The incompleteness phenomenon in creative heritage of Lesya Ukrainka

Размещено на http://www.allbest.ru/

The incompleteness phenomenon in creative heritage of Lesya Ukrainka

S. H. Kachmarchyk, PhD in Pedagogical Sciences, Associate Professor, National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

L. O. SHANAIEVA-TSYMBAL, PhD in Public Administration, Associate Professor,

National University of Life and Environmental Sciences of Ukraine

Abstract

The different scientists' views on the artistic technique of incompleteness have been considered and systemized in the article. The term «non-finito» has been defined as an artistic technique used by the author to achieve a special (i.e., particular type) work expressiveness, in which individual details remain deliberately unfinished, look like the initial stage of development. The given phenomenon can be traced in Lesya Ukrainka's literary heritage. Special attention has been paid to the analysis of the writer's works, which has shown vaguely expressed ending. The research has determined the model (stereotype) of creative work, which is specific for Lesya Ukrainka's writing style.

Various works of Lesya Ukrainka, namely dramas have been examined in the article in order to substantiate the «incompleteness» concept as a peculiar type of author's type of thinking. The current research has investigated the phenomenon of art intentions in Lesya Ukrainka's dramatical works, which have been applied in a variety of finales. The authors have studied various artistic techniques of non-finito. It has been indicated in the article that the most revealing work of aesthetics and poetics of non-finito is drama "Autumn Tale" - the most mysterious and unusual Lesya Ukrainka's work. The drama is the brightest and most multifaceted embodiment of non -finito in writer's creative work. This drama has a reputation of «obscurity» and became an object of different scientific research.

Also, it has been noted that one of non-finito techniques in Lesya Ukrainka's works is so-called «truncation» of ending. It is used to both express and clarify the basic author's idea concept. Spe cial attention in the article has been paid to the phenomenon of artistic intention in Lesya Ukrainka's dramas, embodied in a number of extremities. It becomes a characteristic factor of the whole characters' behavior. lesya ukrainka dramatic non finito

Key words: incompleteness, inconsistency, openness, non-finito, ending, finale, truncation, intention, intentionality, new drama.

ФЕНОМЕН НЕЗАВЕРШЕНОСТІ В ТВОРЧІЙ СПАДЩИНІ ЛЕСІ УКРАЇНКИ

Introduction

The genesis of aesthetic thought testifies to the constant attention to the issue of indicators and criteria of work integrity. An important stimulus for their rethinking was modern art, which formed aesthetic patterns and models different from the canons of antiquity and classicism. Therefore, the numerous terms that characterize artistic integrity need to be clarified. In particular, this applies to the often-identified concepts of «incompleteness», «inconsistency», «openness» and «non-finito».

In the 1950^s and 1960^s of the XX century, a new paradigm called «non-finito» emerged in Western European aesthetics. This activates and excites the reader's imagination, increases the level of his/her co-creation in the process of aesthetic perception. The most vivid embodiment of the phenomenon of non-finito in Ukrainian modern literature is Lesya Ukrainka's heritage, that seriously undermined the literary achievements of the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries. A new European drama occupied a special place in her creative interests. Trying to assess the uniqueness of the search for playwrights, she could not help but paid attention to the formation of a new artistic thinking with a keen sense of non-finito.

Thus, the purpose of research is to identify and describe in details the variety of examples of artistic technique «non-finito» on the material of Lesya Ukrainka's works.

Methods

To solve these tasks the complex of methods is used: analysis, systematization, generalization of philosophical, psychological, educational, and methodical literature, as well as conceptual and comparative analyses.

Analysis of the latest studies and publications

In view of the fact that the interpretation of «non-finito» concept in specialized dictionaries is rather ambiguous, and this issue has not been comprehensively studied by modern scientists, it becomes necessary to more accurately outline the contours of this phenomenon.

Literary studies have a few approaches to the problem of incompleteness. О. Abramovskih interprets the concept of «inconsistency» and «incompleteness» in his works. «Inconsistency» is interpreted as a manifestation of the textual structure (which is called after technical and biographical reasons, as well as an artistic device), and «incompleteness» - as a special variant of the “architectonic form” of the whole, or the form of an aesthetic object [1, p. 10].

It is similar to the interpretation of «incompleteness» richly in what is embodied in the practice of U. Eco “Open work”, which describes the phenomenon of incompleteness of the culture as it is characteristic of the literary process of the XX century [3, p. 145].

At the same time, it is very important to distinguish between these rather related concepts, since in the work of an open plan the effect of incompleteness is consistent with the author's idea, which implies a different reading. The work of non-finito also has a high degree of openness, interpretive possibilities, but its form is primarily the result of author resistance, his or her helplessness, rejection of emerging ideological or aesthetic models. Due to the fact that there is another awareness of the work finale, we have an ending that is not brought to life.

Speaking about non-finito as an artistic technique, the main attention is put into the plot- compositional structure of the text, particularly, to the finale as a significant part of the formal structure [3].

O. Pirashvili in his work noted that a striking manifestation of non-finito was the era of modernism - the era of the destruction of aesthetic and ideological canons, when artists «seem to have lost the ability to finish their works» [5, p. 16].

Jeremy Angier, professor at the New York Academy of Arts in his article "The Process of Artistic Creation in the Terms of Non-finito" (2001), analyzing the specifics of Michelangelo's method, interpreted «non-finito» as a sign of artistic consciousness, or even destroyed many of them ... for fear that he might look imperfect [6].

At one time, Yurii Lotman spoke about this phenomenon, characterizing the specifics of creativity: «Being spatially limited, the work of art is a model of the boundless world» [4, p. 568].

Based on researchers' interpretations of non-finito phenomenon in art and literature, we suggest to consider «non-finito» as an artistic technique used by the author to achieve a special (i.e., special type) work expressiveness, in which individual details remain deliberately unfinished, look like the initial stage of development.

Results. The creative process of Lesya Ukrainka testifies to her dual nature. It is not only about the interaction of two creative principles. As a rule, we are talking about the alternation of the phases of the dominance of intuitive and unconscious, as well as their activity. We should talk about the notion of cyclicity, which is a characteristic feature of the creative way of Lesya Ukrainka. It is the cyclicity that helps to avoid the complete depletion of the idea by its implementation. The contradictory rational- irrational tendencies of Lesya Ukrainka's creative process influenced the process of modifying the dramatic genre of her texts, which are predominantly an example of an open form.

Due to the genre characteristic, most incomplete works are prosaic texts. In the 7^th volume of the twelve-volume edition of Lesya Ukrainka's heritage, 17 works are considered as incomplete. Chronologically, they are

concentrated in the 1990^s, when the writer was actively mastering drama. And a great number of open endings took place in 1906. It was a year of disappointment and apathy after the revolutions and led to the writer's interest in dream, illusion, fantasy and utopia. It is no coincidence that three fragments, dated 1906, are united by the utopian genre.

A diversity of unfinished ideas of prosaic works prove that the author could not fully realize her literary ability in this genre, although it attracted her. There are seven unfinished dramas in Lesya Ukrainka's heritage. The first of them dated back to 1900. Judging by the list of characters, the writer was preparing to write a drama about her own family life. One of the reasons for the work incompleteness may be a realistic populist tendency, which is not typical or distinctive for the author's dramaturgy. In the drama "Bazhai Family" biographical allusions are involuntarily read, which could have stopped the writer's work, who avoided the obvious work biography.

In the dramatic poem "In Dense Forest" the writer presents several versions of non-finito works, which have different reasons for nonfulfillment. Here, the act of creativity united both painful philosophical reflections on the purpose of art, and the struggle of intuitive and unconscious, and the unsuccessful opposition to the material resistance. Lesya Ukrainka's depth and psychological accuracy to incompleteness, give grounds to claim that this phenomenon was close not only to the subject of a particular work, it reveals the writer uniqueness of her creative heritage. Artistic interpretation and classification of non-finito is mostly detailed represented in the dramatic poem "In Dense Forest", on the example of a number of sculptor Richard Iron's incomplete works.

Something like a whirling around the finale is an immanent feature of Lesya Ukrainka's creative style. Even after pre paring the work before printing, she could return to the extremity and make it certain changes. An example of such modification is a dramatic poem "In the Catacombs". Working on editing work, the author first crossed out five lines, and later - the whole final part. Instead, she added a dwarf a limb imbued with fighting spirit [2].

The most revealing work of non-finito poetics and aesthetics is the drama "Autumn Tale". It is the most mysterious Lesya Ukrainka's work. The drama is unique and multifaceted embodiment of non-finito in writer's creative heritage. This drama has a reputation of «obscurity» and became an object of different scientific research. "Autumn Tale" is a kind of a formation of Lesya Ukrainka's psychological development. In general, it seems that the whole text of the fantasy drama was written spontaneously, but it is worth noting that Lesya Ukrainka was not negligent in her creativity. And probably she would have returned to the text after some time but the writer's death made it impossible to finish the "Autumn Tale".

In drama title, the genre definition of "fairy tale" orients the recipient to the hyperbolic wonder, although, in fact, it is dominated by exotic wonders, inherent in the aesthetics of the medieval knightly epic. Elements of fantasy, the desire to move forward, progress combine Lesya Ukrainka's "Autumn Tale" with Maurice Maeterlinck's "Blue Bird" extravaganza. Symbolist drama is a kind of denial of such a «new drama» as the «drama of ideas», it testifies to the fatigue of debates and interest in the mysteries of eternal passions. "Autumn Tale" is a plot work. However, this is compensated by the archetypal motive, which allows the reader to simulate a typical fairy-tale- knightly situation and observe how the author repeatedly violates its stereotypes.

Phantom heroes have a special significance in Lesya Ukrainka's drama, particularly in the "Autumn Tale". These are characters who are not available on the stage, but are still active and affect the vicissitudes. Such phantom characters are the dead Khadija in the dramatic dialogue "Aisha and Mohammed", «childhood friend» in the dramatic dialogue "Farewell", the image of the Messiah in the dramatic poem "In the Field of Blood", Tulia from the drama "Lawyer Martian" and so on. The phantom hero in the fantasy drama "Autumn Tale" is the King. Despite his absence, he is a plot focus and a concentrator in the creation of artistic conflict. His emotionally generalized image acquires signs of transcendence. The protest against him can be equal to the protest against the world, which corresponds to open drama format. Like the Phantom of the King, the fragmentary image of the Clown implements the principles of non-finito on a personal level.

Special attention in the work is paid to the issue of artistic time and place of the "Autumn Tale". The action irregularity, heterogeneity and cyclicity of the temporal structure of the work are revealed. The topos of the "Autumn Tale" is considered in two sections: horizontal and vertical. The horizontal section is the area of darkness, dirt, and blood. The vertical section is formed by a crystal mountain, which is the central metaphorical rod of the drama work.

It was significant for Lesya Ukrainka in the ending to preserve the development potential, not to close it completely. A peculiar whirl around the finale is an immanent feature of the writer's creative style, as evidenced, for example, by the dramatic poem "In the Catacombs". One of the non-finito techniques in Lesya Ukrainka's work is the so-called ending truncation. It is used to express, crystallize the basic concept of the author's idea. An example of a Lesya Ukrainka's «truncated» work is the dramatic poem "Cassandra", where «truncation» makes it impossible to unambiguously interpret both the drama ending and the general idea. The author deliberately refuses the final part of the work (epilogue), but in general the integrity of work is not affected by this decision.

An example of the «truncation» technique use can be the dramatic poem "In the field of blood", where a minus technique is used at the compositional level, which allows to radically change the work concept and which is considered in the context of other non-finito means. The reason for reforming the original, more extensive version of the work was a change in the writer's idea. The rejection of work significant part can be interpreted as a mechanism of transformation of closed text into open, complete - into incomplete. However, it should be noted that the dramatic poem "In the Field of Blood" is materialized as a non-finito not at the work ending. The ending is the place of this phenomenon concentration.

Another type of completion of Lesya Ukrainka's dramas due to O. Visych are endings-intentions, embodied, in particular, through the use of imperfective verbs of the future tense, which often carry the semantics of movement: «I will follow her» ("Blue Rose"), «I will follow freedom against slavery» ("In the Catacombs") [2, p. 12].

Generally, Lesya Ukrainka's dramas can be divided into those that finish with the collapse of intentions or with their probable prospect realization. Thus, the drama of intentions, realized on the semantic, lexical, grammatical, personal and structural levels, is a characteristic genre form of Lesya Ukrainka's drama and is a specific non-finito factor.

Discussion

So, summing up the phenomenon of non-finito, we can say that its characteristic features depend on many factors, namely: time, place of creation of works, aesthetic ideas of the era, a particular culture. When we talk about the manifestations of incompleteness effect, we mean the principle of artistic thinking, which is always present in the history of literature and art. The reception of non-finito changes along with the aesthetic ideas of the era. Lesya Ukrainka's literary finito, which was typical for many significant modernist writers. In the modifying process of artistic thinking at the end of a century non-finito occupies an important place along with other features of modernism. Therefore, it is expedient to define the author's tendency to non-finito in the paradigm of modernism among those features that are now considered ingrained in literature.

Список використаних джерел

1. Абрамовских Е. Креативная рецепция

незаконченных произведений как

литературоведческая проблема (на материале дописываний незаконченных отрывков

А. С. Пушкина). Автореф. дис. ... доктора філол. наук. Москва : 2007. 45 с.

2. Вісич О. Нон-фініто у драматургії Лесі Українки. Слово і час. 2012. No 2. С. 9-15.

3. Еко У. Роль читача. Дослідження з семіотики текстів. Львів : 2004. 384 с.

4. Лотман Ю. Семиосфера. Санкт-Петербург : 2004. 704 с.

5. Пиралишвили О. Проблемы «нон- финито» в искусстве. Тбилиси : 1982. 246 с.

6. Angier J. The Process of Artistic Creation in Terms of Non-finito. [Електронний ресурс]. New-York. 2001. Режим доступу до статті: http://www.machinegraphics.com/writings/non- finito/non-finito.html.

References

1. Abramovskih, E. (2007). Kreativnaia heritage is an example of artistic realization of non-

retseptsiia nezakonchenyh proizvedenii kak literaturovedcheskaia problema (na materiale

dopisyvanii nezakonchenyh otryvkov

A. S. Pushkina). [Creative reception of unfinished

works as a literary problem (on the material of additions to unfinished excerpts by A. S. Pushkin)]. Avtoref. dis. ... doktora filol. nauk. Moscow, 45 p.

2. Visych, O. (2012). Non-finito u dramaturhii Lesi Ukrainky. [Non- finito in the drama of Lesia Ukrainka]. Word and time. Kyiv, 2, pp. 9-15.

3. Eko, U. (2004). Rol chytacha. Doslidzhennia z semiotyky tekstiv [The role of the reader. Research on the semiotics of texts]. Lviv, 384 p.

4. Lotman, Yu. (2004). Semyosfera [Semiosphere]. St. Petersburg, 704 p.

5. Piralishvili, O. (1982). Problemy "non- finito" v iskustve [Problems of "non-finito" in art]. Tbilisi, 246 p.

6. Angier, J. (2001). The Process of Artistic Creation in Terms of the Non-finito. URL: http://www.machinegraphics.com/writings/non- finito/non-finito

Размещено на Allbest.ru