Elements of decorative prose in the novel by Alexander Sobolev “Griffins guard the lyre”

The topic of the article is relevant because it considers the specific poetics of the modern neo-modernist work. It is worth noting that the novel “Griffins Guard the Lyre” is a part of a new wave of modernism that has emerged in the Russian literature over the past few decades. In addition to A. Sobolev, this wave includes such writers as E. Vodolazkin, S. Bolmat, A. Varlamov and others. The purpose of the article is to describe the functions of the ornamental prose elements in A. Sobolev’s work “Griffins Guard the Lyre.” The main research methods used in the article are semiotic and intertextual analyses. Besides A. Sobolev's novel, the works of V. Nabokov, Y. Olesha, and F. Sologub served as the empirical materials. In the course of considering the work of A. Sobolev from the point of view of the criteria applied to the ornamental prose, it was found that the novel has the following features: a) an organic fusion of the epic and lyrical principles; b) destruction and deconstruction of genre forms. The fairy tale principle is also present in A. Sobolev’s novel, but it performs completely different functions. The author seems to use the tale as an object of manipulation. We can conclude that A. Sobolev borrowed some techniques from domestic postmodernists/conceptualists. Since the elements of the ornamental writing in the novel “The Griffins Guard the Lyre” have not been considered before, we can confidently state that all the obtained scientific results are new.