MODERNIST POETICS THROUGH THE LENS OF BAKHTIN’S CONCEPT OF GENRE

Abstract

The article deals with the issue of how the categories of genre analysis can be applied to modernist fiction. Particular attention is paid to the problematization of the genre category in the context of the literature of XX century. Through the analysis of certain investigations of works of E. Pound, J. Joyce, W. Faulkner, V. Woolf, it is proved that the genre concept, introduced in the works of M. Bakhtin, can serve as a productive theoretical basis for the poetic study of modernist texts. By the extensive text material it is demonstrated that the analysis of modernist poetics in the light of genres creates a new perspective on individual works and the genre tradition as a whole. Appeal to Bakhtin’s concept of genre helps to reveal the internal correlation of modernism with previous literary epochs, to understand the underlying mechanisms of evolution of modernist art.