Киреевского 1820–1830-х годов в литературном контексте

The article studies the correspondence within the circle of friends of the young I. V. Kireevsky in the literary context of the 1820s–1830s. The data are primarily considered against the background of the correspondence between A. S. Pushkin and the members of the Arzamas circle. It is suggested that, on the one hand, the epistolary communication of the Kireevsky circle features the general trends of the development of the genre of friendly writing (literary game, «buffoonery», the principle of chatter, etc.), and on the other hand, it is somewhat original. «Buffoonery» tends to combine with intimacy. Since the epistolary communication was centered around the inner worlds and relationships of the correspondents, rather than around literary issues, it became more personal and multidirectional, opening up new prospects for the development of the epistolary genre.

Специфика воплощения авторской маски в романе В.П. Аксёнова «Ожог»

The specifics of the functioning of the author’s mask in the novel by V.P. Aksenov “Burn”. The author’s mask is considered as a means of positioning the author in the text. The concepts of “author’, “narrator”, “author’s mask” were used for the analysis. For the first time, the phenomenon of the author's mask in the novel “The Burn” was subjected to a holistic study. As a result of the study, it was found that in the novel by V.P. Aksenov, thanks to the branched system of author’s masks, a complex and multidimensional narrative space is created. Through the mask as an image of a “possible other”, the prose writer comprehends the topics provocative for the aesthetics of late socialism: the relationship of the artist with the authorities, the homeland, the existence of a creative personality in a totalitarian state. The system of Apollinarievich’s author’s masks demonstrates not only the possible options for the personal fate of the “author of the real”, but also the behavioral strategy for the survival of a thinking and thinking intellectual within the framework of a totalitarian system. The author’s mask of Tolya von Steinbock is introduced by Aksenov into the novel in order to fully reflect his own “Magadan” childhood, to present a complex psychological self-portrait. The key means of creating author's masks are, firstly, numerous autobiographical parallels and correspondences generated by the total reflection of the prose writer about himself; secondly, steady transitions from the first person to the third and, on the contrary, confusing the reader and turning the text into an experimental space of a literary game. The research materials and general conclusions can be used in university courses in the history of Russian literature of the twentieth century, special courses and special seminars dedicated to the work of V. Aksenov. Since the author’s mask is becoming quite a common technique in postmodern literature, the methodology used is quite applicable to comprehend the prose of the 1990s–2000s, where there is a play with the author’s “voices” (V. Pelevin, V. Sorokin, A. Kabakov and others.).

Письмо, похожее на обезьяну и сатира: эпистолярный этикет в письмах Иоанна Апокавка

John Apokaukos (c. 1155–1233) was an outstanding church and political figure, humanist and writer. The large collection of Apokaukos’ letters is an invaluable historical source and liter-ary monument. In this paper, the letters of John Apokaukos are considered in the context of the letter genre and its canons: it is explored how John handles the traditional motifs of Byzantine epistolary etiquette. The messages written in three common situations are ana-lyzed. These situations are receiving a letter, sending gifts and receiving gifts. Apokaukos’ closeness to the epistolary tradition of the 11th–12th centuries is revealed, parallels are pointed out with the letters of Michael Psellos, Theophylaktos of Ohrid, Michael Choniates and others. It is demonstrated that Apokaukos uses a wide range of etiquette motifs, but many of his letters are original: sometimes he interprets traditional motifs in a new way and revives obsolete clichés, and sometimes completely deviates from the established rules. Traditional formulae become a reason for a literary game and friendly humor: Apokaukos often resorts to irony and grotesque, associated with the use of quotations from ancient lit-erature and the Bible in a humble context of everyday life.

Функции сюжетных ассоциаций из классической литературы в игровых проектах Б. Акунина* о Фандорине и Пелагии

The article is devoted to novels by B. Akunin who uses the quotations, reminiscences and subjects of classical authos for the realization of his detective projects. The scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that an attempt is made to investigate the role of quotations and reminiscences, plot, figurative and stylistic associations borrowed from Russian and foreign classical literature in B. Akunin’s detective novels about Fandorin and Pelagia. In the intertextual space of the writer’s novels, themes and motives from the novels of F.M. Dostoevsky, N.V. Gogol, M.A. Bulgakov, M.Yu. Lermontov and other writers. The writer skillfully combines foreign classics with detective intrigue. The image of detective Erast Fandorin is a fusion of features of Sherlock Holmes, William of Baskerville, Prince Florizel: the image of the nun Pelagia — Miss Marple and Father Brown. The motives, style, language of the classics of Russian literature determine the stylistic originality of the modern writer. The stylization of the writer’s novels not only makes it possible to strike up a literary game with a reader — a connoisseur of classical literature, at the same time, counting on a detective lover, but also makes it possible to overcome the difference between two cultural fields: elite literature and mass literature.

Making an Anti-Hero or Describing a Tyrant? Postmodernism and Ivan the Terrible

Abstract Historiography of the study of Ivan the Terrible’s times contains many examples of demystification attempts: E. Keenan declared the correspondence between Ivan the Terrible and Andrey Kurbsky to be apocrypha, Anthony Grobovsky exposed the ‘Chosen Rada’, Mikhail Krom unmasked the time of ‘boyar rule’. Cornelia Soldat suggests revising the history of the ‘massacre of Novgorod’ in 1570. She believes it to be a product of a ‘literary game’. The story of the destruction of Novgorod first appeared in the German Flying Leaf in 1570 and Alexander Guagnini’s Chronicle in 1578. It was a product of European political discourse. The Novgorod Chronicles borrowed that story from Guagnini’s Chronicle in the late 17th century. However, this hypothesis lacks sufficient proof. Independent evidence exists: The Solovetsky Chronicle of the 16th century. According to Soldat, the reports from The Novgorod Uvarov Chronicle date back to the late 16t–early 17th (about 1606) centuries, rather than to the 17th century. The main argument against her concept is the confirmation in independent sources and documents of the death of many people, while the circumstances of the repression or death point to Novgorod and 1570. The Novgorod chronicles contain no evidence of text borrowings from German or Polish sources. There is no proven textual similarity between them. The story of the ‘massacre of Novgorod’ evolved in the Novgorod’s urban legends. This would have been hardly possible, if this story had been of a purely bookish, literary origin. Therefore, Cornelia Soldat’s attempt to demystify the history of the ‘massacre of Novgorod’ in 1570 cannot be considered convincing.

Heloise’s Silence

This article is a review of some of the circumstances of the emergence, circula- tion, and reception of the letters of Peter Abelard and his (former) beloved Heloise. Although these circumstances have long been studied and the correspondence itself is among the most famous monuments of the Latin literature of the 12th century, its contradictory readings show the ambivalence of the texts and the relationship of the famous thinkers behind them. The first Russian translation of the Letter 5, in which Abelard reminds Heloise of the sins of her youth, for which, the author assures her, he is justly punished, is appended to this article. This exhortation becomes an occa- sion for him to describe to Heloise the image of a “sister in Christ” instead of a lover, a wife, the mother of his son, an image that seemed to him himself the only true one by that time, between 1130 and 1140. Many historians of the 20th and 21st centuries see in this correspondence a literary game, a kind of “sincere hypocrisy” (Peter Godman), that is, a pretense. If Abelard has taken on the image of Hieronymus, a persecuted and misunderstood intellectual and mentor of pious women of the 4th and 5th centuries, Eloise in her letters appears as a new “heroine” abandoned by her lover, or as a repentant sinner, a new Magda- lene seeking her Christ. All this literary “self-modeling” is certainly present in the correspondence. But does it explain everything in their relationship and in the poet- ics of the texts that interest us? Eloise is known to have written little, but all of Abe- lard’s work in the last years of his life, according to his personal testimony, is related to the spiritual needs of the Paraclete. Abelard responded to his wife’s requests. The phenomenon of the monastic friendship that bound the monasteries of the time explains much of this, as it also explains their relationship. History of My Calami- ties is important to consider simultaneously within the framework of the collection of letters created at Paraclete and ending with the monastic charter, as well as in the context of those writings that Abelard wrote at Eloise’s request.

К истории русской поэтической наррации: прозаической автокомментарий в поэмах П. Буслаева «Умозрительство душевное» и М. Амелина «Веселая наука»

The paper aims to compare the long poems by Petr Buslaev (“The Speculations of the Soul”, 1734) and Maksim Amelin (“The Joyous Science”, 1999). The author proves the genetic relatedness between two poems and specifically focuses on the phenomenon of the prosaic stanza-by-stanza auto-commentary on the margins of the poetical text, which is extremely rare and unequivocally reveals the association between Amelin’s and Buslaev’s works. The author also dwells on the narrative subject (i. e. the subject of speech and consciousness) — both in the main poetical text and the prosaic auto-commentary of the poems — revealing the similarities and differences between the two literary works belonging to different epochs of poetics: traditionalist (or eidetic) and the non-classical phase of the poetics of the artistic modality. The analysis moves on with less detail onto all structural levels of both poems; the author establishes that Amelin, on the one hand, reproduces poetical principles of the 18th century in general and those of the poetical narration of the period in particular, and, on the other hand, he transforms them in accordance with the spirit of new poetics. While borrowing the most prominent feature of the late-Baroque poem by Buslaev — the auto-commentary on the margins of the poetical text, Amelin copies its outer appearance at the same time reorienting it and turning the device of the “learned poetry” that seek to explain to the reader all the obscure elements of the text and propose the only right interpretation of the poetical text into the literary game creating the meaningful clash of styles, epochs, and worldviews.

Соціальна мережа як онлайн-платформа експериментальної художньої літератури

The article deals with the development of digital literature. It is examined the potential of social networks in creating relevant literary texts that take into account the preferences of users and the very change in reading quality: the predominance of short forms, combining verbal and visual content in one semantic core. It is emphasized that social networks influence the development of the book market and literature, in particular, unite writers, provide resources for the promotion, sale of works of art, become creative platforms for artistic experiments. Social networks “Twitter” and “Facebook” are becoming especially popular among creative people. It has been determined that original genre forms appear on Twitter, along with a kind of reworking of classic texts - prose, poetry, dramatic works, in which the minimum number of characters is combined with an extremely emotional load and deep subtext. An interesting example of the use of Facebook as a platform for artistic experimentation is the successful attempt of Ukrainian author O. Shynkaruk, who createed a Facebook novel. In addition to the story itself (which is about the world 100 after the Russian-Ukrainian war that lasted 100 years), there are author’s and readers’ comments that create an atmosphere of interactivity. In the comments, the author reveals the ideas of his plan, sometimes clarifies and clarifies unclear points. With separate hypertext references O. Shynkarenko introduces into the text his own musical compositions, interludes in the genre of “concrete” music. The visual images complement the verbal, and visual metaphors and actualize additional meanings. The emergence of various genres of Twitter literature, Facebook novels shows that artists are looking for new ways to create texts, new ways to include contemporaries in literature and the formation of a “new reader”. The article tries to prove that the online literature format offered by the social networks “Twitter” and “Facebook” is not a sign of a simplification of the literary text, but a manifestation of literary game and artistic experimentation in the digital age.