A TEXT IN THE TEXT: TECHNIQUE IN THE SHORT STORIES BY I.A. BUNIN

Abstract

The article deals with a technique «a text in the text» in the stories by I.A. Bunin. Yu.M. Lotman in the article «A Text in the Text» showed that the text acts as a generator of meanings when it switches from one semiotic system to another. It happens, in particular, when a new external text is included in the semantic field of the «mother text», in which both subtexts interact and enter into dialogic relationships, they «transform and form new contents». The most illustrative examples of «a text in the text» are M. Bulgakov’s «The Master and Margarita» where chapters from the novel about Pontius Pilate are included in the novel about the Master and V. Nabokov’s novel «The Gift», which includes the text of the Godunov-Cherdyntsev novel about Chernyshevsky. In Bunin's short stories it is a more difficult task to apply this technique. Nevertheless, Bunin used the «a text in the text» approach.The article gives examples of quotes taken from the Bible which play a text-forming role in the lyric essays of the writer. The article also highlights passages from «Grammar of Love» that serve as main mental events in this short story. Finally, the article discusses the inclusion of the text by G. de Maupassant in Bunin’s story «Bernard» that transforms the meaning of the Bunin’s story. In all three cases, the dialogue of the two texts allows the author to expand his artistic tasks, move from the statement of facts to reflection, turn the narrated into a mental event, and give the work a philosophical character.