The paper presents a comparative analysis of the methods of creating a verbal portrait in the essay by Maxim Gorky “Sergei Yesenin” and in the memoires of Yury Annenkov “Sergei Yesenin”. The possibility and necessity of comparing the two selected works is explained by both the factual material chosen by the authors (both writers devote their essays to Sergei Yesenin) and similar methods of creating a verbal portrait of the poet, and the context of the style of the era, which is reflected in the works and the individual style of each artist. The aim of this work is to substantiate the genre-style features
of the considered verbal image of Sergei Yesenin in the abovementioned works, which allows clarifying the created and already axiomatic image of the poet. The study is built using comparative historical and historical functional methods, the works of Alexander Veselovsky, Yuri Lotman, Yuriy Mineralov, as well as the experience of modern literary scholars involved in the theory and history of verbal painting. In the process of the comparative analysis of the works, it was revealed that Yury Annenkov and Maxim Gorky, recreating the verbal portrait of the poet Sergei Yesenin, was primarily seeking to portray him as an exponent of the tragic era. Capturing the image of the poet Sergei Yesenin, the painter creates his self-portrait, surrounded by his beloved, at the background of the era in which he lived, the writer tries to guide the reader inside the poetry laboratory of ‟nature”.
THE PORTRAIT OF SERGEI YESENIN IN ESSAYS-MEMOIRES OF YURY ANNENKOV AND MAXIM GORKY
