nature

In the article the poetic features of Z. Gippius’s prose are investigated. The special attention is given to the function of smell in the writer’s short stories of the 1890s, as means of the plot development, of revealing characters’ inner world, their complexity, the discrepancy of their nature, the history of their relations, their philosophy of life and love.

In memories-impressions of the main character of the novel «Idiot» on the Swiss nature, the tin cross and the condition before attacks of epilepsy the mechanism of mingling past with present based on the internal logic of hero’s subconsciousness is traced. External events are only a certain external impulse activating and provoking the work of thought, connecting the events of external life with those of spiritual life, which allows to estimate past events from the point of view of the present and actually is a way of mastering the reality.

The article studies the problem of Petersburg text of the Russian literature in the literary works by Konstantin Vaginov, its correspondence to the classical Petersburg text of A. Pushkin, F. Dostoevsky, N. Gogol.

In the article the sound background and its sense function is analyzed in the image structure of Z. Gippius small prose (based on the material of the early novellas).

In the present article it is attempted to substantiate analytically the elements of literary prototypical features of the title characters of M. Yu. Lermontov’s novel «Princess Ligovskaya» and the novel «A Hero of Our Time» as related to the main character of the novel by V. Ropshin «The Pale Horse». George’s individualism, the representative of the 1900s and the head of the terrorist group, goes back to the romantic individualism of Lermontov’s namesake hero and his follower – a «hero of the time».

This article describes the creation of the image of the Volga in the early works of Skitalets (S. G. Petrov, 1869–1941). The artistic world of the writer is filled with natural images, which are drawn mainly in a romantic way. The landscapes of Skitalets are mostly bright and colorful, although there are accurate realistic sketches. Also, the Volga can play the role of a psychological ‘accompaniment’, and can become the ideal embodiment of the proper state of the world.

The article reveals the images of animals in the cycle of stories The Tragic Menagerie (1907) by the writer of the Silver Age L. D. Zinovieva-Annibal (1866–1907) and their role in molding the character of the heroine. These images perform several functions. They establish the environmental discourse of the narrative, shape the moral and philosophical problem range, facilitate the religious self-identification of the main character.

The article seeks to explore the concepts of masculinity and androgyny in the works of the American writer Frank Norris (1870-1902). Based on two novels, “Moran of the Lady Letty” and “A Man’s Woman”, the study examines the peculiarity of male and female images. The interaction of the sexes often grows irreconcilable, and the theme of emancipation becomes one of the key ones in the writer’s work.