«Monstre», «медвежонок», «медведь»: к реконструкции одной текстометафоры

Abstract

The article reveals the semantics and functioning of the text-metaphor “bear” in the epistolary genre of Russian writers of the 19th century. The idiom “to sell (share) the skin before one has shot the bear” is found in the epistolary works of A. S. Pushkin, I. A. Goncharov,F. M. Dostoevsky, representing the metaphors “writer - hunter”, “manuscript - bear”. In the epistolary works of I. S. Turgenev, these metaphors are transformed under the influence of emblematics, which the writer was fond of, and refer to the Renaissance legend about a she-bear licking a newborn cub. In A. P. Chekhov’s works the metaphor unexpectedly finds a continuation, revealing the connection between A. P. Chekhov with a gypsy-leader, Pushkin’s Aleko, to the limit with a buffoon entertaining the audience, and the connection of his play is a joke with a bear. In the pre-Chekhov epistolary, this metaphor is associated with the process of text generation, while A. P. Chekhov describes the connection between the writer-playwright and the product of his generation in the post-creative period through this metaphor.