Genre of the graphic novel: Toward the formulation of the problem (based on modern French-language and English-language texts)

Abstract

The aim of the research is to determine the features of the graphic novel as an independent genre in the modern literary process. The novelty of the research lies in conducting a detailed theoretical study of literary criticism publications on the theory of genres, on the history of the comic book genre and the genre of the novel by Russian and foreign scholars, which made it possible to identify similarities and differences between the graphic novel and the comic book based on the dialogue between text and image, as well as to consider the graphic novel as a modification of the genre of the novel inheriting its main characteristics (the presence of the narrative structure and plot, the development of the main character, the chronotope, the dialogue with modernity, etc.). The authors of the study, defining the comic book as a meta-genre, come to the conclusion that at present, it seems reasonable to consider the graphic novel not as a subgenre of the comic book, but as an independent hybrid genre undergoing evolution. It is the first time that the subgenres of the graphic novel have been distinguished on the basis of French-language and English-language works. As a result, it has been proved that the graphic novel can be defined as an independent genre that is already undergoing changes, breaking up into subgenres in which the tendency to the crossing of different genre forms is noticeable.