"САМОЕ БЕЗЫСКУССТВЕННОЕ И ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННОЕ ИЗ СОЧИНЕНИЙ": ДЖ. ЭЛИОТ В ВОСПРИЯТИИ И.С. ТУРГЕНЕВА

Abstract

The article discusses the response of I.S. Turgenev to the novel by G. Eliot “The Mill on the Floss” in the context of Turgenev’s novel aesthetics. An attempt is made to systematize the writer’s views on the novel genre: giving preference to the social, Dickensian-Georgesandian type of the novel, the writer does not consider it of the same kind and singles out both the indisputable genre peaks (G. Flaubert, L.N. Tolstoy, G. de Maupassant) and indisputable failures (O. de Balzac, E. Zola). From this point of view, Turgenev’s perception of G. Eliot’s novel poetics is analyzed. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that the novel under consideration is the closest one for Turgenev structurally and ideologically. “The Mill on the Floss” appears to be the writer’s least typical novel, with a tragic denouement, predetermined by the love conflict, and the force of nature, and with a heroine who is very different from her environment and therefore doomed under existing circumstances. The fate of Maggie and the structure of her image are consonant with Turgenev’s search for the hero, but later the artistic searches of both writers diverge: G. Eliot becomes interested in a more complex structure, in which there is room for the evolution of the hero, his (or her) overcoming the framework set by his upbringing or environment, and the ability to move on. Here lies the fundamental difference between her poetics and the poetics of Turgenev.