THE PROBLEM OF GENRE CLASSIFICATION OF POSTMODERN PROSE FROM AN INTERTEXTUAL PERSPECTIVE (EXAMPLIFIED THROUGH THE WORKS OF VÍŤAZOSLAV HRONEC)

Abstract

This paper analizes the problem of genre definition of postmodern proze using the example of the proze book The Lord of Air and the King’s Son by Víťazoslav Hronec. Two groups of factors are observed, those that enable genre consistency and those that destabilize it. The main factor of genre destabilization in Hronec’s works is intertextuality precisely because it, via the use of selfquotes, creates a consistency. The multifunctionality of intertext in Hronec’s work not only dissolves the boundaries of genre but also those of literary types. The book The Lord of Air and the King’s Son represents a paradoxically rounded whole but is also a segment of a mozaic made up of three prose books as well as the complete poetry of Víťazoslav Hronec. Included in this are journal entries of Hronec’s character Vladimír Lutrov. Due to intertextuality and self-quotation the entire work of V. Hronec, including that of the late modernist period, is defined according to principles of postmodern geneological theory.