Article: PDF
Abstract: The object of the research embraces the onomastic space and the imagery system of the science fiction novella “The Ghoul” by A. K. Tolstoy. The aim of the study is to consider the peculiarities of the use of poetonyms, to identify the specificity of functioning of the images that participate in the realization of the themes and motifs of Gothic literature – vampirism, dual conception of reality, doppelganger theme, responsibility for immoral acts, family curse, sale of soul to the devil, mystical house, blood relationship, literary dream, relocation of souls, revived portrait, abandoned bride, and crossing of borders. The main methods include: literary historical method, contextual analysis, ideological-thematic analysis, and descriptive method. As a result, it was found that the specificity of the onomastic space of the novella “The Ghoul” lies in the predominance of three classes of names – anthro-, topo- and mythopoetonyms, which serve as certain linguistic means of creating spatial images and character images. The names in the novella participate in the modeling of the Gothic chronotope: in the creation of the chronological planes of modernity, past and long before past times and artistic spaces: Russian-Italian, ballad-chronical and mythopoetic. Such chronotope model creates a retrospective of the novella, allows the characters to rethink the modern events on the basis of their past experience. The imagery system is considered through the analysis of paired groupings of spatial twin images and character twin images. The latter are grouped on three grounds: being in mystical houses; indicating relationship by full or partial coincidence of first and last name / first name / last name; displaying features of duality and participation in parodying the Gothic tradition. Chains of paired images of characters realize the motifs of blood relationship, generic sin, and collective responsibility for immoral actions. The field of application of the results obtained includes the following: lectures and practical classes in the history of Russian literature of the second third of the 19th century, special seminars and courses devoted to the study of poetics of the names, the system of artistic images, and the individual style of the works of fiction by A. K. Tolstoy. So, the names and images determine the unfolding of the central themes of fall and reward, participate in parodying the Gothic tradition by reducing its plots, motifs, narrative techniques, images and characters, model the chronotope, play the role of a composition link, and mark the individual style of Tolstoy’s debut romantic prose.
Key words: Russian romantic prose of the 19th century; science fiction novella; onomastic space; imagery system; reception of the Gothic tradition

Для цитирования:

Пронченко, С. М. Имена и образы в повести «Упырь» А. К. Толстого / С. М. Пронченко // Philological Class. – 2023. – Vol. 28 ⋅ №3. – С. 147-157.

For citation

Pronchenko, S. M. (2023). Names and Images in the Novella “The Ghoul” by A. K. Tolstoy. In Philological Class. 2023. Vol. 28 ⋅ №3. P. 147-157.

About the author(s) :

Sergey M. Pronchenko

Branch of Bryansk State Academician I. G. Petrovsky University in Novozybkov 

(Novozybkov, Russia)

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0382-3059

Publication Timeline:

Date of receipt: 25.08.2022; date of publication: 31.10.2023.

References:

Fedorov, A. V. (2000). Rannyaya fantasticheskaya proza A. K. Tolstogo i traditsii romantizma v russkoi proze 40-kh gg. ХIХ v. [Early Fantastic Prose by A. K. Tolstoy and the Traditions of Romanticism in Russian Prose of the 40s of the 19th Century]. Avtoref. dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Moscow. 33 p.

Fedotova, K. S. (2018). Onimnaya leksika v yazyke pisatelya: poetonimograficheskii aspekt (na materiale tvorchestva N. S. Gumileva) [Onomastic Vocabulary in the Language of the Writer: A Poetonymographic Aspect (Based on the Material of the Work of N. S. Gumilev)]. Dis. ... kand. filol. nauk. Volgograd. 232 p.

Gromova, P. S. (2013). Graf Krasnorogskii: istoriya i mistika v tvorchestve A. K. Tolstogo [Count Krasnorogsky: History and Mysticism in the Works of A. K. Tolstoy]. Tver, Kondrat’ev A. N. 149 p.

Kalinkin, V. M. (2016). Prolegomeny k aksiomatike i postulatam poetonimologii [Prolegomains to Axiomatics and Postulates of Poetonymology]. In Mezenko, A. M. (Ed.). Regional’naya onomastika: problemy i perspektivy issledovaniya: sbornik statei: materialy Mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Vitebsk, 18 fevralya 2016 g. Vitebsk, Vitebskii gosudarstvennyi universitet im. P. M. Masherova, pp. 243–246.

Kalinkin, V. M. (2017). Znakom’tes’: poetonimologiya [Meet: Poetonymology]. In Vestnik Tambovskogo universiteta. Seriya Filologicheskie nauki i kul’turologiya. Vol. 3. No. 1 (9), pp. 10–17.

Kalinkin, V. M. (2018). Poetika onimov: neosporimost’ pravdy vymysla [Poetics of Onyms: The Indisputable Truth of Fiction]. In Kul’tura v fokuse nauchnykh paradigm. No. 6, pp. 66–71.

Koroleva, V. V. (2018). Stilizatsiya gofmanovskoi traditsii v rasskaze A. K. Tolstogo «Upyr’» (k voprosu o retseptsii Gofmana v russkoy literature ХIХ – nachala ХХ vekov) [Stylization of the Hoffmann Tradition in the Story of A. K. Tolstoy “Ghoul” (on the Issue of Hoffmann’s Reception in Russian Literature of the 19th – Early 20th Centuries)]. In Vestnik Kostromskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Vol. 24. No. 2, pp. 130–135.

Kotel’nikov, V. A. (2017). «Nemetskii tekst» v zhizni i tvorchestve A. K. Tolstogo (k 200-letiyu so dnya rozhdeniya poeta) [“The German Text” in the Life and Work of A. K. Tolstoy (to the 200th Anniversary of the Poet’s Birth)]. In Russkaya literatura. No. 4, pp. 22–39.

Kotel’nikov, V. A. (2020). Aleksei Konstantinovich Tolstoi v zhizni i v literature [Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy in Life and in Literature]. Saint Petersburg, DMITRII BULANIN. 864 p.

Likhachev, D. S. (1979). Poetika drevnerusskoi literatury [Poetics of Ancient Russian Literature]. Moscow, Nauka. 360 p.

Lirondelle, A. (1912). Le poète Alexis Tolstoï: l’homme et l’œuvre. Paris, Librairie Hachette & Cie. 677 p.

Odessky, M. P. (2011). Vampiricheskaya topika v rannei proze A. K. Tolstogo [Vampiric Topics in the Early Prose of A. K. Tolstoy]. In Odesskii, M. P. Chetvertoe izmerenie literatury: stat’i o poetike. Moscow, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, pp. 275–316.

Polyakova, A. A. (2008). Ot romana k povesti («Upyr’», «Amena») [From Novel to Novella (“Ghoul”, “Amena”)]. In Tamarchenko, N. D. (Ed.). Goticheskaya traditsiya v russkoi literature: sbornik statei. Moscow, Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, pp. 136–163.

Polyakova, A. A., Fedunina, O. V. (2006). Goticheskaya traditsiya v proze A. K. Tolstogo («Upyr’») [The Gothic Tradition in the Prose of A. K. Tolstoy (“The Ghoul”)]. In Novyi filologicheskii vestnik. No. 2, pp. 47–61.

Rogalev, A. F. (2007). Imya i obraz: khudozhestvennaya funktsiya imen sobstvennykh v literaturnykh proizvedeniyakh i skazkakh [Name and Image: The Artistic Function of Proper Names in Literary Works and Fairy Tales]. Gomel, Bark. 224 p.

Tolstoy, A. K. (1969). Sobranie sochinenii: v 4 t. [Collected Works, in 4 vols.]. Vol. 2: Artistic Prose. Moscow, Pravda. 528 p.

Vatsuro, V. E. (2002). Goticheskii roman v Rossii [Gothic Romance in Russia]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. 544 p.

Zakharova, V. D. (2013). A. K. Tolstoi: Letopis’ zhizni i tvorchestva [A. K. Tolstoy: Chronicle of Life and Creativity]. Bryansk, GUP «Bryanskoe oblastnoe poligraficheskoe ob"edinenie». 165 p.

Zhukov, D. A. (1982). Aleksei Konstantinovich Tolstoi [Alexey Konstantinovich Tolstoy]. Moscow, Molodaya gvardiya. 383 p.