И.С. Тургенев — читатель драмы Э. Бульвера-Литтона «Деньги» (по материалам библиотеки писателя)

Abstract

The article is devoted to Ivan Turgenev’s perception of English literature. The study focuses on the dramatic works of Bulwer-Lytton, which became the Russian writer’s main object of attention in the first half of the 1840s. The research material was taken from the personal library of Ivan Turgenev. His notes (ink marks and nail strikes) left on the separate text of the “Money” play (1841) are analyzed. They allow one to reconstruct a full picture of Turgenev’s perception. Edward Bulwer-Lytton was a real reformer of the English theatre who aimed at loading the melodrama seen on stage with ethical and social issues. Ivan Turgenev interpreted the “Money” play as a “manual” and an important source for a theoretical and practical study of dramatic art. The “Money” text revealed to the Russian author the daily life of the English society, in which a conflict unfolded on the basis of social and moral contradictions. Turgenev was particularly interested in the first two acts of the play. He was moving along the path of assimilation of the main image-symbol (this is confirmed by Turgenev’s notes). The writer refers to moments of the implementation of the money motive as the main one in the life of every member of society and of the society as a whole. He was interested in the figure of Sir John as a representative of the English aristocracy with his own “life philosophy”. In the course of careful reading, Turgenev highlights the idea of how financial solvency replaces personal dignity taking the scene of Statute and Glossmore fighting for a place in the Parliament an example. Turgenev found the fate of Clara and Evelyn particularly important in the world of distorted values. Turgenev paid special attention to the lyrical manifestations in the female character, and to the ironic nature of a male one. Graves, a character who was responsible for the comic component in the play, also aroused Turgenev’s interest.