The following article discusses one of the most well-known literary works of the 20th century — a novel the «Process» by Austrian writer Franz Kafka. Released after the death of the author, the book constantly attracts attention, the reason for which is the plurality of meanings, which can be found in the text canvas of the novel. For almost a century from the time of publication, the world of literary critics has produced several basic variations of the «Process» interpretation. The premise is that this novel is the metaphor for human life of modern times, where human been is a dispensable toy in the hands of superhuman (albeit self-created) institutions. Instead, this article attempts to introduce another possible interpretation of the «Process», in order to emphasize the final sentence of the book. It looks like this: «But on the throat of K. have already laid hands of one virtue, while the second deeply fenced the knife in his heart and twisted it around there. «It’s like a dog!» K outraged, the shame, it seemed, had to survive and him». Probably, this is a key to understanding the «Process» — the novel about memory and the consequences of its loss. Josef K. committed the crime (for example, confirms that throughout the whole work he does not deny the charge), the problem is that he forgot about the sin committed, and failed to remember everything. Therefore, his death is shameful: memory is part of consciousness, and the latter is the only thing that distinguishes people from animals; the only thing that actually makes us human beings. He who has lost his memory, as if he ceases to be a person, transforming himself into an animal or even an insect. So, in the world of literary studies, three main interpretations of the «Process» have been established: they are reduced to one line — the lyrical hero became a victim of the unfair world. Instead, we proposed a fourth version of the interpretation according to which the entire development of Franz Kafka’s story line is an interpretation of the biblical history of the Fall of Man plus the associated complex of fault.

This article is dedicated to the study of objects of ridicule in the work of the German writer Dieter Nuhr «Das Geheimnis des perfekten Tages», who is a modern writer-humorist; he was awarded several literary awards. The functional orientation of his humor has a wide range: from common everyday unpretentious jokes to multidimensional ironic constructions with a subtext that is understandable only to those who are well versed in German cultural and historical discourse. He is keenly interested in questions of not only German reality, but also international problems. Making fun of the shortcomings of individuals and communities, he tries to help them overcome these shortcomings, and thereby contributes to the overall development of progress and to the positive evolution of all of humanity. Excerpts containing a comic effect were selected and analyzed as research material. The table gives an explanation for each example selected from the text, and also determines the number of objects over which the author of the work is ironic. Exploring the direction of ridiculing Dieter Nuhr, it is safe to say that his texts are dominated by self-irony. He snipes at himself as data typical representative of the German mentality, Dieter Nuhr shows to us such human flaws as laziness, stupidity, weakness, and lack of punctuality.The author also places in question the absoluteness of such philosophical concepts as good and evil and demonstrates their relativity in human life. Dieter Nuhr does not give us the answers to these questions, but makes us think about the essence of the antonymic concepts of «good and evil.» It is worth noting that the study and adequate understanding of humor requires not only linguistic knowledge, but also knowledge of linguacultural concepts, the presence of a certain linguistic erudition.

In the article features of functioning of the funeral genre in the works of the poets-sixtiers: I. Zhylenko, M. Vyngranovsky, V. Symonenko, I. Drach, S. Yovenko, V. Korotych are analyzed in the poems, which can be thematically or structurally related to existing genres of feral poetry. Different genre signs that appear in selected poetry as genres markers. The analysis of the fringe poetry of the 1960s makes it possible to conclude that the phenomenal genres have transformed over time, acquired new features, but generally retained traditional features. The study of such issues is important not so much for the knowledge of the work of an individual writer or even a certain national literature, but also to clarify the relevant aspects of the global process of a particular cultural-historical period.The permanent thematic dominant of the feral poetry of the Sixties is the comparison of death and life.In the twentieth century the crisis of the genre «literary» and «real» epitaph, previously delimited begin to exist separately. Description of the future location of the deceased does not conflict with the earthly life.The composition of the poetry «On the death of the witches of Zhigun» I. Zhylenko is traditional: at first — an introduction (exordium) containing the reflection on the dependence of human life on God’s will and requesting God, and then — narratio — a short praise of the acts of the deceased humorous notes, description of the amount of relatives for the deceased. Finally, the ending (conclusio) with the wish-hope of so-called eternal bliss.Formal signs of the epitaph I. Zhylenko: 1) type of narrative, as a form of utterance: dead with relatives or passers-by, close to the deceased, close to the deceased; 2) clear delineation of the dominant theme of death, the final stage of life; 3) focus on epigraphy and conciseness.Cycle epitaphs «Journey on a cemetery» V. Symonenko noted concise imagery and expression, humorous, devoid of event canvas. The emphasis is on the negative rice that reached in the title, for which the hero after death receives adequate «compensation». To enhance the humorous effect, V. Symonenko uses expressive and evaluative meanings of spoken language means.Trunks were popular in ancient literature. Tren can be written not only about someone’s death, but also about the destruction of cities, states fall or other events that cause sadness, mourning. By this kind can be attributed poem «Farewell Fedor Kravchuk, grooms collective, with the old hut» V. Symonenko. The poet created a mournful poetry about leaving the old house.In the works of the poets of the sixties, widespread was the so-called memorial poetry, that is, the poems were created in the memory of a loved one, for example, «Our Vasyl goes on the longest road in the world...» by M. Vingranovsky. Memorial portrait of Symonenko depicted in the poem entitled inherent incompleteness, fragmentation and eskiznist. The author presents a portrait of inanimate V. Symonenko. Available as external (portrait elements), indication of age, clothing, and characteristics by type of occupation.Folk poetry is not overlooked by the locus of the cemetery.The dominant motive of V. Korotych’s memorial poetry is the motive for the mortality of people and the eternity of their actions.Funeral poetry is characterized by the elements of portraiture.

In the article the genre-style features of M. Kostomarov’s prose are defined, the influence of European and national traditions on the formation of the style of the artist is determined, the author’s innovative role in starting the literary genre of dystopia is determined.M. Kostomarov’s prose — is an the original phenomenon of literature of the nineteenth century, which is a peculiar synthesis of journalism, folklore, ethnography. Among them are the stories «Kudeyar», «Son», «Forty years», «Kholui», «Chernigovka», «Scots revolt», «Adventures on death», «Sick», «Faina», «Olhovniak», «Illegal births «,» Taynovidets «. Genius pluralism of M. Kostomarov’s prose is determined primarily by the ideological and aesthetic platform of romanticism. Under the influence of romanticism, the writer determines his prose works: the story «Kudeyar» is defined as a historical chronicle, the story «Forty years» is called folk Ukrainian legend, the story «Cholly» — an episode in the historical and everyday life of the era, the story «Chernigovka» — a household story, a story «Son» is called a story. Kostomarov bases his tales on a variety of sources: legends, verbal tales, life stories, materials of litigation. Here he details and scrupulously reproduces the color of the epochs of the XVI–XVIII centuries. Documentation, focus on historical facts is dominant in the genre structure of the writer’s prose. In the stories of Kostomarov, the historical truth is closely connected with the artistic, artistic peculiarity intertwined with the historical fact, the true historical persons function with fictional characters.In the prose of the writer, every historical epoch is represented by the relation of life and artistic truth. According to his genre-style features, Kostomarov’s prose combines both national and European traditions. In the genre aspect, it absorbs traditions of the Walter-Scottish type of historical novel, elements of Gothic prose. Today his works are never more relevant than ever, and they deserve a proper assessment of contemporaries.

The article suggests that the modern German literature at the turn of XXth and XXIst centuries should be viewed as the literature of transitional type. The object the present research focuses on is the literature genre system in 1990s — 2000s, in particular the «Wenderoman», the «Pop-Roman» and the «Generationenroman». The research pursues the aim to reveal, and to comment on, peculiar features found in literary genre transformations of the latest decades. Several factors provided the basis for studying the newest German literature in the context of transition: 1) cardinal political, socio-economic and conceptual transformations brought about by the 1989–1990 Wende events; 2) the fluctuating character of modern literature; 3) vector diversity in artistic and aesthetic searches, swift replacement of styles and the dialogue among different generations of writers. In the course of researching the following conclusions have been made. All genres manifest different attitudes to history. Both the «Wenderoman» and the «Generationenroman» address the past and give it new interpretation from a modern point of view, whereas the «Pop-Roman» demonstrates complete absence of interest in German history. An attempt to determine the genres makes it clear that in one case there prevail the criteria of the subject and problems content (the «Wenderoman» and the «Generationenroman»), and in the other, the criteria of formal stylistics («Pop-Roman»). Besides, one observes vagueness of genre definitions and a tendency to broaden interpretation of the notions. The Transition period genres demonstrate that they are explicit and open for interaction with other genres and forms of art. Some more features of the turn-of-the-centuries genres are that they are sensitive to demand, that they develop something like popular brands and are orientated at meeting readers’ expectations.

This article analyzes the travel journalistic essay by Futurists D. Buzko and Geo Shkurupii «By Old Dnipro for the Last Time» devoted to the Dnipro trip before the construction of the Dniproges. It became the implementation of the editorship and part of the state propaganda campaign on the electrification of the Ukrainian SSR, the active formation of Dnipropestan as an industrial center. At the same time, it was the result of the creative avant-garde experiments of Ukrainians on the brink of journalism and publicism, the «fact literature» and the artistic, stage and the process of forming a conceptual view of the genre of reportage and essay during the discussion with representatives of the Russian «New Lef» and other Ukrainian literary groups. The explored essay demonstrates the view of the functionality of the text, which was emphasized in the theoretical postulates of the Futurists: the work carries out informational, communicative, axiological, recreational and propagandistic functions that fully satisfy the reader’s audience and make it reflect, communicate with the authors. Hybridization of the genre of reportage and travel essay was first of all in the significant use of factual, single and statistical facts, their types (historical, biographical, toponymic, social, literary, etc.), which provided a high degree of documentary, allowed to reproduce the contemporary picture of reality and socialize the reader. The relevance of the used social facts and their number reflected the process of social transformations of the 1920s: not only the construction of the Dniproges, but also flooding of the part of the Cossack history, the process of Ukrainization, literary debate, criticism and persecution of Ukrainian writers.The essay featured a general passion for new art — cinema, hence the edit of the shots, other formal methods of capturing photography as a «living witness», an extermination, an affair, and others like that.

At the turn of ХІХ–ХХ centuries, the literature features the active transition from the novel genre to the shorter forms. The prominent place here is occupied by a short story and novella — the genres which serve as an excellent example of seeking new opportunities in the literature and promoting transition to the new age, reflecting the process of shaping the new worldview, associated with the dynamic transformation of the social life. From this perspective, the issue of reflecting the general transitional trends in the works of the authors who present the countries, which are different in their national development, emerges as relevant and interesting.In the context of the ideas of the «epoch-making mind», A. Kuprin and T. Hardy have not been investigated enough. However, a number of characteristics which enable us to see their heritage as a phenomenon of the transitional order have already been highlighted. What we mean here is the «open» system of narrative, implying the association with both realists and modernists.Amid the abovementioned, the goal of this research is to reveal the specific features of the plot modeling in the small prose fiction of A. Kuprin and T. Hardy, to show the way the imbalance of the transitional time in their artistic work is materialized through the choices of the topics and collisions in their works, as well as in their characters’ nature.A. Kuprin’s and T. Hardy’s small prose fiction shows the reinterpretation of the realism tradition, the new understanding of the human nature, and seeking the new reality. Their works feature the problems of the stylistic incoherence and demonstrate the experiments with the classic forms of the art. A short story includes novella-like swiftness and intriguing plot with the expression of the events being more pronounced. The vibrant life and out-of-the-box artistic power of observation witness about the authors’ impressionistic worldview, which is also the factor of the transitional creative thinking in the art.These writers produce the syncretised genre model, which is a reflection of the peculiarities of historic and literary processes both in Russia and Great Britain of the late XIX-early XX centuries. The creative works of both writers had a dramatic influence on the further shaping of not only national, but also world literature process — their literary and aesthetic experiments were further employed by the modernists.

The relevance of the lifted problem is caused as the interest of a modern philological thought in a phenomenon of the writer emigrant, and attention in aspects of Dionysian and Apollonian attitudes of literary artists. The purpose of article is to reveal as intertextual sendings to lyrics of the Silver age in the shiryaevsky poetic text are interpreted by author’s poetic consciousness in a key of «apocalyptic» poetics. The poem «The Creole Thrush Sings Better and Better Every Day …» is under construction as paraphrases of the glorified and tragic biography of Carlos Gardel. A. Shiryaev is creates the author’s version of the myth about an idol of Argentina Carlos Gardel at undoubted depth in lyrics of the Silver age. Pronounced metaphorical potential of lyrics of A. Shiryaev is the evidence of proximity author’s consciousness of the poet emigrant of elements mysteriological Dionysian a discourse, with potential inclination respectively to «apocalyptic poetics». During the research have been analysed signs of so-called «apocalyptic» poetics. Also a certain tendency of inclination to Apollonian dominants of art thinking of the poet emigrant is noted. The implication of the poem of Shiryaev is formed by intertextual sendings to O. Mandelstam «Insomnia. Homer. Hard sails …», A. Akhmatova «In evening» («Music ringed in a garden...»), A. Blok «The Stranger», M. Tsvetaeva «There is no love hunger yet...», V. Kamensky «Tango with cows» poetic texts. This subtext level is something like the author’s comment and the word-per-word translation. The poetic myth by A. Shiryaev is characterized by proximity to Dionysian type of attitude and the transgressive nature of author’s consciousness of the poet emigrant.

The discovery of the past times — is the leading topic of O. Zabuzhko’s novel «The Museum of Abandoned Secrets». This topic is significant one for the post-colonial countries, and in post-Soviet Ukraine Zabuzhko and her collegues try to investigate the past, which was distorted by the ruling Communist party. The novel was considered in the fields of genre and images specifics, it was also the subject of the hender studies. While this research deals with the certain mechanisms of past actualisation in the text, particularly with the help of Bakhtin’s hero’s «environment». The srtuctural analisys is used in the research. The novel is built as a collection of a museum halls, and the text can be understood as a list of exhibits and commentaries about the exibits. An exibit in Zabuzhko’s novel is a thing from the past times, and everything can be such a thing — a note in a book, a phrase, a picture. This thing was a meaningful object for people from the past, however, the novel’s heroes should guess the thing’s purpose. The past has its’ secrets, and the heroes act like children in a game: they just collect bright things. However, the thing has its secret and this sectret should be guessed, otherwise, the hero may feel himself in a danger. Solving this past’s trick, the heroes stand between the two worlds: the modern one and the past one. The modernity in Zabuzhko’s novel is the world of dead people, unlimited consuming is the only purpose for them. However, the past is alive, because it was abounded, so this past and the people from the past are looking for a justice. And this justice can be reached with the help of the secrets and with the help of the people, who are ready to seek the truth. So the truth seeking becomes a special purpose for Zabuzhko’s heroes. They should solve the secret’s riddle and connect the two worlds: the modern and the past ones.