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  • The Transition from Irony to Post-Irony in Experimental Literature (Based on the Example of Works of David Foster Wallace)

The Transition from Irony to Post-Irony in Experimental Literature (Based on the Example of Works of David Foster Wallace)

Student: Abdullaeva Kamilla

Supervisor: Mikhail Pavlovets

Faculty: Faculty of Creative Industries

Educational Programme: Journalism (Bachelor)

Final Grade: 9

Year of Graduation: 2020

The Transition from Irony to Post-Irony in Experimental Literature (Based on the Example of Works of David Foster Wallace The purpose of this study is to trace how the transition from irony as a dominant «structure of feeling» (Raymond Williams) and becoming increasingly marginal to a new «structure of feeling» - postironia as a new setting in modern English-language experimental literature in particular, has been and is still being carried out. and wider - in the culture as a whole. This transition is considered the main by the example of the artistic and journalistic work of the American writer David Foster Wallace (1962-2008), who is often associated with the transition from postmodern irony to something new, which literary scholars later began to call «postirony». The study analyzed how irony worked and was perceived in modern culture and mainly in English literature from the middle of the twentieth. centuries. The first chapter, after a brief excursion into the history of irony, shows how irony worked on the example of the works of John Bart, John Fowles, James Ballard, Italo Calvino, Thomas Pincheon, Don Dellilo and Umberto Eco. Separately mentioned Venedikt Erofeeva as the first unofficial writer of the Soviet era, who worked in framework of postmodernism and actively using irony. As theoretical sources, the works of Fredrik Jamison, Linda Hutcheon, Slavoy Zizek, Umberto Eco, Alexander Pavlov and Timothy Buze were used. It was further shown how postironium can be described in modern experimental literature. Fatigue from irony and experiments with form in fiction, which was facilitated by external events (for example, the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001), resulted in the fact that many authors either switched from irony to postirony (Don Dellilo), or immediately began to promote the project «new sincerity» in the literature. Most of all this was reflected in the work of modern English-speaking writers, among which the following names can be mentioned: Frederick Begbader, Jonathan Safran Foer, Zadi Smith, Colson Whitehead, Rivka Galchen, Jennifer Egan, Chris Bakelder, Dave Eggers, Sheila Khetti, Jeffrey Eugenidis, Jonathan Franzen, Jonathan Lytham, Tao Lin, Salvador Plasencia, Richard Powers, Neil Stevenson, and Karen Tey Yamashita. In addition to Raymond Williams, the key theoretical source for us was the literary critic Lee Konstantin, who describes contemporary fiction through the prism of «postironia», highlighting its four «faces» - «trusting metaprosis», «motivated postmodernism», «relational art» and «upbringing novel». It is important that Konstantin calls David Foster Wallace one of the representatives of «trust metaprosis». For Konstantin (but not only for him) Wallace became a symbol of postironium. Further, in accordance with the logic of the study, on a specific case it was shown how the transition from irony to postirony was carried out in modern English experimental literature. The main subject of research in this part of the text was the artistic creation of David Foster Wallace. It is important, however, that we considered the «new sincerity» of Wallace not only in the framework of his literary heritage, but also in essay - the most important part of the writer's work. In 1993 Wallace wrote an essay in which he fell upon the irony of American television, and among those who can resist this irony, he called contemporary writers. As a result, Wallace himself began to act on this maxim, designating a new (postyronical) «structure of feeling» in literary work. In this case, theoretical sources began research Linda Hutcheon, Nicolin Timmer, Lee Konstantin, Stephen Byrne and others

Full text (added May 12, 2020)

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