The Genre Model of the Ballad: On the Statement of the Problem

The article raises the problem of the genre model of the literary ballad, i.e. its structural features that provide genre recognition and are constant irrespectively of specific authorial interpretations. Such levels of poetics as the specificity of eventfulness, peculiarities of the character structure and strategies of the character's interaction with the world order are considered as structural components of the genre. The basis of the proposed genre typology is the peculiarities of communication in the dialogue-role triangle. The most prominent 19th-century literary ballads by V.A. Zhukovsky, P.A. Katenin, M.Yu. Lermontov and N.A. Nekrasov are used as the material of the research. Modern ballads by V.F. Khodasevich, A.T. Tvardovsky and I.A. Brodsky are also involved. In addition, in the article, the author analyzes samples of the genres related to the ballad (lyric verse, idyll, romantic poem, fairy tale, riddle, elegy and literary romance). The theoretical basis of the research includes works by O.M. Freidenberg on the poetics of plot and genre, by V.Ya. Propp, Yu.M. Lotman and I.P. Smirnov on the structure of folklore and literary texts, by the team of researchers from the Russian State University for the Humanities on the historical poetics of genres, and others. In the course of the research, a number of structural features of the Russian literary ballad were defined and substantiated: integrity and singleness of the event, priority of the spatial over the temporal, dual optics of the event perception, triplicity of the character structure: world order - “mobile” character - “immobile” character. The key ballad event, as is shown in the article, is the meeting of characters who belong to the opposite sides of the world order so that the “mobile” character strives to return to his area taking something with him (a fiancee, a child, a killer, a beaker, an olive branch, etc.). The next problem that is formulated and partly solved in the article is ballad typology. As is shown, the authorial interpretations of the genre by V.A. Zhukovsky and P.A. Katenin contain the above named signs and therefore cannot be considered different types of genres. The author proposes to take communicative strategies inside the ballad dialogue-role triangle as a criterion for classification. Thus, three types of the ballad hero are pointed out: divergent-identifying, disintegrated (tragic) and identifying oneself with integrity (epic). The dominant in each of the communicative types of the ballad is one of the generic essences of this syncretic genre: lyrical, dramatic and epic. In the first type, the subjectivity of the character goes beyond its role boundaries; in the second, the individualism of the character is shown in an insoluble contradiction with the world; in the third, the character subordinates himself to the values of the community he belongs to.

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