Russian Linguistic Bulletin (Jun 2020)
ON THE LIMITS OF THE GENRE: J. K. BANGS AND HIS COMIC GHOST STORIES
Abstract
Defining ghost story as a genre is a complex task. Among other aspects, it is still far from clear what the role of comic ghost stories within the genre is – and where lies the boundary between parodies and texts which are comic but still belong to the genre itself. For example, ghost stories by the American author J. K. Bangs are mostly parodies lying outside the genre’s limits for in them he consciously and consistently violates the genre’s structure and epistemological premises. Partly this is how an American writer reacts at European tradition, but Bangs is clearly too much interested in the genre to write mere parodies, and his books of ghost stories are complex reflections on it. They can be seen as an interesting evidence of how ghost story was perceived in the era when it was highly popular but was also undergoing certain complex transformations.
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