“A Fractured Heart” by Shio Aragvispireli as a Literary Fairy Tale

Abstract

The literary fairy tale, as an artistic and aesthetic phenomenon, is also distinctive in that it undergoes notable genre transformations. A fairy tale may be written in either poetic or prose form and can take the shape of a novel, short story, or novella. This aspect clearly sets it apart from other literary genres. Shio Aragvispireli, a prominent Georgian writer active at the turn of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, is credited with establishing the psychological novel in Georgian literature. The prose writer is also the author of literary fairy tales. The writer himself emphasized this genre in the subtitles of several short texts from the early years of his careers (“…And There Came the Magus from the East” (a fairy tale, 1900), “A Magic Fortress” (a fantasy etude, 1901), and “My Adventure” (a fairy tale play, 1901)) as well as in his later novel-fairy tale “A Fractured Heart” (a Georgian fable, 1920). In its evaluation of Aragvispireli's creative work, Georgian literary criticism has paid particular attention to his only novel, focusing on thematic aspects of the artistic representation of love, friendship, and art. “A Fractured Heart” is significant not only for the aforementioned thematic issues but also for its passages featuring allusive layers and subtle metatextual functions, which contribute to shaping key genre characteristics of the novel. In this context, a detailed analysis reveals the peculiarities of the relationship between the storyline, theme and subtheme. Notably, the fables included in the novel (the fable of the shepherd and the fable of the forest queen) exhibit certain similarities in the characters’ adventures, while simultaneously presenting different versions of the same story. Even more remarkable is the novel's connection to the Georgian folk epic romance “Eteriani”. The author himself hints at this connection through the names of the characters (Eteri, Marekhi). Shio Aragvispireli's novel-fairy tale “A Fractured Heart” is significant in many respects as one of the first large-scale literary fairy tales, earning the author a distinguished place in the history of Georgian literary fairy tales.