반(反)텍스트와 반복의 기호학 - 17세기 러시아 웃음문학을 중심으로 -

Abstract

In this paper the Seventeenth-Century Russian smexovaja literatura" is regarded as anti-text， which is defined as inverted repetition. The smexovaja literatura" is an exarnplary case of the maximization of intertextuality and the paradox of repetition. Repetition is, of course, not exclusively unique for anti-text. However, anti-text and repetition share certain properties, e.g., paradoxical and ambivalent nature and an inclination for the pleasure principle. In anti-text repetition has its distinctive function, i.e., that of emphasizing the difference from the text by forming a sort of "extended" parody of the text and thereby foregrounding absurdity and irrationality of the anti-world. For the foregrounding of absurdity and, in most cases, laughter also serves the self-reflexive repetition of the anti-text itself, e.g., skomorosie stixi".

Repetitive nature is also evident in anti-language. Anti-language of the seventeenth-century smexovaja literatura" is composed not only of oral Russian (including the so-called vorovskoj jazyk") but also of the ironic use of the Church Slavonic. In the former case literary language is translated, i.e., repeated with difference, into non-literary language. In the latter case literary language is repeated in different (or, more exactly, wrong) contexts and thereby distorted.

The problem whether anti-text is satire (and/or parody) is to be determined not only by the intention of the author but by various factors such as socio-psychological status of the reader, socio-cultural and ideological context, immediate communicative situation, etc.. In this respect the definition of the smexovaja literatura" as democratic satires" is hard to be justified. In order to clarify its complex nature, a close examination on the communicative-pragmatic level is required.