genre

Yavorov’s experiment to be not himself, to enter the zone of fiction, is a performative act: what we see on the road, on the move, crossing Sofia, coincides with the entry into and exit from the narrative (from the prose). In this compendium text, Yavorov, adopting a role uncharacteristic of him, continually refers to recognizable or hidden gestures of famous writers, demonstrating an ostentatious familiarity in handling them. There is an empathy with Luben-Caravelov’s “physiological sketch”, reminiscences from Aleko’s feuilletons, ironically snide remarks to P. P. Slaveykov, mockery at the poetry of Trifon Kunev. The narrative’s travelogue, the selected Sofia topoi are frankly reminiscent of Vazov’s cycle of stories “Kardashev on the Hunt”. Yavorov’s text abounds with quotations – from the mocking-parody of Nietzsche’s Zarathustra and the Gospel to the profane-volgarized belitrization of his own lyrical motifs, i.e. to the seemingly muted self-reference to already published.

The text is dedicated to the peculiar place of Mikhail Bakhtin as a literary theorist. It relies heavily on the work of Galin Tihanov in his recent book The Birth and Death of Literary Theory and also formulates certain critiques of it concerning the important elements that make a literary theorist. Bakhtin is set on the background of two opposing thinkers – Andre Jolles and Erich Auerbach. While Jolles tries to impose his traditional romantic etymological method upon the whole literature and set the genres below certain key words, Auerbach is almost methodless in his attempt to draw the genesis of literature in the perspective of historically oriented sociology. Both Jolles and Auerbach found their theories on certain paraliterary genres and invest them with anthropological and civilizational value. For Jolles these are the “simple forms of narrative” and for Auerbach it is the middle preaching style or genre sermo humilis as a beginning of Western literature. On his part, Bakhtin manages to enter the cannon of literary theory and we shall see why. He represents the intermediate methodological position of literary theory. 

The article examines some of the most problematic aspects of genre theory: the relationship between the concepts of architext and genre; the grounds for the existence of genre and its function in the social being of the work of art; the prerequisites that led to the emergence of genre as an important element of artistic communication. For a long time, genre was perceived primarily as a structural entity, serving mainly the needs of classification. Recently the idea that its function is related to the communicative essence of the artistic discourse appeared. In practice, genre fulfills the role of a discursive norm, organizing all aspects and levels of artistic impact. This circumstance also determines the role that genre plays in realizing the social functions of verbal art. Therefore, the main prerequisites that led to the emergence of genre as an important element of artistic activity are considered mainly within the framework of cultural anthropology. The most important prerequisite for the emergence of genre, according to the hypothesis defended by the article, is the appearance of the fiction related to the emergence of narration, dividing artistic discourse into two events – referential (the event that is narrated) and communicative (the event of the narration itself). It is this duality that defines any artistic discourse as fictional, regardless of whether it presents documentary or fictional events. The other two main prerequisites for the emergence of the literary genre are the nature of literature as writing, which is a specific social phenomenon, and on the other hand, the appearance of the idea of aesthetic activity, which in turn leads to the formation of such specific literary institutions as individual authorship and poetics as a manifestation of literary self-awareness.

The article examines the potential of spiritual energy invested in one of the works of the great Bulgarian poet – the socalled “Revival prayer“, the role of the individual and his responsibility to God. Central to “My Prayer“ are images, themes, and motifs from the Bible, along with contemporary issues of institutional religion, which have been moved away in many aspects from genuine human care. Attention is paid to the structure of the prayer and all of its components – from the motto to the final metaphor, but also to the reversal and play with the genre, which gave rise to many contradictory interpretations of the text. A question has been touched on some religious motifs, repeated in other works of Botev, incl. the ideological suggestions of the poet’s new testament.

The paper undertakes an inquiry in the genre studies of the Western. Interpreting the heterogeneous reiterations of its generic components, it aims at deconstructing the imaginary geography underlying the genre’s name.