METHODOLOGY FOR ANALYZING THE POETICS OF NARRATIVE IN METAMODERN WORKS FROM COGNITIVE-NARRATOLOGICAL AND LINGUOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES (CASE STUDY OF THE NOVELS BY K. ISHIGURO)

Abstract

This article features the development of a comprehensive methodology for analyzing the poetics of narrative in the metamodern novels of Kazuo Ishiguro, integrating cognitive-narratological and linguocultural perspectives. The study focuses on the specificity of unnatural narrativity, genre modifications, focalization features, and the interaction of linguistic and cultural means that shape the mechanisms of meaning-making in the literary text and its interpretation. The proposed methodology provides for a multi-level analysis: the contextual-poetic level allows for the reconstruction of cultural codes, archetypal models, and genre-related prerequisites of the works; the macropoetic level examines the overall narrative organization, event structure, the ontology of the fictional world, and the configuration of literary images; the cognitive-narratological level is aimed at identifying the ways meaning is constructed through systems of literary images, internal focalization, character introspection, and the reader’s construeing of cognitive processes; the interpretive-receptive level analyzes readers’ interpretive strategies, culturally conditioned interpretive models, and mechanisms generating cognitiveemotional tension. Studying “The Remains of the Day”, “Never Let Me Go” and “Klara and the Sun” as examples, it is shown that unnatural narration, reduced eventfulness, specific focalization, and genre transformations create a unique space of interaction between the literary text and the reader, where meaning arises not from plot conflicts but through reflection, moral evaluation, and cognitive reconstruction of events. The study demonstrates the interaction of Japanese and Western cultural codes, which, through universal and cultural archetypes, shape character images, define the specifics of narrative organization, and directly influence the reader’s interpretive and meaning-making processes. The proposed methodology opens up prospects for further research into the poetics of metamodern narrative, particularly unnatural narration, and the cognitive and culturally conditioned mechanisms of contemporary Anglophone literary interpretation and reception.