The Poetics of Yury Olesha

Abstract

In this reading of the works of Soviet author Yury Olesha, a member of the group of avant-garde writers who survived both revolution and brutal purges, Peppard employs techniques developed by Soviet critic Mikhail Bakhtin to examine Olesha's writings. Many of these works, especially what Peppard calls Olesha's metafictional masterpiece, Envy, embody the tradition. Peppard aims to give an analysis of Bakhtin's and Olesha's carnival cosmos, with its images of macabre destruction, outrageous suspensions of disbelief and banal horror. Peppard interweaves the writer's interest in the circus, carnivals and soccer with a discussion of these motifs in his fiction, capturing the connection between the carnival ambience of Olesha's world and the carnival essence of his works. Peppard discovers the fundamental poetic congruity that informs the work of this figure in Soviet literature, and he aims to establish Olesha as a significant contributor to the struggle waged by such writers as Zamyatin, Bely and Shklovsky to redefine and reform the genetic canons laid down by 19th century predecessors.