BODO KIRCHHOFF’S “SCHUNDROMAN” AS A PHENOMENON OF THE PARODY GENRE IN THE LITERATURE OF GERMAN POSTMODERNISM

Abstract

The article examines features of the parody genre in literature of German postmodernism using the novel “Schundroman” (“Boulevard Novel”) by a prominent representative of this literary method Bodo Kirchhoff. Kirchhoff’s work is considered in comparison with the precedent text – Martin Walser’s novel “Death of a Critic”. In order to fully disclose the topic, the characteristics of parody as a literary genre are given. Particular attention is paid to the genre of parody in the literature of postmodernism. The article analyzes the main substantive and stylistic principles of postmodern parody: the absence of harsh criticism of the precedent text, parody and parodicity (according to the definition of Yu.N. Tynyanov) of the text, intertextuality, implying the correlation of the work with the precedent text, metatextuality in the parody text, irony as the embodiment of the author’s concept of artistic reality, features of the poetics of the genre, pastiche as the main artistic and stylistic device in the novel. At the same time, pastiche as the main stylistic device corresponds to both the ideological concept of the novel (the world as chaos) and its series of events.