The irony as a sense of reality (on the example of the short stories of O. Konyskyi)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.28925/2311-259x.2020.4.2Keywords:
irony, ironist, «background figure», protagonist, image, decipherment, reasonerAbstract
The article deals with the analysis of the short stories by O. Konyskyi from the point of view of irony functioning in them. S. Kierkegaard compared irony to divine madness, which, like Tamerlane, did not leave a stone unturned, because “in the irony, negativity takes precedence over positivity, freedom over necessity”. In the modern literary criticism, irony is seen, on the one hand, as an aesthetic category, the characteristic feature of which is the lack of care to make the reader laugh; it is primarily a matter of marking of the author’s perception of reality (“Ironic meaning” by S. Pokhodnia). On the other hand — irony is viewed as a stylistic figure, which is based on allegory and which testifies to the potential of the individual authorial style. However, in both cases, to understand the true meaning of an ironic statement, it is necessary to have a context, which is its main semantic background. In a number of works by O. Konyskyi, irony serves as a means to express certain traits of character and behaviour of the character and is exemplified through epithets and comparisons. Less often, it becomes a means to construct the text and a plot-forming factor, as is in the story “And we are people!” The subject of the study is irony as a complex (two-tier) message, the purpose to understand the hidden content of which requires context. The object of the literary analysis is comprised of the short stories by O. Konyskyi, that have not yet been considered from this point of view. The latter fact informs the novelty of the study. The purpose of the article is to clarify the place and the role of irony in the bulk of short stories by this writer. The outlined goal determines reaching the following objectives: to trace the dynamics of the apperiance of different types of irony in the short stories by O. Konyskyi; to identity the dependence of the frequency and the form the ironic expression; to find out the influence of the author’s ironic approach on the form the work. As a result of the analysis by means of the approaches of biographical, historical-literary and empirical research methods, it was possible to find out: despite the fact that irony is not a dominant feature of O. Konyskyi’s worldview, in his short stories works with textual irony stand out.
Downloads
References
Avdykovych, O. (1908). Ohliad literaturnoi diialnosti Oleksandra Konyskoho [Review of the literary activity of Olexander Konysky]. Peremyshl.
Boiko, N. (2011). “Takykh diiachiv nadto potribno na svitanni natsionalnoho zhyttia” (Literaturna spadshchyna Oleksandra Konyskoho) [“Such figures are of utmost importance, especially at the dawning of the life of a nation...” (The literary heritage of Oleksandr Konysky)]. Slovo i Chas, 11, 71–80.
Boiko, N. (2015). Proza druhoi polovyny ХІХ st. kriz pryzmu natsionalnu [Fiction writing of the second half of the 19th century and the national identity]. Slovo i Chas, 1, 72–83.
Boiko, N. (2019). O. Barvinskyi ta O. Konyskyi: do istorii spivpratsi [O. Barvinskyi and O. Konyskyi: on History of Cooperation]. Slovo i Chas, 6, 85–94. https://doi.org/10.33608/0236-1477.2019.06.85-94.
Burlaka, H. (2011). Rol O. Konyskoho u pereizdi M. Hrushevskoho do Lvova [Oleksandr Konysky’s role in Mykhaylo Hrushevsky’s leaving for Lviv]. Slovo i Chas, 11, 80–83.
Glicksberg, Ch. (1969). The ironic visionion in modern literature. The Hague: Nijhoff. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0977-0.
Kamyshova, T. (2008). Etyko-estetychnyi ideal u tvorakh O. Konyskoho [Ethical-aesthetic ideal in the works of O. Koniskiy]. (PhD thesis, Kyiv).
Khropko, P. (2000). Rechnyk natsionalnoi idei [Spokesman for the national idea]. Dyvoslovo, 8, 59–61.
Konyskyi, O. (1990). Opovidannia. Povist. Poetychni tvory [Stories. Novel. Poetry]. Kyiv: Naukova dumka.
Losev, A. (1966). Ironiya antichnaya i romanticheskaya [The irony is antique and romantic]. In: Estetika i iskusstvo: iz istorii domarksistskoy esteticheskoy misli [Aesthetics and Art: From the History of Pre-Marxist Aesthetic Thought]. Moscow: Nauka.
Matveieva, T. (2017). Romannyi dyskurs ukrainskoi literatury druhoi polovyny XIX stolittia yak metatekst: model svitu, zhanrovi transformatsii [Novel discourse of Ukrainian literature of the second half of the XIX century as a metatext: model of the world, genre transformations]. (PhD thesis, Kharkiv).
Muecke, D. (1969). The Compass of Irony. London.
Ozhogan, L. (1990). Proza Aleksandra Konisskogo v kontekste ideyno-hudozhestvennyih iskaniy ukrainskoy literaturyi vtoroy polovinyi ХІХ stoletiya [Prose of Alexander Konissky in the context of ideological and artistic searches of Ukrainian literature of the second half of the 19th century. (PhD thesis, Kiev)].
Pigulevskiy, V. (2002). Ironiya i vyimyisel: ot romantizma k postmodernizmu [Irony and Fiction: From Romanticism to Postmodernism]. Rostov-na-Donu: Foliant.
Pohodnya, S. (1989). Yazyikovyie vidyi i sredstva realizatsii ironii [Language types and means of implementing irony]. Kiev: Naukova dumka.
Potebmia, O. (1985). Estetyka i poetyka slova [Aesthetics and poetics of the word]. Kyiv: Mystetctvo.
Propp, V. (1999). Problemyi komizma i smeha [Problems of comic and laughter]. Moscow: Labirint.
Semkiv, R. (2004). Ironichna struktura: typy ironii v khudozhnii literaturi [Ironic structure: types of irony in fiction]. Kyiv: VD “KM Akademiia”.
Skorobohatko, N. (1996). Oleksandr Konyskyi na tli svoiei doby (Zhyttia. Diialnist. Tvorchist) [Olexander Koniskiy against the background of his time (Life. Dialist. Creativity)]. (PhD thesis, Kyiv)].
Struts, R. (1998). Riznovydy ironii [Varieties of irony]. Naukovi zapysky [NUKMA NaUKMA Researh Papers]. T. 4.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
