The Problem of genre: metamorphoses of Lithuanian novel

ENThe author of the article ponders upon the problem of genre having in mind the main tendencies of contemporary Lithuanian literature. The cases of specific sub-genres are discussed ñ the short story novels by Romualdas Granauskas, Aura MatuleviËi˚tÎ, the novel by Rasa AkinytÎ, and a book of calendar short stories by Vytautas Martinkus. The notion of the genre is very broad and rather complicated; it is discussed on the base of theoretical statements of Daniel Chandler, John Rieder, Franco Moretti and others. The main questions to be answered are as follows: who define the genre in the field of contemporary literature ñ the readers or the writers, and whether the genre remains important having in mind the readerís cognitive capacities and expectations. Contemporary Lithuanian novel has gained new formal features ñ become shorter than some decades ago and adjusted to the dynamics of everyday life, divided into short stories or suggesting the possibility to dismantle the text into pieces, which could be grasped as independent texts (MatuleviËi ˚tÎís and AkinytÎís cases). The genre itself has lost importance, because the reader has started to get used to the experiments of the writers and does not trust either the particular cognitive schemata s/he has been accustomed to or the subtitles different text producers choose.