22 terms
Formalism
Formalism was an influential school of literary studies of the 1910s–1920s that focused on artistic form, 'literariness,' and the devices that distinguish literary language from practical language. The Formalists united in OPOYAZ (the Society for the Study of Poetic Language) and a parallel linguistic circle. The key figure was Viktor Shklovsky, who in a landmark 1917 essay defined 'defamiliarization' (ostranenie) as the essence of art. Yuri Tynianov developed the theory of literary evolution and the notion of the 'dominant'; Boris Eikhenbaum analyzed 'how a work is made'; Roman Jakobson formulated the doctrine of the poetic function of language. The Formalists distinguished fabula from plot and studied rhythm, sound, and motivation. Despite the school's suppression under ideological pressure, its ideas laid the foundation of structuralism, narratology, and all of modern literary theory.
Raisonneur
A raisonneur is a personage of a dramatic (more rarely epic) work who voices reasonings, evaluations, and moral maxims close to the authorial position, as if 'reasoning' on the author's behalf. The raisonneur usually takes no active part in the action but comments on the deeds of other personages, instructs, generalizes, and draws moral conclusions. The raisonneur type took shape in Classicist dramaturgy (where it embodied the voice of reason and virtue) and in comedy, notably Molière's. In later, psychologically complicated dramaturgy, direct raisonneurism is perceived as an artistic flaw — a 'mouthpiece of ideas' that violates the naturalness of characters; instead, the indirect expression of the author's thought through action and subtext is valued. Understanding the function of the raisonneur is important for analyzing dramatic conflict and the means of expressing the authorial position. Elements of raisonneurism are noticeable in Ukrainian 'enlightenment' dramaturgy of the 19th century.
Realism
Realism is an artistic movement that took shape in the mid-nineteenth century and set as its aim the truthful, comprehensive depiction of reality in its typical manifestations, in the lawful connections between the human being and the social milieu. The Realists strove for objectivity, social analysis, and the psychological authenticity of characters, for showing 'typical heroes in typical circumstances'. World models are the novels of Honoré de Balzac (The Human Comedy), Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, and Leo Tolstoy. In Ukrainian literature Realism reached a high level in social-psychological prose: the novels of Panas Myrny (Do the Oxen Low When Mangers Are Full?), the tales of Ivan Nechui-Levytsky (Kaidash's Family), the many-sided work of Ivan Franko (the Boryslav cycle, the novel Crossing Paths), and the dramaturgy of the 'theater of the luminaries' — Ivan Karpenko-Kary — which deeply analyzed the social contradictions of Ukrainian life.
Reception Aesthetics
Reception aesthetics is a movement in literary studies that shifts attention from the author and text to the reader and the process of perceiving (receiving) a work. It formed in the late 1960s in the Constance school (Germany). Hans Robert Jauss introduced the concept of the 'horizon of expectations' — the system of a reader's expectations conditioned by their experience; a work's aesthetic value is measured by the distance between the horizon of expectations and the novelty of the text. Wolfgang Iser developed the theory of the 'implied reader' and of 'blanks' (Leerstellen, a concept that builds on and departs from Roman Ingarden's 'places of indeterminacy') — gaps that the reader fills while reading, actualizing the text. Reception aesthetics is akin to American 'reader-response criticism' (Stanley Fish). It grounds the historical variability of interpretations and the active, co-creative role of the reader, complementing hermeneutics and the theory of interpretation.
Recruit Song
The recruit (soldier) song is a thematic group of Ukrainian social-domestic lyric that arose after the introduction of conscription in imperial-ruled Ukraine (from 1797) and the long, often 25-year, military service. These songs are pervaded by deep tragism: the recruit's parting from family, home, and beloved is felt as a 'living death,' for return was nearly impossible. Motifs of forced 'shaving into the soldiery,' a mother's weeping, longing for the homeland, and the cruelty of drill dominate. Recruit songs are close in mood to funeral laments. Classic examples are 'Oh, Mother-Cherry-Tree' and 'On Sunday Early in the Morning.' The social songs of this cycle were collected by Ivan Franko and Osyp Rozdolsky. The theme of conscription and the soldier's misfortune echoes in Taras Shevchenko's poem 'The Soldier's Well' and in the prose of Marko Vovchok and Panas Myrny.
Redaction (of a Text)
A redaction (in textology) is one of the variants of a work's text, arising from its conscious reworking — by the author or by another person (editor, copyist). Unlike minor variant readings, a redaction implies substantial, purposeful changes in the ideational-artistic content, extent, or structure of a work. One distinguishes authorial redactions (the result of a writer's work on a text — e.g., the first and second redactions) and non-authorial ones. A work may exist in several redactions, and establishing their relationship, chronology, and the author's 'final creative will' is one of the key tasks of textology in preparing a critical edition. Early monuments often survive in several redactions (the short and expanded redactions of the 'Rus' Justice'; the redactions of the chronicles). The problem of the authorial redactions of the works of Taras Shevchenko and the classics of Ukrainian literature was studied by the academic textological school in preparing complete editions.
Refrain
The refrain is a line, group of lines or stanza that recurs periodically at certain points of a poem, most often at the ends of stanzas. The refrain fulfils a compositional-unifying function, lending the work cyclical completeness, reinforcing the through-motif and creating a song-like effect of melodiousness. Recurring in new contexts, the refrain often changes its semantic shade, acquiring each time a deeper or ironically reinterpreted resonance. The refrain is characteristic of folk song and the ballad, as well as of fixed forms — the rondeau, triolet, villanelle — where its return is a structural foundation. In Ukrainian lyric the refrain is actively used to reinforce an emotional leitmotif and to frame stanzas rhythmically.
Reminiscence
Reminiscence is a conscious or involuntary echo in a literary work of the images, motifs, rhythmic-syntactic structures or particular turns of phrase of another, earlier work. Unlike a direct quotation, reminiscence is not marked by quotation marks and does not name its source, but only evokes it as a distant recollection, counting on the cultural memory of the reader. Reminiscence attests to the work's inclusion in the literary tradition, the author's dialogue with predecessors, the continuity of themes and forms. It is closely linked to allusion and intertextuality, yet is distinguished precisely by the character of a "recollection" of another's artistic material. The analysis of reminiscences allows one to trace creative influences, the genetic links of texts and the place of a work in the general cultural context.
Renaissance Humanism
Humanism is the ideological and literary movement of the Renaissance (14th–16th centuries) that placed the human being — his dignity, reason, earthly life, and creative capacities — at the center of its worldview, opposing anthropocentrism to medieval theocentrism. The humanists revived the ancient heritage and cultivated the classical languages, philology, and free inquiry. The literature of humanism is represented by Petrarch and Boccaccio in Italy, by Erasmus of Rotterdam, François Rabelais (Gargantua and Pantagruel), and Michel de Montaigne in France, and by William Shakespeare and Miguel de Cervantes. In Ukraine, Renaissance-humanist ideas developed in the work of the sixteenth-century Latin-language poets — Pavlo Rusyn of Krosno, Sebastian Klenovych, Stanislav Orikhovsky — and in the activity of the Ostroh Academy and the brotherhood schools, which laid the foundations of a new learning.
Retardation
Retardation (from the Latin for 'delay, slowing') is a compositional device of deliberately slowing the development of the plot action before the climax or denouement in order to heighten tension, expectation, and the reader's interest. Retardation is achieved by means of extended descriptions, authorial digressions, inset episodes, repetitions, and detailed characterizations that delay the immediate course of events. This device allows the reader to be kept in a state of tense expectation, to prepare the perception of the decisive moment, and to give the work epic fullness. Retardation is especially characteristic of epic genres — heroic epic, the novel, the narrative poem — where the expansiveness of the narration is a generic feature. The slowing of the action through detailed descriptions of nature, everyday life, and psychological states marks, in particular, the classic realist novel. The masterful use of retardation testifies to the writer's perfect command of the art of composition and his ability to govern the reader's attention and the emotional rhythm of the work.
