Визначальні характеристики романів про рабство

Abstract

У статті розглянуто основні характеристики романів про рабство. Виокремлено та осмислено відмінні та спільні характеристики первинного жанру оповідей рабів та нового «neo slave narratives» який ми пропонуємо перекласти як «нові романи про рабство. Підсумовано, що будь-який наратив (історичний чи художній) розуміється як звичайний текст, автор якого відмовляється від минулого як сукупності реальних подій.

In our article, the category of «memory of the genre» is understood in the context of African-American art discourse. Based on the fact that its primary mode, its protogenre, is narratives written by former slaves, we analyzed the typological reasons for their rebirth into new genres of novels about slavery, followed by evidence that as slave narratives and novels have been updated into postmodernist American literature their features have remained unchanged, although modified or transformed into a new quality. Since the beginning of the formation of African-American literature up to the postmodern period, the experience of slavery has been defined to its thematic and artistic and stylistic dimensions. Black artists have collectivized individual traumatic experiences associated with their attempts to verbalize the full extent of slavery and to comprehend the tragic events surrounding this institution, and then have created their own meanings, often different from the official version of historical enslavement. Thus the narrative stories about slaves and slavery constitute a special genre of African-American literature. Most literary critics have tried to register them in canonical art forms such as the autobiography or the historical novel, but these are unjustified. Slave narratives constitute a genre that combines elements of both the black oral folk heritage and some features of Euro-American romance. Those living in the second half of the twentieth century are witnessing intense revival of genre stories of slaves. Such writers as M. Walker, Ishmael Reed, Octavia Butler, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, Charles Johnson, and Edward Jones have turned to their own coverage of correctly interpreting the past Negro race. Genre determines their works neo-slave narratives, novels about slavery and points to stories about slaves or to stories containing inter-text and meta-text about them. When comparing stories about slaves and slavery, critics of neonarratives pay attention to the fact that the first predominantly, except for The Story of the life of Frederick Douglass, end with the arrival of the fugitive slave to the dreamed-of North Country, and therefore correlate with romanticized notions of American freedom and identity. The second criticism is taken over by these idealized concepts and reveal the realities of class or racial inequality.

В статье рассмотрены основные характеристики романов о рабстве. Выделено и осмысленно отличающиеся и общие характеристики первичного жанра повествований рабов и нового «neo slave narratives», который мы предлагаем перевести как «новые романы о рабстве». Сделано вывод, что любой нарратив (исторический или художественный) воспринимаеться как обычный текст, автор которого отказывается от прошлого как совокупности реальных событий.