PROBLEMS OF RELATIONS BETWEEN LITERATURE AND OTHER ARTS IN THE CONTEXT OF INTERMEDIALITY (Research Experience of the Department of World Literature and Culture of the Perm State University)

Abstract

The article elaborates on the problem of interrelations between literature and other arts in the context of intermediality. It provides an overview of the research experience of the Department of World Literature and Culture of the PSU, and distinguishes two stages in the formation of the school of thought. In the 1990s, in the PSU several literary directions with different approaches to the study of interrelationships among arts were formed: “typological similarities” of literature and painting (N. V. Gasheva); literature and art in the symbolic space of culture (V. V. Abashev); images of visual art works in literature, or ekphrasis (N. S. Bochkareva) as “verbal representation of visual representation” (J. Heffernan) and “reproduction of one kind of art by means of other arts” (L. Geller). At the moment, at the Department of World Literature and Culture the problems of intermedial techniques are addressed from the perspective of historical poetics with the account of their functions in the stylistic harmony of a literary work. The results of the investigations are reflected in research projects, theses, reports at the annual International conferences “Foreign Languages and Literatures in the Context of Culture” (2009–2017), articles in the scientific journal “World Literature in the Context of Culture” and others. The range of problems of intermedial investigations by Perm researchers is focused on such debatable aspects as architectural and musical ekphrasis, photo-ekphrasis and poetics of cinema, transposition of ekphrasis from literature to cinematography, etc. There are attempts to explore the “novel about the picture” and ekphrasis novel based on the materials of different national literatures (English, Spanish, and others). As a result of intermedial analysis of German poetry and music, it has been revealed that translation into another national language influences the manner of performing musical-poetic works. At the Department, the Laboratory for Comparative Historical Research and Cultural Innovation has been established, which serves as a base for the library of intermedial researches and materials.