Information about the author: 

Abstract:

The article considers the relationship and interference of two concepts — “Neoromanticism” and “mass fiction”, based on the work of Jules Verne. The semantic scope of the term “Neoromanticism” is explored, in particular in its French version, and the Neoromantic substrate in Verne’s prose and drama is revealed. The genre of “scientific novel” (as well as “science fiction” in general) is discussed in correlation with Neoromanticism. It is demonstrated that the relationship between popular literary production and Neoromanticism is ambiguous: the elements of poetics typical for “classical” Romanticism, quite organic for the “popular novel” and concomitant with it, in the second half of the 19^th century needed “recharging” from the latest ontological, epistemological and socio-political structures. Hence the revision of the notion of fantastic, elements of mysticism, remythologization, on the one hand, and the appeal to scientific knowledge, on the other, which made it possible to give a new breath to mass reading. At the same time, the elite component of Neoromanticism remained unclaimed by adherents of the “popular novel.”

Keywords: Neoromanticism, Jules Verne, “scientific novel”, science fiction, mass fiction, positivism.