Ovid, Shakespeare, Shevchenko: features of autocommunication practices

Abstract

The paper presents analysis of cases of indirect literature influences of Ovid and Shakespeare upon Taras Shevchenko's poetry. The author questions the view which is common in modern Ukrainian literature studies that Shevchenko's interest in Ovid's works was caused by similarity of certain facts of their biographies, and in Shakespeare's one — because of their oeuvres' humanistic dimension. Based on analysis of some relevant aspects of Ovid's and Shakespeare's works, and poems, letters and diaries by Shevchenko, the author argues that Shevchenko's keen interest in both poets' works was specified by his concern with modes of autocommunication and its display. In Shevchenko's poems, autocommunication manifest is addressed to his own poems in many cases; in Ovid's works, it manifested itself in the same way, while for Shakespeare's dramas, it appeared in numerous soliloquys delivered by characters of his. Shevchenko's fierce need for autocommunication was rooted in his psychological portrait, therefore, he was interested in Ovid and Shakespeare not because of searching for some objects for reception or imitation but because of deep feeling of emotional affinity with Ovid's and Shakespeare's characters.