NON-FICTION PHENOMENON: THEORETICAL AND VERIFICATIONAL ASPECTS

The Belarusian literature in recent decades demonstrates rapid expansion of works with a distinct non-fictional basis. The increasing emergence of memoirs, diaries, confessions, epistolary and biographical texts is influenced by trends in foreign literature where documentary prose was termed non-fiction. However, studying documentary prose in the Belarusian humanitarian science is limited and fragmentary. This affects and distorts the perception of the literary process. The article seeks to explore and theoretically comprehend the non-fiction phenomenon using the comparison and structural analysis methods (including system modeling elements). The objectives include limiting the list of synonymic terms that are used to denote documentary literature, determining differentiating features and existence levels of the nonfiction phenomenon and identifying the genre field of documentary literature. The author arrives at the conclusion that the terms “documentary literature” and “documentary” are most relevant to denote the non-fiction phenomenon. It is typical for the non-fiction phenomenon to exist both as independent ‘literature of fact’ and as a documentary basis for a work of fiction. In the latter case, texts are subdivided into autobiographies (diaries, memoirs, confessions, epistolary texts etc.) and documentary fiction (fictional chronicles, essays, fictionalized biographies etc.). Common genre features of most non-fiction works are the author’s presence ‘triplication’, hypothetical incompleteness, correlation with the post-modern tradition, and balancing between reality and fiction.

documentary literature, documentary, non-fiction, fiction, autobiographical prose, documentary fiction works

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