Features of ultimately reflexive prison literature texts

Abstract

The study examines the most relevant criteria for delimiting the ultimately reflexive prison literature texts. The study of such works is of interest not only from the standpoint of genre studies, but also within cognitive and hermeneutic framework. The reflective space of the considered literary works created under the conditions of a normative-value crisis, a marginal value-orientation system is developed, formed and dominates. It conveys the prevalence of a specific interpretation component as regards the universal criteria of freedom, spirituality, with the elimination of the existential “responsibility”. The main criterion indicators of the work belonging to the ultimately reflective texts of the memoir-autobiographical genre of prison prose can be considered: absurdization of the “beyond” sensual experience; adherence to the principles of “new prose”; primacy of emotional-psychological sphere explication; historical authenticity (documentary character) within the autobiographical narrative. Based on the analysis of the key concepts of the research, the thematic dominants implemented in the conceptualized concepts of WAY, HELL, CREATOR were specified as the additional ones. Moreover, the ultimate reflection serves as the metastructure of the prison prose narrative, which combines the components of the author’s, general prison and general linguocultural conceptual-value system.

Keywords

• prison literature
• criteria features
• actualization
• dissected “i”
• diegetic narrator
• ultimate reflexivity
• linguistic-cognitive mechanisms