Oralne źródła noweli. Studium ze stylistyki historycznej

Abstract

The paper is an attempt to look at a short story genre from the angle of its beginnings, taking into consideration the context of oral culture. There can be found several areas pointing to oral sources and contexts of a short story. They are: the ancient genesis of an old Polish short story, rhetorical determinants of the genre, the relationship between an old Polish short story and folklore genres, affinities with other literary genological forms creating a genre sequence, a narrative form of a short story, the subject level of the genre. Some of the above-mentioned domains can intersect, which could be treated as extra support for a basic thesis on oral beginnings of a short story. The presented proposal to describe a short story as a literary genre connected with oral discourse proves that this form is extremely complex in its origin. The shown markers, features and contexts often interweave in a close relationship between one another, thus creating a clear discourse area of the studied genological form. It should be emphasized that the contextualization of the stylistic research enables the analysis of communication in a broader perspective. Furthermore, it should be concluded that the historical perspective, adopted in the stylistic, textological and genological studies, can additionally deepen and verify research conclusions, as well as establish their hierarchy. As history of language and communication enriches the reflection with a dynamic aspect focused on the problem of a transformation of particular phenomena in time – it can lead to the desired general conclusions from a somewhat different – „processual” – perspective.