Skaz
Skaz (Russian: сказ) is a Russian literary term that describes a particularly oral form of narrative. The word comes from skazat, "to tell", and is also related to such words as rasskaz, "short story" and skazka, "fairy tale".[1] The speech makes use of dialect and slang in order to take on the persona of a particular character.[2] The peculiar speech, however, is integrated into the surrounding narrative, and not presented in quotation marks.[3] This is not only a literary device, but is also used as an element in Russian monologue comedy.[4]
Skaz was first described by the Russian formalist Boris Eikhenbaum in the late 1910s. In a couple of articles published at this time, the literary scholar described the phenomenon as a form of unmediated or improvisational speech.[5] He applied it specifically to Nikolai Gogol's short story The Overcoat, in a 1919 essay titled How Gogol's "Overcoat" Is Made.[1] Eikhenbaum saw skaz as central to Russian culture, and believed that a national literature could not develop without a strong attachment to oral traditions.[4] Among the literary critics who elaborated on this theory in the 1920, were Yury Tynyanov, Viktor Vinogradov, and Mikhail Bakhtin.[5]
In the nineteenth century, the style was most prominently used by Nikolai Leskov, in addition to Gogol. Twentieth-century proponents include Aleksey Remizov, Mikhail Zoshchenko and Andrei Platonov.[1] The term is also used to describe elements in the literature of other countries; in recent times it has been popularised by the British author and literary critic David Lodge.[6] John Mullan, a professor of English at University College London, finds examples of skaz in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and DBC Pierre's Vernon God Little.[7]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c Cornwell, Neil (2005). "Skaz Narrative". The Literary Encyclopedia. https://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=1561. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
- ^ "skaz". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. Britannica. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/547338/skaz. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
- ^ Peter J. Potichnyj, ed (1988). The Soviet Union: Party and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. pp. 108–9. ISBN 0521344603. http://books.google.com/?id=HOl-SqBouGIC&pg=PA107.
- ^ a b Mesropova, Olga (2004). "Between Literary and Subliterary Paradigms: Skaz and Contemporary Russian Estrada Comedy". Canadian Slavonic Papers. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3763/is_200409/ai_n11849814/?tag=content;col1. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
- ^ a b Hemenway, Elizabeth Jones. "Skaz". Russian History Encyclopedia. http://www.answers.com/topic/skaz. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
- ^ Lodge, David (1992). "Teenage Skaz". The Art of Fiction: Illustrated from Classic and Modern Texts. London: Penguin. pp. 17–20. ISBN 0140174923.
- ^ Mullan, John (2006-11-18). "Talk this way". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/nov/18/featuresreviews.guardianreview17. Retrieved 2009-09-06.
[edit] Further reading
- Hicks, Jeremy Guy (2000). Mikhail Zoshchenko and the Poetics of Skaz. Nottingham: Astra. ISBN 0946134618. http://books.google.com/?id=n3OAAAAAIAAJ.
- Victor Terras, ed (1985). Handbook of Russian Literature. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. ISBN 0300031556.
