The Phenomenon of Game in Literature: Theoretical Approaches and Aesthetic Aspects
Abstract
The phenomenon of game as an interdisciplinary concept is gaining increasing relevance in the humanities, particularly in literary studies. Contemporary literature actively employs game strategies that expand the boundaries of artistic thinking and text interpretation. Despite growing attention to this issue, the specificity of play manifestation within the structure of a literary work remains insufficiently investigated. This determines the need for a comprehensive understanding of game as a universal form of creativity capable of integrating philosophical, aesthetic, and cultural dimensions.
The purpose of the article is to investigate the phenomenon of game as an aesthetic category and a mode of artistic thinking in literature, particularly to identify its forms, functions, and types in the context of the development of the art of writing.
To achieve this goal, comparative and descriptive methods were applied, which made it possible to trace the evolution of game forms in literature, define their structural and semantic features, and outline the interaction between author and reader within the framework of game communication.
The study reveals that game in literature is a multi-level model of artistic thinking encompassing both the form and the content of a work. Two main types of game are distinguished: 1) game that imitates serious activity (the realistic, mimetic type), and 2) game as a goal of itself, realized through metafiction that blurs the traditional boundaries between fiction and reality. The investigation shows that literary game serves as an instrument of creative freedom, a form of authorial self-irony, and a means of involving the reader in co-creation.
Game is a universal category that enables the artistic process to be comprehended as a dynamic and creative interaction between the author, the text and the reader. Literary game contributes to the renewal of forms and meanings, ensures the dialogic nature of art, and emphasizes its openness to multiple interpretations. It functions not only as a means of artistic expression but also as a way of understanding the world and achieving artistic self-realization.
The article systematizes the principal approaches to the interpretation of the phenomenon of game in literary studies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, outlines the typological models of ludic strategies, and identifies the main trends in contemporary research.
Downloads
References
Vatazhko, E. (2021). Poniattia «metatekstualnist» i «metaopovid» u literaturoznavchomu dyskursi [The Concepts of “Metatextuality” and “Metanarrative” in Literary Discourse]. Slovo i Chas, 2, 100-109. https://doi.org/10.33608/0236-1477.2021.02.100-109 [In Ukrainian].
Zhygun, S. V. (2009). Hra yak khudozhnii pryiom v epichnomu teksti (na materiali prozy ukrainskykh pysmennykiv 10–20-kh rokiv XX st.) [Game as an Artistic Device in the Epic Text (Based on the Prose of Ukrainian Writers of the 1910s–1920s)]: Abstract of the Dissertation for the Degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences, Specialty 10.01.06. Kyiv. [In Ukrainian].
Lysenko, N. Ye. (2019). Svitotvirnyi potentsial movnoi hry u suchasnii frantsuzkii postmodernistskii prozi maloi formy (na materiali opovidan Bernara Verbera) [The World-Building Potential of Language Game in Contemporary French Postmodernist Short Prose (Based on the Short Stories of Bernard Werber)]. Naukovyi visnyk Mizhnarodnoho humanitarnoho universytetu. Ser.: Filolohiia, 42(2), 72–75. https://doi.org/10.32841/2409-1154.2019.42.2.18 [In Ukrainian].
Lysty temnykh liudei [Letters of Obscure Men]. (1987). Kyiv: Dnipro. [In Ukrainian].
Nitsshe, F. (2020). Vesela nauka. [The Gay Science]. Kharkiv: Folio. [In Ukrainian].
Pieshkova, O. H. (2016). Movna hra ta umovy yii realizatsii v naukovomu dyskursi [Language Game and the Conditions of Its Realization in Scientific Discourse]. Visnyk KhNU imeni V. N. Karazina. Seriia: Inozemna filolohiia. Metodyka vykladannia inozemnykh mov, 84, 77–83. [In Ukrainian].
Rable, F. (2004). Gargantiua ta Pantagriuel: u 2-okh tomakh. Pereklad z frantsuzkoi: Anatol Perepadia [Gargantua and Pantagruel: In Two Volumes. Translated from French by Anatol Perepadia]. Lviv: Kalvaria. [In Ukrainian].
Savina, A. Yu. (2021). Poniattia "metaliteratura" u teoretyko-literaturnomu dyskursi [The Concept of “Metaliterature” in Theoretical and Literary Discourse]. Vcheni zapysky Tavriiskoho natsionalnoho universytetu imeni V. I. Vernadskoho, 32(71), 186–192. https://doi.org/10.32838/2710-4656/2021.3-2/31 [In Ukrainian].
Servantes, M. (2017). Premudryi Hidalho Don Kikhot z Lamanchi (u 2-okh chastynakh) [The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (in Two Parts)]. Kharkiv: Folio. [In Ukrainian].
Franko, I. Ya. (1977). Zibrannia tvoriv u 50-y tomakh [Collected Works in 50 Volumes]. Kyiv: Naukova Dumka, 8, 279–288. [In Ukrainian].
Collins, J. (2016). Uncommon Cultures: Popular Culture and Post-Modernism. Taylor & Francis Group. [In English].
Hutcheon, L. (1989). Historiographic Metafiction: Parody and the Intertextuality of History. Intertextuality and Contemporary American Fiction / Ed. O’Donnell and Robert Con Davis. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 3–32. [In English].
Hutcheon L. (1984) Narcissistic Narrative: The metafictional paradox. London: Routledge. [In English].
Josipovici, G. (1979). The World and the Book. A Study of Modern Fiction. Houndmills: Macmillan. [In English].
Lodge, D. (1986). The novelist at the crossroads: and other essays on fiction and criticism. London: Ark. [In English].
Teismann, M. W., Weber, L. A. (2020). Playful Spirit. Exploring the Theology, Philosophy, and Psychology of Play. Lexington Books. [In English].
