BETWEEN FEELING AND INTELLECT: THE PHILOSOPHY OF LOVE IN THE NOVEL “THE DISEASE” BY YEVHEN PLUZHNYK

Abstract

The primary aim of the paper is to clarify the main approaches to the philosophy of love, represented in the intellectual novel “The Desease” by Yevhen Pluzhnyk, to outline the sociocultural footing of the issues, raised in the work, as well as to bring to light the relationship of reflections on multidimensionality of love and the characters’ attempts to comprehend the peculiarities of human existence in the world. The methodological premises and theoretical frameworks for the research were provided by the studies on psychoanalysis, hermeneutics, philosophical and literary anthropology. While trying to understand the essence of love, the characters of Pluzhnyk’s novel, like the philosophers from different epochs, distinguish among love-passion, love-friendship, family love, which is developed in the matrimony, and ‘true love’ that is close to the divine one. The ‘true love’ is a willingness to sacrifice as well as realizing the uniqueness of other person; it motivates to feel responsibility for Other and to see him/her not from a selfish but from a values-based perspective.
 However, the relationships between the characters along with their reflections on love in the novel by Pluzhnyk are not an ordinary illustration of the different philosophical concepts. The writer also actualizes the ideological context of the 1920s and encourages his characters to think whether love between the representatives of the hostile social ‘classes’ is possible and whether the ‘new’ human has the right to love at all. Comprehension of the phenomenon of love in the novel “The Desease” is intertwined with the reflections on the identity of the person, on his/her internal crisis, provoked by the rationalistic approach to life, as well as on the peculiarities of the dialogue with the Other. The characters of the novel also seek to understand ‘the science of life’, to solve the problem of separating private and public spaces of existence, to grasp the contradistinction of the value positions ‘to take’, aimed at the self, and ‘to give’, which is laid in the basis of love and appears to be an important feature of the human entity.