scholarly journals READING ‘THE NEWCOMES’ IN DIFFERENT WAYS: LITERARY AND CRITICAL ‘DUEL’ OF CHERNYSHEVSKY AND DRUZHININ

Author(s):  
Boris M. Proskurnin ◽  

The essay deals with the issues of reception of English literature by Russian literary criticism; it analyzes polemically pointed evaluations of The Newcomes (1853–1855) by two leading Russian critics of the 1850s – 1860s – Nikolay Chernyshevsky and Alexander Druzhinin. To look at their reviews of the novel is worthwhile as it leads to a better understanding of both Russian literary process of the period and Russian reception of English literature in the middle of the 19th century. While examining these reviews, it is necessary to remember that this novel occupies quite an important place in the creative work of Thackeray and has many peculiarities at such levels of its structure as genre, plot, narrative, character-making, irony. The novel belongs to the after Vanity Fair period of Thackeray’s oeuvre with its own aesthetics which just in The Newcomes gets its final look. The novel pictures the life of the English upper classes with the help of chronicle and panoramic methods of plot-making; direct satire, keenest irony and invective do not work here as they work in Vanity Fair. It is precisely this ‘otherness’ of The Newcomes, in comparison with the most famous novel by Thackeray, that becomes the matter of the opposite estimates of this novel by two Russian critics: at one extreme, Chernyshevsky who, though noting some strong plot-making and narrative positions in the novel, criticizes the writer for poor conceptuality of the novel, the petty themes raised, the hero’s unimpressiveness, procrastination and slowness of the narrative; at the other extreme, the benevolent view of Druzhi­nin who reveals some important facets of the novel’s artistic originality. He does not assess the novel from the ideological positions which are, in many respects, the products of the first Russian ‘thaw’ after the period of political reaction of the regime of Nicholas I and which determine the position of Chernyshevsky. Since Druzhinin had been taken by Chernyshevsky as his ideological rival and the founder of ‘art for art’s sake’ conception, his review was a severe polemical answer to Druzhinin’s review published earlier. That is one of the main reasons why such a profound literary critic as Chernyshevsky did not notice or did not want to notice many merits of The Newcomes which are stressed in the essay. It is shown in the essay that, while wri­ting his review of The Newcomes, Chernyshevsky was thinking more about Russian literary situation than Thackeray’s novel itself and the literary process in England in the middle of the 19th century.

2021 ◽  
pp. 213-225
Author(s):  
D. N. Zhatkin ◽  
A. A. Ryabova

The article continues a series of works devoted to the Russian reception of the Scottish writer James Hogg (1770—1835), a famous interpreter of folk ballads and author of “The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner” (1824). The facts and materials related to the perception of J. Hogg in Russia in the middle of the XIX — early XX century are collected and summarized. It is noted that during the period under review, no new translations of J. Hogg's poetry and prose into Russian were created, however, in the articles of leading literary critics (N. G. Chernyshevsky, M. L. Mikhailov, A. V. Druzhinin) when analyzing the works of N. V. Gogol, T. Goode, the translation activity of I. S. Turgenev expressed opinions on certain aspects of the biography and work of the Scottish author. It has been established that the main source of information about J. Hogge and his work was for the Russian reader of the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries translated publications on the history of English literature and culture, other books by Western European researchers published in Russia. The manifestations of interest of Russian researchers and popularizers of English literature in the work of J. Hogg are comprehended, with special attention paid to the article by N. A. Solovyov-Nesmelov “James Hogg”, which was a literary sketch about the childhood of the writer, and the essay by K. F. Tiander the novel of the first quarter of the 19th century, which offers a different assessment from the predecessors of the Scottish author’s activities as a continuer of the traditions of M. Edgeworth. 


Author(s):  
Yelena N. Belyakova

In terms of newspaper-magazine reviews of Alexander Ostrovsky's works, published in the 1850s-70s, the problem of artistic text literary-critical evaluation is examined in the article. The author of the article assumes that artistic text evaluation is directly related to ideology and to the main request of time in terms of which, the text receives this assessment. According to Georgiy Fridlender, one of the most important tasks that Russian public life of the second half of the 19th century set for literature was to create an image of a viable and still positive hero. Alexander Ostrovsky in his work was oriented to answers to the most pressing social requests. Nevertheless, his works often did not satisfy his contemporaries, and sometimes insulted their moral feelings. An attempt to trace how the negative moral and ethical assessment of the playwright's creative work was conditioned and the role that newspaper and magazine criticism played in shaping the literary process is undertaken in the article.


Author(s):  
O.M. Buranok ◽  
◽  
N.E. Erofeeva ◽  
I.B. Kazakova ◽  
O.V. Sizova ◽  
...  

The article examines the works of E. Haywood, as the author of novels, the publisher of three women's magazines that laid the groundwork for the culture of women's creativity in English literature of the XVIII century. Her name is called among the first authors of a women's novel, which is still interpreted from a gender perspective in modern science as a sociocultural phenomenon that represents the world through the eyes of women. Nevertheless, the authors of the article note the serious influence of men's literature on the work of the writer who was passionate about politics and social reforms. Special attention is paid to such genre modification of the novel as "secret histories", the predecessor of "the novel with the key". It is noted that what is new in "secret histories" is the shift in the angle of perception of the text itself, filled with facts about certain historical events and people, which were taken from various kinds of insinuations, as a rule, it had nothing to do with the real history, but attracted the reader with their variations in the relationships of the characters. Slander becomes the subject of the depiction, and its possessors represent heroes (antiheroes) through the prism of the certain moral values, including the state ones. For the first time in Russian literary criticism, the authors acquaint the reader to the "secret histories" of E. Haywood, novels “The Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Caramania”(1726), “Memories of a Certain Island Adjacent to the Kingdom of Utopia” (1725 – 26), “The Advantures of Eovaai, Princess of Ijavea; a preAdamitical History” (1736) in the context of women's prose in England in the XVIII century. The analysis of the novel “The Secret History of the Present Intrigues of the Court of Caramania” as the most vivid example of the "secret histories" by E. Haywood is offered. The material of the article will be of interest to the specialists, as well as to those who are interested in the development of the female genre of the novel in the literature of England during the Enlightenment.


Author(s):  
Galina I. Romanova ◽  
Kristina V Rizayeva

Genre specifi cs of the stories «Lyol’ka’s Upbringing» and «A Day in the Vastness of Nature» by Mikhail Albov is considered. Historical-typological analysis of both works is given. Chronotope, type of plots, features of speech organisation in both stories, which are considered as a dilogy, are analysed. The overview characteristic of the existence of the genre of story in the Russian literary process is given, the exclusive affi liation of story genre to Russian literature is noted. Literary trends of the late 19th century are marked, the signifi cant role of the story genre in Russian literature in the 2nd half of the 19th century is indicated. Two traditions in determining the specifi cs of the story genre – by formal features and by meaningful characteristics - are noted. Mikhail Albov’s works general specifi city - the static character of heroes when repeatedly using the same names and life stories of characters in different works of the writer – is presented. The story «Lyol’ka’s Upbringing» by Mikhail Albov is characterised as storytelling traditional one for literature about suffering children, a conclusion about the writer’s creative perception of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s works is made. The story «A Day in the Vastness of Nature» by Mikhail Albov is defi ned as one unrelated to the story «Lyol’ka’s Upbringing» by plot. The article proves that the stories constitute a dilogy. Prevalence of psychology in portraying heroines of both stories is noted; the genre invariant of a story, characteristic of belles lettres of the last third of the 19th century, is identified.


2021 ◽  
pp. 256-271
Author(s):  
O. Yu. Osmukhina ◽  
A. B. Tanaseichuk

The article is devoted to comprehending the creative cooperation of the outstanding Victorians Ch. Dickens and W. Collins, who were co-authors for a decade and a half, as well as to the study of the peculiarities of the novel “No Exit”, which was not republished in Russia from the end of the 19th century until 2021 and was virtually unknown to the Russian-speaking reader. The relevance of the article is due to the need to build a coherent and consistent history of the development of English literature of the Victorian epoch in the domestic literary consciousness, an important part of which is the legacy of its masters, as well as the elimination of gaps in the creative biography of the largest figures of Victorianism. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time in Russian English studies a gap in the reception of the creative tandem of Ch. Dickens and W. Collins has been filled: the key studies of their heritage have been comprehended; the history of their creative union has been studied; the novel “No Exit” in the context of the creative biography of Ch. Dickens and W. Collins was analyzed; the features of the generic (interweaving of epic and dramatic elements) and genre synthesis (combination of gothic, detective, adventure beginning) of the novel are revealed. The authors of the article used comparative historical, biographical, sociocultural methods, as well as the method of holistic analysis of a work of art. 


Author(s):  
Andrew Kahn

The Short Story: A Very Short Introduction charts the rise of the short story from its original appearance in magazines and newspapers. For much of the 19th century, tales were written for the press, and the form’s history is marked by engagement with popular fiction. The short story then earned a reputation for its skilful use of plot design and character study distinct from the novel. This VSI considers the continuity and variation in key structures and techniques such as the beginning, the creation of voice, the ironic turn or plot twist, and how writers manage endings. Throughout, it draws on examples from an international and flourishing corpus of work.


Revue Romane ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 282-293
Author(s):  
Margareth Hagen

The first chapters of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio were printed in 1881, the same year as the publication of the novel I Malavoglia, Giovanni Verga’s masterpiece of verismo. While every critical reader of Verga’s realism has pointed out his particular narrative interpretation of evolution, Collodi’s has novel very seldom been connected to the theories of evolution, even if Darwin’s ideas were highly present in the public debate in Florence during the last decades of the 19th century. The reasons for this silence are primarily to be found in the genre of Pinocchio, in the fact that it is children literature, and therefore primarily related to the narrative mechanisms of the fairy tales and pedagogical literature. Focusing on Pinocchio, the article discusses to which degree Darwinism can be traced in Collodi’s literature for children, and questions if the continuous metamorphoses of Pinocchio can be read also in connection with the naturalist conception of the literary characters as unstable, in continuous evolution, and not only as part of the mechanisms of fairy tales and mythological narratives.


The late 1990s – early 2000s was a time of numerous projects dedicated to the Victorian age and the Victorian novel as a specific phenomenon that inspires the modern novel development. The English postmodern novel with its typical narrative, time transferal to Victorian England, weaving of time layers, invokes current research interest. The relevance of this study is caused by considerable interest of researchers in the Victorian era heritage and by need of a comprehensive study of Victorian linguoculture and its implementation in the modern English novel. The Victorian text influences a new genre of the novel that reflects the gravity of modern English prose to the traditional literature of Victorian era, assumed to be particularly important in this context. The analysis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” in the Russian literary criticism was made only by O. A. Tolstykh; in the Ukrainian science, this work was investigated by O. Boynitska in the context of searching the past, so this subject is not investigated enough, and in our opinion is new and relevant, especially from the perspective of the “Victorian era” concept embodied in the novel. The aim of the paper is to analyze the “Victorian era” concept peculiarities in the intercultural context, on the basis of A. S. Byatt’s “Possession” as a Victorian novel. The paper takes into account the reproduction of concepts of Marriage, Home, Family, Freedom, Life, as components of “Victorian era.” The Victorian family is often represented through the place of their dwelling; therefore, the great Victorians’ works are overwhelmed by interior descriptions (Dombey’s house, Miss Havisham’s home, Mr. Rochester’s Castle). However, in “Possession,” there is an obvious contrast of Victorian buildings to the same structures in the XX century: the past prime – the modern decline. All the secrets and delusions hidden behind the facades of supposedly respectable buildings result in distorting facts and, to some extent, to violating the rights of ownership to the memories of the past. This gives another meaning to the title of the novel – “possession,” that is ownership, possession of letters, memory, truth.


Author(s):  
Halyna Bokshan

The study examines the features of the strategies of mythologization and mystification used by Yurii Vynnychuk in creating his literary version of Ivan Vahylevych’s biography in the novel “Liutetsiia”. First of all the paper emphasizes the writer’s inclination to play with historic material characteristic of postmodernism, manifesting itself in most of his works and in the novel under study, in particular. The research pays special attention to the original interaction of mythological and cultural-historical aspects in the fictionalized biography of the renowned public figure of the 19th century, famous for his activity in Ruska Triitsia. It considers the specific features of the literary visualization of Ivan Vahylevych character in the relation to Ivan Franko’s essay representing the epistolary of the figures of the historical epoch depicted in the novel. The study determines the correlation between the personages in “Liutetsiia” and the characters and motives of the Celtic mythology. It identifies the specificity of the reminiscent relations of the main character with the archetypal figure of Don Juan. The conclusions highlight the use of irony, grotesque and comic modus by Yurii Vynnychuk as the manifestation of the neo-mythological device of deheroization. It also accentuates that the strategies of mythologization and mystification in “Liutetsiia” reflect the manner of interpreting cultural-historical material characteristic of the author.


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