Characters’ postironic self-reflection through new sincerity principles: a case study of Donal Ryan’s novel “The Spinning Heart”

This research focuses on the characteristic features of ideological and artistic trends of metamodern fiction and its stylistic features. One of the defined features of the contemporary state of literature is postirony, which is pervasive. Taking into account the ability of postirony to penetrate all spheres of matamodern society and literature in particular, the phenomenon should be considered as a transcultural concept. In the context of our research, we clarify the ontology of the concept “postirony” and its direct influence on metamodern literature. Another significant highlighted artistic trend is New Sincerity,which marks the shift from postmodernism to metamodernism. Therefore, the article identifies a number of New Sincerity principles that determine its relationship with irony, manifesting the emergence of metamodern postirony. The principle focus of the study is the stylistic realisation of postironic self-reflection through the defined principles of New Sincerity. The methodological section outlines the stylistic features of postironic portrayal of the characters through the principles of New Sincerity in the novel “The Spinning Heart” by contemporary Irish writer Donal Ryan. The stylistic analysis of the postironic selfreflection of the characters in the author’s metamodern narrative based on the principles of New Sincerity and considering stylistic devices at different language levels (lexical and syntactic), shows their undeniable influence on the readers’ understanding of the author’s postironic and sincere narrative. This analysis demonstrates the author’s refusal to use irony in depicting fictional reality, fostering a serious attitude of the reader.