Literature in the meta dimensions

(based on the essays of Hryhoriy Shton)

Abstract

The article examines the problem of writerly self-reflection using the example of Hryhorii Shton’s self-review and self-understanding. The texts of his reviews, interviews and essays require research in order to choose the appropriate optics for the scientific understanding of artistic heritage. The relevance of the scientific study is twofold: in the historical plane, this is important in order to give a proper assessment of the literary process over the course of two thousand years, and in the theoretical plane — for the purpose of deepening and clarifying correlations between the statements of writers about literature and the artistry of their works. That is why our attention will be focused on two collections of essays by H. Shton, which will be the object, and on the phenomenon of metaliterature, which will be the subject of research. Syncretism as a distinctive stylistic feature of H. Shton’s work has already been noticed by literary critics, but the search for an answer to the problematic question of how the understanding of literature affected the author’s work has not yet been found. For this, a somewhat narrower goal should be achieved — to understand the writer’s understanding of literature, its specifics, artistic tasks, etc., using the methods of receptive aesthetics and hermeneutics. In the course of the research, it was found that self-knowledge was of primary importance for the artist, in which the writer saw an opportunity to understand the context without which it is unthinkable to consider a work of fiction. In a broad context, H. Shton also thought about the mission of literature. At first glance, fiction is a model of life, but H. Shton considered life itself on a large scale — earthly / heavenly, individual / universal. In all his considerations, the author sought to encourage the reader to expand the boundaries of their thinking, therefore he worked on his own self-improvement as an artist, advice on which we find in the texts. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that the essays of H. Shton are critically analyzed in terms of metaliterature for the first time. The writer’s essays function as a mediator between the author’s philosophical principles and his work. H. Shton chose the genre of a confessional essay, so reflexivity, self-awareness, and self-awareness become the basic principles. In the future, it is appropriate to investigate literary portraits, thanks to which an assessment of the criteria for the formation of the literary canon according to H. Shton will be highlighted.