От древнегреческого мифа к русским литературным архетипам в романах И.А. Гончарова

Abstract

The article deals with the mythological sub-text as one of the connective means in the novel trilogy by Goncharov. The author of the article assumes that the creative thinking of Goncharov’s is epic and his understanding of world literary types can be seen as the basis for the theory of literary archetypes. The novelty of the approach to the sources is justified by the aim of the article, the latter being to show the reflection of the evolution of the author’s mythological thinking in his creating the literary archetypes by using various mythological and folk sources. Analysis of the mythological sub-text in the novel “A Common Story” allows to say that the author applied mainly the European tradition of the ancient myths, namely the myth of Oedipus to the modern life in Russia. Viewing “Frigate ‘Pallada’ ” the author of the article concludes that Goncharov returned from the world-wide journey “more Russian” than he had been before. Thus in the novels “Oblomov” and “The Precipice” he used not only the European cultural tradition but also the Slavonic mythology and Russian folklore. The result of his turning to the fairy-tale and Russian literature was the appearance of the archetype images of Oblomov and oblomovism and that of gown in his creative work. “The bylina sub-text” in the novel “The Precipice” helps to understand the rivalry of the atheist Mark Volokhov with the proponent of “the old truth” Tushin as the fight of the Russian epic hero with the serpent. The analysis of Goncharov’s articles of 1870s allows one to see his wish to create the archetype images of the characters from the Russian life. Arguing with A.I. Zhuravleva’s opinion that Goncharov did not manage to fulfill this task in “The Precipice”, the author of the article proves that the image of grandmother has come into the national consciousness as an archetype. It has direct connection with the archetype of the village that came into being in the Russian literature of XIX–XX centuries.