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Abstract: The article establishes poetic-typological correspondences between N. S. Leskov’s novel “Neglected People” (1865) and F. M. Dostoevsky’s novel “The Idiot” (1868–1869). The study has revealed a common theme for both of them – “hominization” of the character – going back to the creative works of V. A. Zhukovsky. The allusions to such works as the “Undine, an Old Novella”, the ballad “The Harp of Aeolus”, the “poetic story” “Nala and Damaianti”, the lyrical text “Detailed Report about the Moon. Message to Her Majesty the Empress Maria Feodorovna”, which synthesizes many themes, motifs, and poetic techniques of V. A. Zhukovsky form the lyrical-philosophical subtext of Leskov’s novel. The presence of a poetical subtext metaphysically interpreting the meanings is a typological feature of the Russian classic novel (I. S. Turgenev, I. A. Goncharov, F. M. Dostoevsky). The meaning-generating theme of the novel “The Idiot” – “a person sentenced to death” – is one of the central themes of Leskov’s novel “Neglected People”. Prince Myshkin and Nestor Dolinsky have similar views on the truth – it is on the side of the person who “cannot have an enemy”. The climax in the ontological tragedy of both characters lies in the choice between “perfect beauties” capable of “understanding the truth with their hearts”. The specificity of the artistic systems of the novels is determined by the interaction between its verbal and visual aspects. The poetic-typological correspondences discovered by the study show the classic novel’s story in its constants and variations and demonstrate its holisticity. The method of expressing coherence in the process of formation of holisticity is rooted in the Russian cultural tradition. It is characterized drawing on the concepts of S. G. Bocharov – “the genetic memory of literature” and V. N. Toporov – “the resonant space” of culture. The ontological basis of creativity, deeply felt by Leskov and Dostoevsky, and the logic of development of the “form of culture” were the conditions under which the poetics of the novel “The Idiot” that challenged “all poetics from Aristotle to our time” was prepared by the novel that did not pretend to be either exclusive or complete. The novels “Neglected People” and “The Idiot” can be correlated both as sketches endowed with novel poetics and as perfect pictures.

About the author(s) :

Olga V. Evdokimova
Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2558-1297

Elena P. Samoylova
Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University (Saint Petersburg, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4173-5949

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 27.09.2022; date of publication: 31.10.2022.

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