Romantsova B. Time in the European modernist novel of the first third of the 20th century.

The thesis research is the first attempt in Ukrainian literature studies to systemically examine time in the European modernist novel. The author describes terminological field of the time concept, specifies criteria for defining basic types of time in modernism. There is a separate analysis of the process of time comprehension in the humanitarian thought of the 19th–20th centuries, as well as presentation of the general cultural transformation of the category of time in the modernism epoch and its representation in literary texts of the first third of the 20th century. It is proven that time is a part of the fictional world depicted in a literary work and at the same time a category of poetics, which influences the structure of the work and presents itself at different levels: the level of the author’s position, the level of characters’ subjective time and as a general time concept of the epoch. Main attention in the thesis work is paid to the textual analysis of works by Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust, as well to defining the methods of time representation in their texts. Along with the change in poetics of the works from late realistic to modernist, the dominant category of time also changes – from linear chronological to mixed, cyclic time and finally to Bergsonian duration. Analysing the texts of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Marcel Proust through the prism of the time category allowed us to refute the popular opinion that the works of these authors are totally modernist and to show the evolution of their styles. The thesis shows that all these authors began with realistic narration which has been gradually influenced by the principles of modernist poetics and then came to a modernist text, the heart of which is the new concept of time. Scientific novelty of this thesis work is that it is the first work to not only make time in the European modernist novel of the first third of the 20th century subject to a complex analysis, but also to analyze the process of changing the time category in the works of the aforementioned authors. Finally, the main types of time characteristic for the modernist texts of the given period are outlined, together with showing the transition process from the category of realistic linear time to modernist heterogeneous temporality. Practical significance of this research is that the work describes an important aspect of modernist texts analysis, outlining approaches to exploration of time as one of the fundamental categories of modernist poetics. A comparison of time in early and late works of the given authors allows to trace the genesis of their texts’ poetics and to consider how the perception of time has changed in literature of the first third of the 20th century. The results of the theoretical and practical analysis given in the thesis may be used by scholars researching European literary modernism in general as well as specific writers of this period.