The Redemptive Sacrifice in J. Gardner’s Novel Grendel: An Analysis of the Novel’s Poetics in Light of Ritual-Mythological Criticism
- Issue:
- УДК / UDK: 821.111
- DOI:
- Abstract:
The paper presents an analysis of the novel Grendel (1971) by American writer J. Gardner (1933–1982) in light of M. Eliade’s, R. Girard’s and V. Toporov’s concepts of myth and ritual studies. Literary studies concerning the ritual-mythological aspect of the novel are reviewed in the article. The research hypothesis suggests that the key features of Gardner’s poetics can be systematically analyzed in the context of myth and ritual. Meanwhile, the bulk of previous research covering the issue tended to rely primarily on other analytical frameworks, like P. Bourdieu's sociology of literature (B. Ekelund) or the theory of intertextuality (H. Ellis, W. Ober), the myth and ritual theory playing a supplementary role. While placing myth and ritual theory at the core of the methodology, the present study highlights its two key categories singled out in line with B. Malinowski’s “functionalist” view of myth and ritual as two complementary aspects of the archaic culture — the “theoretical” one (myth) and the “practical” one (ritual). Here they are presented as the etyological nature of myth (i.e. its ability to view all phenomena as dependent on the primordial origin of the universe) and the redemptive sacrificial ritual. Accordingly, the etyologization of Grendel’s narrative and the presentation of the protagonist as an “emissary victim” (in Girard’s terms) are the specific features of Gardner’s poetics which the paper primarily addresses.
- Keywords: myth, ritual, 20th century American prose, modernism, John Gardner, René Girard, Mircea Eliade.
- For citation:
Kalashnikov, Anton. “The Redemptive Sacrifice in J. Gardner’s Novel Grendel: an Analysis of the Novel’s Poetics in Light of Ritual-Mythological Criticism.” Literature of the Americas, no. 10 (2021): 83–99.
https://doi.org/10.22455/2541-7894-2021-10-83-99 - References:
Averintsev 1994 — Averintsev, Sergei S. “Avtorstvo i avtoritet” [“Authorship and Authority”]. In Istoricheskaia poetika. Literaturnye epokhi i tipy khudozhestvennogo soznaniia [Historical Poetics: Literary Epochs and Types of Artistic Consciousness], 105 –125. Moscow: Nasledie Publ., 1994. (In Russ).
Chavkin 1990 — Chavkin, Allan, ed. Conversations with John Gardner. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1990.
Cowart 1983 — Cowart, David. Arches and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1983.
Eliade 2014 — Eliade, Mirceo. Aspekty mifa [Myth and Reality]. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt Publ., 2014. (In Russ).
Eliade 2015 — Eliade, Mirceo. Traktat po istorii religii [Patterns in Comparative Religion]. Moscow: Akademicheskii proekt Publ., 2015. (In Russ).
Ellis, Ober 1982 — Ellis, Helen B., and Warren U. Ober. “Grendel and Blake: The Contraries of Existence.” In John Gardner: Critical Perspectives, edited by Robert A. Morace and Kathryn VanSpanckeren. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982: 46 –61.
Ekelund 1995 — Ekelund, Bo G. In the Pathless Forest: John Gardner's Literary Project. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiskell, 1995.
Fawcett, Jones 1990 — Fawcett, Barry, and Elizabeth Jones. “The Twelve Traps in John Gardner’s Grendel.” American Literature 62, no. 4 (December 1990): 634 –647.
Frye 1947 — Frye, Northrop. Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1947.
Gardner 1972 — Gardner, John. Grendel. New York: Ballantine Books, 1972.
Gardner 1994 — Gardner, John. Krushenie Agatona. Grendel' [The Wreckage of Agathon; Grendel]. Translated by Nikolai Makhlaiuk, Sergei Slobodianiuk. St. Petersburg: Akademicheskii proekt Publ., 1994. (In Russ).
Gardner 1983 — Gardner, John. On Becoming a Novelist. New York: Harper & Row, 1983.
Gardner 1978 — Gardner, John. On Moral Fiction. New York: Basic Books, 1978.
Girard 2019 — Girard, Rene. Veshchi, sokrytye ot sozdaniia mira [Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo BBI Publ., 2019. (In Russ).
Girard 2010 — Girard, Rene. Nasilie i sviashchennoe [Violence and the Sacred]. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ., 2010. (In Russ).
Hiortdahl 2008 — Hiortdahl, Sandra M. “Grendel: John Gardner’s Reinvention of the Beowulf Saga.” PhD diss., The Catholic University of America, 2008.
Holley 1985 — Holley, Linda T. “John Gardner’s Notes from Underground.” Interpretations 16, no. 1 (Fall 1985): 105 –111.
Howell 1993 — Howell, John M. Understanding John Gardner. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1993.
Kalashnikov 2020 — Kalashnikov, Anton A. “Ritual'no-mifologicheskii aspekt poetiki romana Dzhona Gardnera Krushenie Agatona” [“Ritual and Mythological
Aspect of the Poetics of John Gardner's novel The Wreckage of Agathon”]. In Amerikanistika na Dal'nem Vostoke: ezhegodnyi biulleten' [American Studies in the Far West: Annual Bulletin], edited by Dmitrii V. Kuznetsov, 148 –154. Blagoveshchensk: Blagoveshchensk State Pedagogical University Publ., 2020. (In Russ).
Lipinskaia 2003 — Lipinskaia, Anastasia A. Roman Dzhona Gardnera “Grendel'” v kontekste filologicheskikh issledovanii avtora [John Gardner’s Novel “Grendel” in the Context of Its Author’s Philological Studies]. PhD diss., St. Petersburg University, 2003. (In Russ).
Malinovskii 2004 — Malinovskii, Bronislaw K. “Mif v primitivnoi psikhologii” [“Myth in Primitive Psychology”], translated by V.G. Nikolaev. Vestnik kul'turologii [Herald of Culturology] 28, no. 1 (2004): 40 –94. (In Russ).
Mason 1985 — Mason, Kenneth C. “Of Monsters and Men: Sartrean Existentialism and John Gardner’s Grendel.” In Thor’s Hammer: Essays on John Gardner, edited by Jeff Henderson, 101 –112. [Conway]: University of Central Arkansas Press, 1985.
Minugh 1978 — Minugh, David. “John Gardner Constructs Grendel’s Universe.” In Studies in English Philology, Linguistics and Literature, edited by Mats Ryden and Lennart A. Bjork, 125 –141. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiskell, 1978.
Monkevich 2019 — Monkevich, Mikhail A. Obraz Khrista i ideia pochvy (A.A. Grigor'ev — F.I. Tiutchev — F.M. Dostoevskii) [The Image of Christ and the Idea of Soil]. St. Petersburg: Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy Publ., 2019. (In Russ).
Morris 1984 — Morris, Gregory L. A World of Order and Light: The Fiction of John Gardner. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1984.
Silesky 2004 — Silesky, Barry. John Gardner: Literary Outlaw. Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2004.
Toporov 1988 — Toporov, Vladimir N. “O rituale. Vvedenie v problematiku” [“On Ritual: An Introduction”]. In Arkhaicheskii ritual v fol'klornykh i ranneliteraturnykh pamiatnikakh [ Archaic Ritual in Folklore and Early Literature], edited by Elena S. Novik, 7 –60. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1988. (In Russ).
Winther 1992 — Winther, Per. The Art of John Gardner: Instruction and Exploration. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
