NONFICTIONAL LITERATURE: NATURE, TYPOLOGY, TERMINOLOGY
Abstract
The article is devoted to the reviewing of theoretical aspects of nonfiction literature. Similar in semantic content, but not identical terms as nonfictional literature, nonfictional writing, literature of fact, factography, fiction-documentary literature, fiction-documentary prose, fiction-documentary writing, literary nonfiction, literature of non-fiction, nonfictional prose, factual narrative, which have become commonly used in American, Spanish, Ukrainian, French, Slavic terminology, are analyzed. All these terms refer to a set of texts written on the basis of real events without the use of fiction. Typical features of this type of literature are the synthesis of documentary components and fiction, veracity, factuality, authenticity, objectivity, the use of real names, dates and geographical indications. At the same time, the reflection of real events and their participants is presented through the prism of the author’s self, and therefore subjectivity, personal
component, merging of images of the author and the narrator are added to the leading features of nonfiction literature.
The article focuses on the main structural and typological branches of nonfiction literature – historical nonfiction, literary biography, fictional journalism and memoirs. In compiling this classification, the main object of the non-fiction narrative was taken into account in the first place; sources of documentary information; varieties of author's presence in the text (in particular, as an outside observer, witness or main character); subjective factor of personal participation in the events described in the work, or personal acquaintance with the direct participants in the events; genre-typological characteristics of nonfictional works. The article highlights the main typological characteristics of each type of non-fiction, analyzes their genre system, presents the characteristics of varieties and subvarieties.
Particular attention is paid to the analysis of memoirs, which is a complex and multilevel type of non-fiction, which, in turn, consists of several subvarieties – the memoirs, the autobiography, the diary, the epistolary. The article differentiates the subvarieties of memoir literature, considers options for the synthesis of its types and forms.
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