Postmodern Tendencies in Percival Everett’s Novel “Percival Everett by Virgil Russell”

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify the main style-forming techniques of postmodern aesthetics, which received an original refraction in the novel “Percival Everett by Virgil Russell” (2013) by the contemporary American writer Percival Everett. Being a prominent representative of postmodernism, P. Everett in his work actively refers to the traditional methods of this direction. The article analyses the novel, in which the postmodern game both with the reader and with the text of the novel itself becomes the dominant category. The text of the novel is rich in metatextual insertions, intertextual references to the Bible, literary works by T. Carlyle, T. S. Eliot, J. Joyce, A. Dante, as well as the works of B. Russell, G. Frege and the work of M. Escher. If the works of the contemporary American writers of the second half of the 20th century regularly become the subject of scientific research, then the works on the stated issues published at the beginning of the 21st century have not been sufficiently studied. In this regard, the scientific novelty of this study lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian literary criticism, an analysis of P. Everett’s novel “Percival Everett by Virgil Russell” is provided in the context of the designated topic. As a result, it was proved that the writer actively uses the techniques of postmodernism, which allows him to show his involvement in the traditions of world literature and enter into a kind of dialogue with his predecessors.

References

1. Барт Р. Избранные работы. Семиотика. Поэтика. М.: Прогресс, 1989.
2. Ильин И. П. Постструктурализм. Деконструктивизм. Постмодернизм. М.: Интрада, 1996.
3. Карасик О. Б. К вопросу о мультикультурализме в современной литературе США // Вестник Пятигорского государственного лингвистического университета. 2009. № 4.
4. Панова О. Ю. От модернизма к постмодернизму и художественному синтезу (статья вторая) // Современная Европа. 2004. № 2 (18).
5. Скокова Т. А. Проза Людмилы Улицкой в контексте русского постмодернизма: автореф. дисс. … к. филол. н. М., 2010.
6. Тлостанова М. В. Проблема мультикультурализма и литература США конца ХХ века. М.: Изд-во Института мировой литературы им. А. М. Горького РАН; Наследие, 2000.
7. Фролов Г. А., Хабибуллина Л. Ф., Шамина В. Б., Шевченко Е. Н., Несмелова О. О., Коновалова Ж. Г. Между модернизмом и постмодернизмом: смена литературных эпох на Западе. Казань, 2016.
8. Cheuk L. “Percival Everett by Virgil Russell” by Percival Everett. 2013. URL: https://therumpus.net/2013/04/11/percival-everett-by-virgil-russell-by-percival-everett/
9. Feith M. Death’s Other Kingdom: Absence, Loss, and Mourning in “Percival Everett by Virgil Russell” by Percival Everett // Caliban. 2016. Iss. 56.
10. Hassan I. The Dismemberment of Orpheus: Toward a Postmodernist Literature. Urbana, 1971.
11. McGinnis J.Interview with Percival Everett. 2020. URL: https://www.thewhitereview.org/feature/interview-with-percival-everett/
12. Stewart A. Uncategorizable Is Still a Category: An Interview with Percival Everett // Canadian Review of American Studies. 2007. Vol. 37. No. 3.

Author information

About this article

Publication history

• Received: January 8, 2023.
• Published: February 28, 2023.

Keywords

• Персиваль Эверетт
• постмодернизм
• игра
• метатекст
• интертекстуальность
• Percival Everett
• postmodernism
• game
• metatext
• intertextuality

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)
© 2023 Gramota Publishing, LLC

User license

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)