Communication-oriented approach to media and genre blending in a sample of Early Modern English poetry
Communication-oriented approach to media and genre blending in a sample of Early Modern English poetry

Summary/Abstract: The article uses an interdisciplinary approach to selected early modern poems of John Donne and aims to delineate the research area which still awaits systematic exploration. The textual analysis of his elegy: The Comparison, operating within the communicationoriented theory of genre blending, leads to the detection of its multigeneric and dialogic patterns. It reveals the intricate manner in which features and functions of various literary and non-literary forms are intertwined and harmonized in one poem. It is also argued that Donne’s elegy derives its imagery from an experimental trend toward caricatures (grotesquery) followed by the 15th/16th-century portraitists and genre painters. The general conclusion is that Donne utilizes various, then available, communication channels to ensure intermediality of his message and that his concept presupposes certain cognitive and creative processes on the addressee’s side.

• Details
• Contents