Dante

The article considers Inferno by Dante Alighieri as one of the precedent texts for the novel The Petty Demon. The author supposes that Dante’s‘infernal’ connotations transform in the novel into the motive of deception which forms the plot of the novel. The motives that go through the whole novel (of mud, swamp, blindness and madness) as well as zoomorphic comparisons and allusions to the first cantos also reveal other aspects of Sologub’s plan and the distinctness of the poetics of the novel.

The article focuses on studying the motives of the first canto of Inferno in A. P. Chekhov’s story Student. Possible allusions to the first canto are evident in Chekhov’s choice of the time and place of where the character experiences his spiritual drama, in the semantics and function of the locuses, and key motives highlighting the character’s path. The author assumes that Dante’s ideals might have given rise to Chekhov’s idea of the unity of life in the world.