An interesting and mysterious phenomenon in art - hoax - is an attempt to deliberately deceive readers or viewers, to mislead them. Consider what it is and give a few examples.
Essence
Let's get acquainted with the meaning of the word "hoax". These are the deliberate actions of the author or creator of the work, aimed at fooling the public. The role and meaning of such a technique may be different:
- Outrageous and attracting attention.
- Pranking the public or a particular person.
- Experiment. Often, hoax writers, inventing a fictional character on whose behalf the story will go, provided him with a very specific biography, which gave the work authenticity. And the author himself became a simple publisher, executor or acquaintance of his own hero.
- Often, writers hid their true face behind the image of a fictional narrator.
Thus, hoax is a very interesting phenomenon, which is even more exciting to expose. Often it is so well thought out that it baffles even true professionals.
Distinguishing Features
The hoax is an amazing phenomenon, a deception in its own way, but several features distinguish it from the latter:
- The goal is not to cause harm. So, the hoaxer in no case sets himself the task of fraudulently embezzling other people's money.
- The hoax is not a fake, the writers did not try to pass off their works as the works of ancient authors and sell them at exorbitant prices. But they could imitate the style of folklore texts.
- Forethought and attention to detail. Every effort was made to stylize the fictional character's speech, to distinguish it from the style of the hoaxer himself.
These features help to distinguish hoax from quasi-mystification, forgery of works or historical monuments, deliberate distortion of events of past eras.
Examples
Mystification is a phenomenon that has taken place in Russian literature. So, A. S. Pushkin wrote his famous Belkin Tales, but connoisseurs of his work know that no Belkin actually existed, and the works themselves are the fruit of the work of the great classic. This hoax was used to give credibility to what is happening in the stories.
Many people know the aphorisms of Kozma Prutkov, this "man" even had his own portrait, signature and biography. So, it is known that he was a hussar, had his own political views. Meanwhile, he did not exist, under this pseudonym 4 poets were hiding at once: Alexei Tolstoy, Vladimir, Alexei and AlexanderZhemchuzhnikovs.
Mystification is a special phenomenon that can have several goals and objectives, but to harm science or receive undeserved benefits is not one of them. In the latter case, we are talking about a fake or outright fraud.
