Reshetova A.A., Ryngach T.B.

Literary genesis of the motive and plot complex in love fiction of late sentimentalism (on the example of the reception of N. M. Karamzin’s story Poor Liza). Pp. 84–97.

UDC 821.161.1-31.09″17″

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2024.85.4.010

 

Abstract. The article analyzes sentimental tales of the turn of the 18th–19th centuries that followed the model of N. M. Karamzin’s Poor Lisa. The fiction works of V. V. Izmaylov, G. P. Kamenev, I. I. Martynov, A. E. Izmaylov, P. Y. Lvov, M. V. Milonov and others were considered by literary critics as mass literature until early 21st century, and little research was don on them. The authors of the article address the problem of the genesis of the motive and plot knots of love stories and the formation of their plot-lines. It is revealed that the plot of Karamzin’s novella was further modified by authors of late sentimentalism who added to it motives of different origins. The initial plot scheme of an unhappy love was influenced by various traditions of European narrative (a combination of motives from sentimental European prose, poetry (idyllic and pastoral), and drama (comic opera)) and Russian manuscript fiction of the 17th and 18th centuries (combining the narrative with fairy-tale motives, motives from love-adventurous, courtesan, and chivalric romance, which entered sentimental fiction through original and translated texts). The object of analysis in the article is a complex of motives united by the love plot scheme and borrowed from various literary sources: The motive of unhappy love; love, the tragedy often based on class inequality of the lovers; the motive of sentimentalist dramatic death/suicide of the heroine and, as a counterweight, idyllic images of virtuous and benevolent landlords contributing to the happy ending; grief at the grave of the beloved, associated with the image of the melancholy narrator; the tragic farewell letter, love sickness, kidnapping of the heroine and slander against her, etc. The results of the conducted research have both practical application (in educational practice with undergraduate and graduate students of philology) and theoretical significance. The analysis of interaction between European sentimentalism and Russian manuscript fiction, original and translated, in the motive and narrative complex of receptive works, focused on the model of Karamzin’s Poor Lisa, contributes to understanding the transformation of the genre of sentimental novella and its role in the further formation of Russian fiction.

 

Keywords: love fiction at the turn of the 18th–19th centuries, sentimental novella, N. M. Karamzin, Poor Liza, A. E. Izmaylov, V. V. Izmaylov, G. P. Kamenev, P. Y. Lvov, P. I. Shalikov, “mainstream culture,” receptive tale, European tradition, manuscript narratives of the 17th–18th centuries, motive and plot complex, poetics of the plot.

 

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