«Petty press» of 1880s as Paraliterature: Commonplace, Repetition, Self-Repetition

Abstract

The article studies causes of repetitions emerging in such a paraliterature form as “petty press” of 1880s. The majority of “petty press” texts used commonplaces to cover a very small amount of topics. The reader could feel the repetition since the material was organized by the similar literary devices. The author examines both extra-literary (censorship, interest to up-to-date events, allowable text size) and intra-literary (short list of genres and comic devices) causes of repetition in “petty press”. Since Chekhov began his writing career in this strictly regulated type of literature, many peculiarities of his manner, as well as many topics of his stories can not be understood without investigation of the “petty press” rules. Refs 21.