“LIKE A BLACK FLOWER”: ON THE ISSUE OF DARIA VIKONSKA’S IDIOSTYLE (FLORAL ASPECT)

Abstract

This article addresses the theoretical essence of the current problem in contemporary literary studies – the issue of style. On a practical level, it analyzes the short prose of Daria Vikonska (floral literature etudes) through the lens of the author’s specific idiostyle. It is revealed that Vikonska’s stylistic range extends to impressionism, symbolism, and expressionism. It is established that stylistically diverse artistic texts emerged throughout the writer’s creative path, each possessing artistic value. Therefore, the evolution of Vikonska’s style must be delineated through more than traditional stages of transition from one literature style to another, as evident in poetics. In the context of Daria Vikonska’s work, it is more appropriate to discuss an evolution at the aesthetic level, which is linked to the process of the author’s self-identification. Its quintessence is the work “Portrait”, a psychoanalytic self-portrait of the writer of an emotional, psychological type (she revealed herself through the allegorical image of a black flower). For a modernist artist of an emotional psychotype, expressionism is the most organic poetic and stylistic system. Therefore, it is natural that many expressionist artistic texts in the writer’s oeuvre are distinguished primarily by their “femininity” from the so-called “canon of expressionism” grounded in works written by male writers. When Daria Vikonska “escaped” from herself (from her expressionist worldview) into religion or nature, impressionistic or symbolist texts emerged from her pen – no less original and profound than her expressionist ones. All of the above allows us to conclude that expressionism is the dominant element of Vikonska’s idiostyle, thereby refuting the notion of her as a consistent impressionist writer from Western Ukraine, a viewpoint that has begun to be asserted in contemporary literary studies and threatens to become a misleading stereotype.