Izvestiya of Saratov University.
Philology. Journalism
ISSN 1817-7115 (Print)
ISSN 2541-898X (Online)

Literary criticism

The ‘Golden Age’ in the Russian Literary Context: Origin and Modern Content of the Mythical Image

The image of the Russian ‘golden age’ (the Pushkin era) is considered in the context of the general patterns of nostalgic mythmaking. It is shown that the idealization of the national past at different historical stages remains isomorphic to the generalized image of Antiquity, which is a contamination of the ‘golden age’ and the ‘century of heroes’. The literary criticism of the late Soviet nostalgia for the Pushkin era is an example of the combination of the ‘golden’ and ‘heroic’ centuries under the name of ‘golden’.

Genre and Thematic Diversification of Late Novels by Jules Verne

The article considers posthumous novels by Jules Verne only recently published in the original author’s versions. Despite the abundance of genre models, themes and intonations, they constitute a certain unity. Motives and characters, well known to the readers of Verne’s‘classical’ works, mix well with original narrative solutions.

Metalepsis in the Auctorial Notes in Marquis de Sade’s Novels

Metalepsis, the transition from one narrative level to another, is used by Marquis de Sade to expound his philosophical ideas, confirm the authenticity of facts, enter into dispute with Enlightenment’s ideology. The article analyzes the metaleptic function of the author’s notes in de Sade’s novels.

Hidden Wishes: August von Platen’s Sophisticated Way to Goethe

The article deals with August von Platen’s – an outstanding German romantic poet (1796–1835) – search for sources of inspiration, using ‘close reading’ as a basic interpretative method in gender poetics. In this article, for this purpose, the so-called Goethe’s ‘gender canon’, embracing specific Goethe’s works created between 1774 and 1821, was analyzed. This period of Goethe‘s creativity is a subject of fierce controversies in contemporary literary criticism, but specifically this period proved to be the most important for Platen’s formation as a minority poet.

Books about Books in Fantasy Literature

The article contains the analysis of German children’s and young adult fantasy authors sharing a common interest to books as an important plot device. The focus of interest is on a considerable number of common themes, problems, character types and values that appear in the works of all the three authors, which allows to offer for these works such catch-all terms as ‘book text’ and ‘books about books’, and consider them as parts of a unique trend in German fantasy literature.

From Birth to Christmas: A. Revich’s Cycle Son of Man

The article deals with the poetic cycle by Alexander Revich Son of man. It is shown that the poet comprehends his own existence through the prism of Evangelical good tidings. The earthly life and suffering of Jesus Christ is the ‘archetype’ for a man who has embarked on the path specified in the New Testament. The meaning of it all is ‘iconically’ revealed as the man’s realization of his godliness: from birth to death and resurrection into eternal life.

‘Two Masks’ of Ioann Antonovich in Viktor Sosnora’s Essay: Principles of the Author’s Interpretation of Historic and Historiographic Sources

The article considers different techniques of constructing the image of Ioann Antonovich in V. Sosnora’s essay Two Masks. The article mainly analyzes the principles of how the author transforms historic and historiographic sources, presented by the works of the second half of the 19th century scientists V. A. Bilbasov and S. N. Shubinsky.

Teleological Quality of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s Creative Method in the Novel Cancer Ward

The article considers the teleological structure of A. I. Solzhenitsyn’s novel Cancer Ward. The combination of the social teleology polemic towards the Soviet novel and the transcendental teleology is analyzed on the level of the system of images-worldviews, on the levels of composition and language.

N. Ognev in the Literary Life of the 1930s

In the 1930s N. Ognev, the author of Kostya Ryabtsev’s Diary, takes part in the activities of the Union of Writers, reviews the manuscripts of emerging authors, hosts a literary club, develops ideas on how to restructure the work of the writers’ union. In the records and marginal notes a didactic intonation is discernible. For the first time the materials of N. Ognev’s archive are introduced into scientific discourse.

A. P. Platonov`s Work For The Cinema in 1927–1930

The article considers the history of A. P. Platonov’s screenwriting in 1927–1930s, the writer’s relationships with the leading cinema organizations of those times; for the first time new archive documents and materials of cinematic publications related to Platonov’s screenplays are introduced into scientific discourse.

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