Article

Name: Urban Literary Sketch as a Text of Urban Narrativity

Authors: Alena A. Eremenko

Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russian Federation

Abstract:

The article attempts to define and genealogize the genre of the urban literary sketch as a text of urban narrativity. In order to reveal the genealogy of this genre, we study two literary sketch traditions – the 19th century “physiological” sketch and the early 20th century travelogue. We discover the connection between them that lies within the narrative intension to record the urban environment as changing (“physiological sketch”) or as different (travelogue). The following narratological tools are singled out to characterize urban sketch narrative: opposition of narrativity / descriptivity and implicit / explicit narrativity (W. Schmid), point of view (B. A. Uspensky), focalization (G. Genette), narrative worldview and narrative strategy (V. I. Tyupa). The analysis of travelogues by soviet writers (O. Forsch, I. Ilf, E. Petrov), presented in the articles by E. R. Ponomarev and G. A. Zhilicheva, allowed us to identify additional characteristics of the travelogue narrative: an accelerated rhythm of narration and the actualization of the instantion of the view. The results of the work are the definition of the urban sketch and the identification of the category of implicit / explicit eventfulness as a key one for the sketch narrative. This will serve as a theoretical basis for defining the urban sketch narrative as a strategy for urban narrativity.

Keywords: urban literary sketch; sketch narrative; narrativity, descriptivity, implicit and explicit eventfulness, urban narrativity, city, literature

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