Abstract
The article seeks to find approaches to the study of “novelty” as a category of aesthetic consciousness of the “non-classical” era. To achieve this goal, it analyzes all the contexts where this category was used in the magazines LEF and NOVY LEF. The essay argues that “novelty” is central for the aesthetics of LEF yet is conceived as a permanent rather than a transient state. Innovation is a result of collective, not individual efforts, and pursues the goal of improving human nature. LEF makes a paradoxical attempt to preserve the “new” as the new and at the same time to achieve its wide public recognition. Its value is directly associated with revolutionary ideals. The “novelty” correlates with utopianism, and with creation of speculative models. The opposition of the “old” content and the “new” form is replaced with the triad “form — material — target.” Thus, for LEF, “new literature” turns out to be the “target literature,” a response to the “social order.”
References
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