A Self-portrait Detail of the Artist in Biographical Fiction About Taras Shevchenko: an Intermedial Aspect
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The pictorial quotation of a painted or graphic portrait is one of the key intermedial artistic details of belles-lettres about artists. The paper examines the protagonist’s self-portraits in fictional and fictionalized biographical texts about Taras Shevchenko. The use of self-portrait detail in biographical texts across various genres is analyzed from the standpoint of intermedial studies. The functions of self-portraits, their interpretive potential, and the intermedial strategies used in the texts under discussion have been identified and explored. The paper also analyzes the creation of self-portrait and portrait details through verbal imagery, ekphrasis, pictorial quotation, and other techniques. It examines self-portraiture as a form of automediality in the context of interdisciplinary research on biographies, with particular attention to media—that is, the various forms and means of self-representation employed by the artist (Christian Moser). The research focuses on biographical novels about Taras Shevchenko, namely “Ukrainian Nights, or the Family Tree of a Genius” by Jerzy Jędrzejewicz and “Shevchenko between Worlds” by Stanislav Rosovetskyi. It also highlights dramatic works, including “The Mountain” by Ivan Drach; “Shevchenko on Trial” and “Kyiv Dreams About Kobzar in 1859” by Stanislav Rosovetskyi; and the play “Heart Paradise, or Oksana” by Oleksandr Denysenko. The functions and specific features of the literary representation of Shevchenko’s self-portraits correspond to the time of a work’s creation, its plot and composition, poetics, and the author’s intent. An additional focus of the research is the external form of a literary work and its embodiment in the shapes of books and stage productions. The analysis of self-portrait detail as an intermedial technique in biographical fiction about Shevchenko demonstrates a wide spectrum of cross-media interaction and highlights the considerable expressive potential of this detail in fiction.
Source: Академічний журнал Слово і Час
Author: Oksana Levytska
Institution: Shevchenko Institute of Literature
Language: English
Subfield: Visual Arts and Performing Arts
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4411889998