Journal archive

Abstract: The author of this article analyzes the fiction by the world famous musician John Lennon from the perspective of the literary nonsense. Despite the fact that the influence of L. Carroll’s texts on the works by J. Lennon is universally recognized and frequently mentioned by critics, this article aims to explore significant differences between the prose by J. Lennon and L. Carroll and thus answer the question whether the musician’s fiction is a continuation of English “pure” nonsense tradition, whether it transforms this tradition or represents a completely different literary genre. Within the framework of the comparative analysis, the author compares genres and forms, plots, characters, style, word creation technics, and chronotopes of texts by L. Carroll and J. Lennon. The author takes into account the fact that the definition of the concept of “nonsense” has its own complex history and several interpretations. In addition, for the purposes of the analysis, the author refers to the oeuvre of D. Kharms and, in this connection, concludes that it is possible to study J. Lennon’s prose in the framework of literary absurd. Despite the fact that Lennon’s texts were inspired by Carroll’s books and the unfulfilled dream of his life was to write a similar children’s fairy tale, the musician’s literary work is not limited to nonsense techniques and represents a unique literary phenomenon, which is comparable to J. Joyce’s Finnegans Wake. In this connection, the author pays attention to this distinguished style, which is called “erratic narrative”, “poetics of mistake”, “nonsensical spelling”, or “verbal nonsense”.