CANONICAL ADVENTURES OF A POPULAR GENRE. AESTHETIC REVISITING OF MELODRAMA WITH O. PAMUK AND J. BARNES
CANONICAL ADVENTURES OF A POPULAR GENRE. AESTHETIC REVISITING OF MELODRAMA WITH O. PAMUK AND J. BARNES
Author(s): Oana Fotache DubălaruSubject(s): Language and Literature Studies
Published by: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai
Keywords: melodrama; canon; literary history; genre; popular; aesthetic; Orhan Pamuk; Julian Barnes.
Summary/Abstract: Canonical Adventures of a Popular Genre. Aesthetic Revisiting of Melodrama with O. Pamuk and J. Barnes. This paper analyzes the reframing of a popular genre, melodrama, in the novels of two already canonical postmodernist writers: Orhan Pamuk and Julian Barnes. Their quite recent novels, The Museum of Innocence (2008) and, respectively, The Sense of an Ending (2011) draw on the features and techniques of melodrama (the use of love triangles, suspense, the trespassing of social boundaries and norms, etc.), while at the same time employing refined intertextual readings of Flaubert and Proust. Thus melodrama proves its dynamism and metamorphic qualities by transgressing the borders of genre and medium, as well as the division between “high” and “low” culture.
Journal: Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai - Philologia
- Issue Year: 61/2016
- Issue No: 1
- Page Range: 29-37
- Page Count: 9
- Language: English