FORMULAICITY IN LITERATURE

Abstract

The literary historical study of formula fiction is particularly welcome today as it can enrich the predominatly sociological-culturological analyses of mass culture and contribute considerably to reflection on and apprasial of contemporary megalomanical literary production. Formulaicity, the common denominator of romulaic texts, is a flexible category, the intersection of various properties and processes in a text, and its context, composed of text-internal and text-external formulaic elements. With respect to the text-internal formulaicity one may include the more or less constant elements of formula fiction, the aesthetic of identicalness, simplification and monosemy; on the other hand, text external formulaisity is formed by literary competence, empatry, and evaluation. While text-internal formulaicity is connected with clichés, stereotypes, schematization, repetition, redundancy, simplification, and monosemy and is trus a simplified and monotonic view od the world and organization of text, all three of the text-external characteristics derive from the reader's competence in comprehending the text, the ability to live through it and empathiye with it, connected with his appraisal of literature, i.e., the potential to judge the quality and value of that which is read.