Charles Perrault’s tale and its English modernist variant. Angela Carter as representative of middleliterature phenomenon

Abstract

The article aims at identifying the specificity of Angela Carter’s writings and their place in the world literary process. The writer’s work is considered from the point of Chuprinin’s theory of three main literature levels. Since the English short-story writer projects classic heritage on the instantaneous trends, it is being proved that according to this classification, the writer represents the phenomenon of “middle-literature”. Hence, the acquisition and the usage of mythological elements take place. Consequently, the evolution of mythological images and motives of Charles Perrault’s tale is discussed. The projection of myth on the writer’s text and the archetypal and symbolic content of the tale are dwelled upon in the realm of magic realism. The emphasis is laid on the “Great Mother” archetype which stands as an important element of Angela Carter’s modernist short story. The images of the old tale are analyzed from the point of Ferdinand de Saussure’s theory. Thus, using Roland Barthes’s mythopoeic scheme of analysis we treat and analyze myth as a sign. It is this mergence of “the everlasting” classic tradition and the ephemeral that makes up the specificity of Angela Carter’s creative method.

Keywords

• міф
• архетип
• знак
• магічний реалізм
• мідл-література