LITERARY RECONSTRUCTION AS A DIALOGUE OF THE PAST AND PRESENT IN THE NOVEL “THE GOLDFINCH” BY D. TARTT

Abstract

Modern American novel appears to be a type of novelistic prose, in which with the help of specific literary approach from the standpoint of conscious historicism the events with a real historical basis are recreated and discussed in the light of historical perspective. This idea is practically embodied in the novel "The Goldfinch" by D. Tartt, whose author experiments with the genre features of the novel, constructing within its boundaries her own modification using the method of reconstruction. The novel "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt has fragmented structure and numerous elements of the plot that resonate, reflecting each other and at the same time imitating the literary models of novels by Charles Dickens, Fyodor Dostoevsky and Joanne Rowling. Engaging in a dialogue with predecessors through the deliberate use of literary techniques, creating the effects of intertextuality (borrowing and recycling of themes, explicit and implicit quotations, translations, plagiarism, allusion, paraphrase, imitation, parody, dramatization, the use of epigraphs, reminiscence), D. Tartt rewrites the authors’ life-style models and literary traditions according to her own worldview, preserving the most important and instantly recognizable in the prose if each artist. Here it is expedient to speak of the hermeneutical aspect of reconstruction, which seeks to reproduce the true meaning of the realities of the past and the present, by reproducing the situation of their occurrence. By introduction into the contemporary discourse certain elements and ideas of the previous cultures, a kind of dialogue space between the past and the present is created. Thus, the modern American novel attempts to revive some of the former literary codes, as well as to rework some of the artistic conventions of the past. The balance of historical perspective, the equilibrium of the past and the present in the new novel is achieved through the organic synthesis of contemporary postmodern and traditional realist strategies.
Key words: literary reconstruction, dialogue, intertextuality, literary code, historical perspective.