Intermedial techniques of representing an artist’s image in the stories “Glittering Pie” by H. Miller and “A Working Day” by Ch. Bukowski

Abstract

The aim of the study is to identify the intermedial means involved in depicting the image of a creative personality represented in the stories “Glittering Pie” (1935) by H. Miller and “A Working Day” (1972) by Ch. Bukowski, contributing to their interpretation, which will cover the works plot-wise, texturally and epistemologically. The study is original in that it is the first to compare H. Miller’s and Ch. Bukowski’s stories from an intermedial perspective. The way in which different visual media techniques find their embodiment in a literary text, being present in it not only as a static reference, but also as an active component influencing the formation of writing and images, is of particular interest in the analysis of the works. The visual in Miller’s story manifests itself through the techniques of surrealism, impressionism and cinema. In the case of Bukowski’s story, the visual is realized through the forms of pop art, photographic stylization and a reference to the subjects of paintings by the artist E. Hopper. The results show that the intermedial techniques involved in the stories make it possible to determine the writers’ connection with the aesthetic projects of modernism and postmodernism. While Miller’s story shows the features of modernist art associated with self-reflection, originality of creative vision and the gap between the ordinary and the sacred, in Bukowski’s story, there are certain features of postmodernism represented by symbolic reduction, a decrease in aesthetic pathos around the artist and his creative activity, as well as thematization of everyday life and banality.