Anti-Genre Category In Modern Studies: Deconstruction Or Renewal?

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to discuss the currently under-researched notion of anti-genre as methodological concept of comparative literature, which derives from the notion of genre as a fixed form of utterances united by theme, composition and style. The authors use interdisciplinary anthropocentric approach to examine in detail the mechanisms underlying genre subversion, and apply various methods including elements of semiotic, cognitive and discourse analysis. The research focuses on the key elements that make up genre as a unity and explores the ways in which these elements are transformed and endowed with new functions. Anti-genre is defined as a variety of the genre aimed at deriding, parodying the model created by the prototype genre. It deconstructs the well-organized world of the genre in question, creates the anti-world, anti-culture, anti-heroes and produces the effect of defeated expectancy. The anti-genre based on the “intertextual encyclopaedia” of the model reader reworks the most recognizable, the so-called basic genre elements, or genre-forming signposts, which serve as intertextual frames placed and transformed in a new context. Thus, anti-genre texts become a playground for the dialogue between the author and the reader, providing genre evolution. The authors conclude that anti-genre per se should not be considered as deconstruction of genre, but rather its renewal, modification or transformation.

Keywords: Genreanti-genregenre deconstructiongenre/anti-genre modellingliterary discourse strategiesmodel reader

Introduction

The concept of genre has revealed itself to be of great interpretative flexibility. The heterogeneity of speech genres giving birth to many hybrid genre forms or modifications, absence of distinct boundaries between genres determine the complexity and multifoldness of the term. Contemporary genre studies deal with “hybrid texts where various genres are connected and recontextualized” ( Luzón, 2017).

Formulated by Bakhtin ( 1975) definition of genres as determinate, relatively stable types of utterances united by theme, composition and style became fundamental for most of studies both literary and linguistic. He claimed that literary genres store overtime the forms of world vision and conception. According to Bakhtin, genre holds constant elements of archaic character, which are regularly renewed, making genre old and new at the same time.

Any approach associated with analysing the processes of understanding and producing texts belonging to different types and genres is most likely to be anthropocentric, for the text itself reveals its anthropomorphic nature. As noted by the leading expert in the field of text linguistics Turaeva ( 2016): “Any communicative act is intrusion into the thesaurus of the recipient, instilling into his/her mind a picture of the world that is not necessarily a replica of the real world. Thus the text may assume a social significance” (p. 32).

Genres may also be discussed as methodological concepts of comparative literature, bringing new insights into the traditional study of influences and reception. The concept of genre in a modern sense presents a heuristic model for interpretation and meaning. This is especially true for postmodernism theory, which defends pluralism of meanings one may find in any text representing postmodern genres ( Fedorov, 2016). As Chotchaeva and Sosnovsky ( 2017) posit, postmodernist approach of universal humanism gives way to anti-hierarchical ideas of cultural relativity and diversity.

Genres have both constant and relevant features. The former, the so called “genre memory elements” contribute to the conservation of genre form while the latter promote the emergence of new ones which allows us to discuss genre evolution, genre transformations, genre “shifts”, a genre range, etc.

Since codes and conventions make up the essence of any genre, interpretation of a literary work builds largely on generic assumptions. Although reworking and revisiting genres may be considered to some extent a timeless trend in literary process, postmodernism brings about the breakdown of genre, subverting genre conventions, undermining these assumptions and altering interpretation. The concept of “form” itself undergoes some transformation since “the genre’s borders have not been shaped by the borders of form any more” ( Demchenkov, 2017, p. 674).

Problem Statement

Unlike genre, the anti-genre problem in general still remains one of the most neglected. It is usually described in separate chapters and parts of genre studies, which analyse specific anti-genre models – anti-utopia, anti-fairy tale, anti-detective story, dark comedies etc. ( see, for example, Artyomova, 2017; Comanducci & Wilkinson, 2018; Garipova & Kostyleva, 2019; Gehring, 2016; Leiderman, 2010; Morson, 1981; Peredery, 2018, and others).The term “anti-fairy tale” may be applied to various types of texts within literary discourse: 1) fairy tales per se, but with a tragic or sad rather than the expected happy ending; 2) postmodern reworkings of fairy tales that use the plots of original stories to reflect on the problems of modern society; 3) texts of other genre forms that incorporate some of the elements of the fairy tale genre to create a more vivid contrast between the perfect world of a fairy tale and the real world.

The presence of recognizable elements of a classical genre is obligatory for an anti-fairy tale. In her work on postmodern feminist anti-tales, Reynolds ( 2019) defines the anti-tale in terms of a reverse discourse. She notes that the anti-tale is a genre rich in intricacy and subversive potential that broadens the possibilities of genre renewal. There is direct correlation between the artistic composition of anti-tale and the characteristics of the archetypal model, which acquires a new, diametrically opposite content conflicting with the image of an ideal world of the genre-prototype.

Bezchotnikova ( 2010) illustrates the mechanisms of genre transformation with the example of a literary utopia as one of the canonical variants of genre form which can engender new modifications. In this theory, world outlook aims and style context act as dominant criteria determining genre transformation. The concentration of the genre modality of utopia on the axiological values of the epoch “manifests itself in flaming optimism which remains as the matrix feature throughout its historical life” (p. 16).

In the context of postmodernism the active destructive opening and axiological multipolarity inherent in the out-hierarchical worldview created by the polyphony of cultures changed the genre modality of utopia giving birth to anti-utopia endowed with the new pathos of negation. It resulted in contamination at the level of the artistic whole, that is, to the formation of a two-part structure of an anti-utopian text and the shift in its ideological and thematic accents. Bezchotnikova considers ( 2010) “the increased role of subjective opening in reproduction of existential experience” and of aesthetic constituent as the components of the given structure (ibid.).

The fiction world of the detective genre being ultra-logic and hyper-determined, gives the author a perfect opportunity to create anti-genre texts. There appeared some research works analyzing Boris Akunin’s quasi-detective novels built on manifold intertextual links, which transgress genre boundaries blurring the notion of the detective genre ( e.g., Desyatov & Karpukhina, 2019; Kikhney & Gereikhanova, 2017).

It is remarkable that some novels and tales by Vladimir Nabokov are found to have such distinct features of the detective story as a plot which involves investigation and the unravelling of a secret (The Eye (1930), The Real Life of Sebastian Knight (1938-1939), Lolita (1955)). By means of these elements the author constructs the so-called “quasi-detective narrative strategy. In the above mentioned novels the detective genre plot elements are spoofed, while its essential inspiration, which derives from the mandatory victory of human rationality over evil, is left open to doubt. According to Mel’nikov ( 2006), Nabokov’s The Real Life of Sebastian Knight “is a special kind of mystery novel, a philosophical “anti-detective” story in which there is an “investigator” and an “investigation” but neither crime nor criminal, and the mystery facing the reader is, in principle, never unambiguously resolved” (p. 21).

Thus, the main objective of the anti-genre is the deconstruction, decanonization of the genre, polemics with it, but this objective is achieved by means and techniques of the genre itself.

Research Questions

The paper aims at discussing two basic methodological issues that appear to be essential for the definition of the anti-genre phenomenon:

• What genre study aspects may be applied to analysing the anti-genre as a variety of the genre?

• What mechanisms underlie genre subversion and bring about the creation of anti-genre?

Purpose of the Study

The paper seeks to understand the phenomenon of anti-genre within the broader context of literary and cognitive studies. The phenomenon of anti-genre should be analyzed through the lens of cognitive base and the notion of shared knowledge between the author and the reader, their equally important roles in creating and getting the anti-genre effect.

Modern mass literature has contributed much to blurring the genre borders. Reflecting on “the reasons for the transformation of the classical work into a certain code of the modern mass culture”, Cherniak ( 2017) states that the popular projects for “appropriating” the classical novels by modern mass literature “are kinds of literary oxymorons, recreating the matrix of modernity in their own way” (p. 670).

The emergence of numerous literary texts that rework, parody, quote, and reference past works, blending genres and styles, brings the notion of anti-genre to the spotlight of genre theory and calls for the study of the relationships between genre and anti-genre conceptions.

Research Methods

Since this paper considers various approaches to the concepts of genre and anti-genre, the applied research methods may be characterized as multidisciplinary and present a combination of methods generally used in text and genre analysis in modern studies: literary analysis, structural and post structural analysis (as applied in the genre theory), stylistic analysis, intertextual analysis, and some elements of semiotic, cognitive and discourse analysis.

These methods complement each other and help better understand the mechanisms underlying genre subversion, transformation and creation of anti-genre. We assume that all elements of form, content and style are brought into play in anti-genre production.

Findings

Conclusion

In closing, we believe it is the canonical genres that become the anti-genre target since the anti-genre based on the “intertextual encyclopedia” of the model reader reworks the most recognizable, the so-called basic genre elements, or genre-forming signposts, which serve as intertextual frames placed and transformed in a new context. Thus, the anti-genre is characterized by the presence of the definite elements borrowed from the prototype genre and called to perform a new function in it.

Referring back to the title of the paper we assume that anti-genre per se should not be considered as deconstruction of genre, but rather its renewal, modification or transformation (depending on the number of elements serving as intertextual frames and their function). We posit that anti-genre becomes an active pursuit to evade categorization, to transcend all genres. The number of texts ascribed to anti-genre belonging to related and unrelated literary discourse genres serves to validate the idea of almost infinite mutability of genre construction, making genre evolution everlasting, and, at the same time, offering insight into why genre studies appear to be so complex and manifold.

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