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

Literary criticism

Formation of Stage Direction System of the First Plays of Russian Drama. «The Comedy of Artaxerxes» and «Judith» by Johann Gregory

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.

“Dnieper Mermaids” by A.A. Fet: Sources in Literature and Folklore (on the Problem of Fet’s Folklore)

This article is the first attempt to do a complex analysis of A.A. Fet’s libretto “Dnieper Mermaids”. Fet’s text proves to be of folklore origin when comparing and contrasting this text with those by O.M. Somov, V.A. Zhukovsky, A.S. Pushkin, M.Y. Lermontov, N.V. Gogol. The main difference of Fet’s text from his predecessors’ is the elaborate system of demonistic characters (the mermaid family, the dead fiance, water goblin, wood goblin) derived from Slavonic mythological poetic images, wide range of folklore prose material and culture.

Specific Loci of the House in the Russian and English Folklore Ballad

The article suggests lexical and semiotic research of the folklore world picture concepts in the ballad genre. The author describes the most frequently used lexemes denoting private loci of the English castle and the Russian terem. The description is comparativistic in its character, the concepts bower and горница are explored in terms of diverse social phenomena reflected in them.

The Influence of the German Romantic Tradition on the Literary Education of N.V. Stankevich

The article gives some key features of the literary, psychological and individual personality of N.V. Stankevich as a member of the literary process of the eighteen thirties.

A Traumatic Modality: the City in Herta Müller’s «Reisende auf einem Bein»

The material of the novel of the modern German writer Hertha Muller, not translated into Russian, examines the relationship between the principles of representation of traumatized consciousness and the principles of representation of urban space in a postmodern novel, reveals their inner relationship.

«Popular» in American Literature of the XVII–XX Centuries: Towards the Problem of Genesis of the US Mass Literature

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.

N.A. Polevoy in «My Literary and Moral Wanderings» by A.A. Grigoryev

The article belongs to a series of articles entitled «The portrait of N.A. Polevoy in literary memoirs of the 1850-s – early 1860-s», already published by different scholarly publications. Well-known memoirs from the period, together with criticism by Gerzen, Chernyshevsky, and Druzhinin, constitute a new literary-historical context which enabled a mid-XIX-th century reassessment of the previous thirty years of Russian literary history

Nicholai Chernyshevsky: Towards 180-th Anniversary

The article offers a contemporary view of Chernyshevsky’s biography and work, bringing in some understudied materials.

«Earthly Paradise» in American XIX Century Prose (Thoreau, Irving, Hawthorne)

The article deals with the concept pf America as earthly paradise in the texts by H.D. Thoreau, Washington Irving and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Short stories by Irving and Hawthorn are compared with Thoreau’s novel «Walden: or, Life in the Woods», leading to conclusion about the similarities in interpreting the concept by the three authors.

PUSHKIN IN THE INTERNET POETRY

In the article some mechanisms of formation of cultural memory in media (secondary) poetry, published on the Internet, are considered. The material of the study was the peculiarities of perception of Pushkin's creativity and biography in the works of network authors and discussions held on the largest Russian-language poetic resource.

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