Poetics of blood and shit in the works of Oles Ulyanenko

Abstract

The radical character of Oles Ulianenko’s literary works stems from the fact that the author utilizes some highly controversial motifs, namely blood and excrement, in constructing his poetics. The aim of the article is to defi ne the characteristics and outline of the writer’s artistic world, taking into consideration corporal substances as world-building tools. To achieve the stated goal, both the traditional methods such as cultural-historical and comparative-typological analysis are used, as well as hermeneutics and the rather innovative corporal-mimetic method. The author concludes that Oles Ulianenko incorporates substances like blood and excrement in his artistic imagery because, in his highly skeptical artistic interpretation, the writer can only reach the depthts of inner, corporally determined motives which condition the ontological sense of human being when resorting to such measures.