ARTISTIC PRODUCTION OF THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE ZHYTOMYR PROSE SCHOOL: FEATURES OF LITERARY THANATOLOGY

Abstract

The article characterizes a special literary thanatology in the work of writers, representatives of the Zhytomyr Prose School, Valery Shevchuk, Volodymyr Danylenko, and Hennady Shklyar. It is noted that these motifs acquire artistic expressiveness in modern Ukrainian literature in the context of the functioning of neo-baroque trends, in the process of rethinking and creative interpretation of baroque plots and images. Thanatological motifs in the work of representatives of the Zhytomyr Prose School are connected with the focus on Ukrainian literary classics. The authors demonstrate their own approach to the representation of thanatological motifs: in V. Shevchuk, they perform a plot-generating and ideological-aesthetic function, he characterizes death in a metaphysical sense, connecting it with the spiritual search of man, to realize the meaning of his existence. In the prose of V. Danylenko, thanatological motifs function in a relationship with the image of a woman-death, partly connected with the cultural context, with the personal drama of the hero, his spiritual quest. In the stories of H. Shklyar, thanatological motifs perform a plot-ending function, the hero's death has a social character, is connected with social cataclysms, and is inscribed in cause-and-effect relationships. It was concluded that the artistic thanatology in the works of these artists is a unique phenomenon and a literary experiment in understanding and understanding the phenomenon of the departure of a person into the world. Individual stories of dying, existence in the afterlife have a philosophical and religious basis for the mentioned writers. They are connected with orientation towards national classics, renewal of neo-baroque, neo-classical, neo-naturalistic traditions of the art of speech. Representatives of the Zhytomyr Prose School revealed creative originality – literary, philosophical, psychological, character creation – in the artistic assimilation and «literature» of thanatological motifs and structures.