Trickster as a hero of our time. Monograph

The monograph is devoted to the analysis of the image of Trickster (Trickster from the English Trick) in modern Russian literature. In a literal translation from English, the word tricster means a deceiver, a sly, dodger. The book explores the specifics of the functioning and attribution of the image of the Trickster in the literature of the line of the twentieth-XXI centuries: from camp prose with its interest in the “naked man” to the texts created in the postmodern era. Particular attention is paid to the study of the reasons for the popularity of the Trickster in traditionalist prose, the authors of which are characterized by a monologic type of artistic thinking and at the same time interest in the game image of the statement, the ridiculous models of medieval culture. In addition, the book shows how the appearance of a tricster hero who recognizes his connection with the myth helps to solve the tragic issues facing the vocational consciousness. The life -affirming, vital potential of the image of modern rogue, dodger is emphasized, its inherent capabilities, means of awareness and representation of the tragic are revealed. We tried to show that the relevance of the Trickster idea itself is associated with fatigue from the “secondary”, the game strategy of postmodernism, when the suspicion of ironism is total and with the colossal pressure that a modern person experiences and which the Trikster can weaken. Nostalgia according to the ideal, a cultural hero, capable of responding to the challenges of time, turns into a need for a tricster as a tester of this possibility.
The publication is addressed to philologists, specialists in cultural theory, historians and all lovers of Russian literature