Picturebooks: Discursive Conflict between the Verbal and the Visual Texts

Abstract

The article by Nina Barkovskaya analyzes the discursive conflict between the visual and the verbal aspects of the text. The following three books written by contemporary authors are used as illustrations of such conflict: Fairy Tales for Every Occasion by Evgeny Kluiev, Three Fairy Tales by Umberto Eco, and Eugenio Karmi, and Mouse Glicharia by Dina Sabitova. The full-fledged comprehension of these narratives requires an adult under-standing, in order to properly analyze the verbal and visual texts that originally present a child-reader. The adult intellect would also develop the juxtaposition of true-life events and the world of imaginary. The book appears not only as an entertaining entity but also as a cultural phenomenon, a meaning that goes beyond simple entertainment. The authors play at the intersection of the semiotics of art and everydayness. In this way, the young reader gets to appreciate mastery within the art, while the adult reader discovers joy in recognition of the cultural context.   Keywords: picturebook, literary fairy tale, receptive failure, illustrations, verbal and visual text, Umberto Eco, Dina Sabitova, Evgeny Kluiev