  vasileva-ev-vestnik-2021-3.pdf |
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- “Georeferencing” and Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s narrative strategy (on the material of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”)
- Vasileva E.V. “Georeferencing” and Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s narrative strategy (on the material of “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward”). Vestnik of Kostroma State University, 2021, vol. 27, № 3, pp. 170–176 (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2021-27-3-170-176
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.34216/1998-0817-2021-27-3-170-176
- УДК: 821(7).09''20''
- Publish date: 2021-08-18
- Annotation: The article approaches the narrative strategy employed by a famous American horror-writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft in his only novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” (1927) and introduces new terms – “georeferencing” and “georeference.” By the latter we mean a toponymical allusion, i. e. an implicit reference to the precedential text incorporated in a toponym (e. g. the author mentions Transylvania to make a georeference to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”). Lovecraft employs georeferencing and other forms of literary allusions to medieval legends, as well as to famous gothic novels written by his predecessors Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Robert Louis Stevenson, Gustav Meyrink, Bram Stoker, etc. to create a meaningful context for his own novel. His goal is to create a common hypertextual universe, which can and will be productively navigated by a prepared reader. This strategy makes it possible for the reader to uncover hidden logics behind the fragmentary discourse and even foresee the outcome of the central battle between the principal characters. Lovecraft’s sophisticated intention and expert plot-structuring allows us to view “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” as a daring Modernist writing of the period, as well as to reassess Lovecraft’s reputation and cultural impact on the US literature of his time.
- Keywords: Howard Phillips Lovecraft, New England gothic, hypertext, “georeferencing”, narrative strategy
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