On the question of some sources of the modern post-humous narrative: journey to the afterworld and dialogue of the dead in Lucian of Samosata

The article aims to consider one of the sources of such a unique phenomenon as the narrative from beyond the grave, or posthumous narrative, i.e. the narrative of a character who, in the conventional reality of the inner world of the work, is presented as a dead character. It is argued that in ancient literature three sources of posthumous narrative are identified: the genres of the journey to the afterworld, dialogue of the dead, and epitaph. The article examines in detail the first two of these sources, based on a number of works by Lucian of Samosata, which will become a “model” of the “journey to the underworld” as an independent genre with a number of structural features that were inherited later. It is proved that the posthumous narrative in its origins is connected with the very genesis of narration, since, according to Olga Freidenberg, narration arises at the moment when the past is separated from the present, this world from the other world. The themes and motives of Lucian’s “dialogues of the dead” and modern texts with posthumous narration are compared. It is revealed that the modern posthumous narrative largely inherits motive-plot structure and mode of utterance (mostly satirical) from Lucian’s “dialogues of the dead”. Moreover, in modern works, it is not the journey to the afterworld that is contained within the framework of a “dialogue of the dead”, but on the contrary, “dialogues of the dead” turn out to be part of such a journey. In addition, texts of this type mainly resolve issues characteristic of postmodernism: the question of testing the metaphysical picture of the world with its onto-theo-teleo-logo-centrism, the need to free oneself from the power of the absolute, to question the “presence” of absolute truth. The dead narrator is recognized as a paradoxical phenomenon (it is not the case in Lucian), with the help of which it is convenient to develop the ideas of a decentered subject and decentered discourse, the destruction of the character’s personality as a psychologically and socially determined character, and to revise the concept of “author” as a self-identical voice and authority.