On the material of two essays by John Fowles dedicated to the great English late Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy, features and evolution of the creative manner of the Fowles-essayist are considered.
The main semantic components of the motive of the ministry are revealed, its role in the plot and composition of "Selected places from correspondence with friends", the transformation of the image of the author-preacher into the personified, multifaceted image of the "good Christian".
Stage directions of the first plays of Russian drama in many respects are directed towards the understanding of ritual actions of the court culture. But at the same time they are forming a ramified system of non-verbal actions designation. J.G. Gregory’s plays «The Comedy of Artaxerxes» and «Judith», having absorbed in themselves the originality of national notions about theatricality and principles of European stage performances, demonstrated how swiftly the dramatic art was mastering functional and plot-related opportunities of stage direction descriptiveness.
The article deals with the origins of specific features of the US mass fiction - increased didacticism and broad reliance on the traditions of national literature. In the usage of Russian American studies new facts are introduced (popular novel by JR Ridge "The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the famous Californian bandit" (1854), etc.). Fiction of North America, initially oriented to the widest and most democratic audience, since the XVII century. worked out original techniques and principles of the most effective impact on the reader.
The article deals with the problems of establishing boundaries between the genres of memoir and autobiographical prose, their genealogy and dominant attributes are suggested. The specific character of the memoir and autobiographical styles is analyzed.
The contemporary Russian literature is a complex mixture of separate sub-literatures, each having its own authors and its own devoted readers. We witness ubiquitous presence of readers’ ‘deceived expectations’ device, as regards traditional ideas of genres and forms. The marginal genres often appear on the borderline between literature and journalism. Among the productive models are TVconfession; print media genre of women review; specific combinations of these two.
The images of N.M. Karamzin and Decembrists emerge, starting from the late 1960s up to the early 1990-s, in the context of the meditation over the problems of history in the songs and poems of the bards: A.Galitsh, A.Gorodnitskiy, V.Dolina, M.Scherbakov.
Among the poets and writers of the Silver Age the article singles out Yu.Aikhenvald and I.Annensky, drawing attention to their articles on A.F.Pisemsky, one of the most controversial authors of the midXIX-the century. Both critics concentrated on the characters’ speech in Pisemsky’s works finding it his most specific trait as an author, and both offered deep insights in Pisemsky’s world and further vistas for its analysis. Following into their steps, the article contains some new observations on Pisemsky’s style.
The article analyses the principles of literary-historical cognition in the literary heritage of D.S. Merezhkovsky which so far haven’t been studied enough. These principles include «aesthetic appeal to epistemology», textual approach to history, method of «analytical reading» of the «Books of History», etc. The article reflects on the genre characteristics of the historiophilosophic novel by D.S.
