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I. O. Volkov
- Рубрика:
REREADING RUSSIAN CLASSICS
- Article:
DOI: 10.51762/1FK-2022-27-04-09
Abstract: The article deals with Ivan Turgenev’s attitude to English Literature. The focus of the study is on the
comic play of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, which became the object of the Russian writer’s reflection in 1840s, firstly,
as a reader and later as a creator. The English writer’s play “Money” (1841) is subjected to comparative analysis with
Turgenev’s one-act comedies “Lack of Money” (1846) and “Where It is Thin, There it Breaks” (1848). Turgenev and
Bulwer-Lytton put forward uniform requirements for the national theatre, which were based on turning the dramatic
focus to the life of an ordinary person, the vicissitudes of an individual in their daily existence. Both writers
put “the suffering of an ordinary person” at the forefront of modern drama. In the initial period of his work, Turgenev
turned to Bulwer-Lytton’s drama “Money”, focusing on the problem of depicting a modern personality on
the background of interaction between social, ethical and psychological motivations, acutely posed by the English
author. In the plays “Money” and “Lack of Money” the money is a vivid social symbol, which hovers over the fate
of the characters starting with the title. Their role is laid down by the authors in the very technique of drama and
consists in ensuring the unity and dynamics of the action. Bulwer-Lytton assigns each moment of his five-act
play to the course of a monetary intrigue, the turns of which subjugate almost equal bends of human psychology
and morality. Turgenev organizes his comic scenes in a more convex connection between the main motive and
the character’s well-being, deepening the dramatic sound (outwardly, the conflict in the finale is removed, but
inner differences turn out to be insurmountable). The comedy “Where It is Thin, There it Breaks” gives a slightly
different version of the perception of Bulwer-Lytton’s drama, since the line of interpretation here is built in an
almost tragic way. Hamlet’s imagery in the depiction of Evelyn, which is part of the character of Yevgeny Gorsky,
becomes the object of Turgenev’s creative reflection. In Bulwer-Lytton’s character, the Russian writer discerned
the internal duality, indecision and irony oriented towards Shakespeare’s poetics as a means of interaction with
the outside world. During the period of work on “Where It is Thin, There it Breaks” he used the theme of love and
marriage as a problem of life choice of a constantly reflecting character. As a result, Turgenev’s creative reflection
reveals another important name in the space of the writer’s interaction with Western European literature. The
writer, who highly appreciated and knew English literature very well, turned to Bulwer-Lytton as the author of
a socio-psychological comedy during the formation of his own artistic skills. For Turgenev, it was important not
only and not so much to focus on the “naturalness” and sharpness of the image of the modern personality and its
environment, but to discover the action of dramatic passions in the vicissitudes of human life, which could acquire
a Shakespearean scale due to their internal tension and contradiction.
Key words: Russian writers; literary creative activity; literary genres; literary plots; literary images; literary
characters; English literature; English writers; drama; dramatists; comedies; plays; socio-psychological dramas
Для цитирования:
Волков, И. О. Драма Э. Бульвера-Литтона «Деньги» в творческом восприятии
И. С. Тургенева / И. О. Волков // Philological Class. – 2022. – Vol. 27 ⋅ №4. – С. 99-111. DOI 10.51762/1FK-2022-27-04-09.
For citation
Volkov, I. O. (2022). Ivan Turgenev’s Interpretation of the Play “Money” by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. In Philological Class. 2022. Vol. 27 ⋅ №4. P. 99-111. DOI 10.51762/1FK-2022-27-04-09.
Publication Timeline:
Date of receipt: 10.07.2022; date of publication: 29.12.2022
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