Realismia fantasian ja allegorian maisemissa

Erich Auerbach, ”Helvetin” realismi ja Johanna Sinisalon Linnunaivot

• Pirjo Lyytikäinen Helsingin yliopisto

DOI: https://doi.org/10.30665/av.74971

Abstract

Realism in Fantasy and Allegory: Erich Auerbach, the Realism of Dante and Johanna Sinisalo’s Linnunaivot [Little Brain]

Realism, understood as register or mode, is used in the genres of fantasy and allegory (which are often overlapping) but how far realism can go and how it combines with fantasy and allegory, is a research question often actualized by contemporary fiction. By studying these relationships in light of a case study on Johanna Sinisalo’s Linnunaivot (2008), a fantasy novel where the primary world is the actual world with the intrusion of fantasy elements and allegorical structures, some tentative answers can be reached. The criteria for realistic style/mode which originate in Eric Auerbach’s classic study Mimesis serve to delineate central aspects of realism as mode. The overall genre of texts is defined in terms of the ontology of the fictional world: whether the natural laws apply (realist genres) or whether what is naturally impossible saturates the world (fantasy), and to what extent the txt is dominated by a systematic metaphorical structure that directs the understanding of the world (allegory). Sinisalo’s novel relies heavily on realistic style but the presence of pure fantasy elements that determine the overall ontology determine the genre. This combination with the use of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness as a constant reference and as hypotext creates allegorical structures that reveal the critical and satirical themes of the novel. All in all, the mixture of modes and genre types in Sinisalo’s novel ultimately defies classification but shows the usefulness of the prototype categories used to describe this hybrid text.