The "encyclopedic" Byron and his readers: Research methods and forms of arranging the material

The author proposes to evaluate the stylistic features of an encyclopedic article about a writer based on the results of a comparative analysis and the conditions of web communication. An analysis of various (available on the Internet) encyclopedic articles about Byron allows the author to make a general observation: as a rule, an encyclopedic article about a writer (including those intended for online encyclopedias) to one degree or another implements the stylistic features of the scientific and popular science genre. Of particular interest in this regard is the fact that in various articles of different times and from different language segments (Russian and English), research methodology is clearly expressed and, at the same time, accuracy, conciseness, and objectivity of presenting information are emotionally loaded due to some evaluativeness and figurative speech. Apparently, this is explained by the specifics of the material: the need to talk about the writer and his works. For the analysis, "open access" articles were selected, that is, those that can be found on a search platform and read by any Russian user (including students): (1) articles in Russian, mainly representing electronic versions of printed articles. They reflect the evolution of Russian literary criticism over the course of a century, from the 1920s to the 2010s; (2) 2 English-language articles of different publication times: the first was written in the second half of the 20th century for the English encyclopedia Britannica and published online in 1998 (edits are still being made to the way it is presented on the Internet). Its authorship belongs to Leslie Marchand, the compiler of the most authoritative English biography book about the life and work of Byron (1957). The second article is closer to the present moment and was compiled by Andrew M. Stauffer, an American researcher, professor at the University of Virginia, for the printed 3-volume Encyclopedia of Romantic Literature (2012). Based on the material of these articles, it was argued that encyclopedic (including online) articles about a writer show a tendency to combine strict academicism with such signs of the popular science genre as (restrained) emotionality and imagery. The logic of the selection of research methods for writing articles about Byron, traced in diachrony, showed that "academicity" in the case of an encyclopedic article about a writer is closely related to the choice of research methodology, while methods in literature studies are deeply rooted in the ideas of its time, and is therefore often ideological. In addition, the only (analysed) encyclopedic online article about Byron exhibits features characteristic of online publications: graphical arrangements of sections, visualization of information, interactivity in the presentation of material. The following general conclusion was made: in order to carry out successful and long-lasting communication in the modern web space, it is important for an encyclopedic online article about a writer to be focused on information visualization, graphic structure and interactivity, and also, distancing itself from ideology, to be based on the comparative method to a greater extent than on the biographical and cultural ones, while leaving aside the methods of vulgar biographism, sociology and postcolonialism. The author declares no conflicts of interests.

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