Title of the article:

FEMALE IMAGES IN STORIES BY A. P. CHEKHOV: ROMANTIC TRADITION AND MYTHOPOETIC ASPECT

Author(s):

Galina Yu. Zavgorodnyaya

Information about the author/authors

Galina Yu. Zavgorodnyaya — DSc in Philology, Professor, The Maksim Gorky Institute of Literature and Creative Writin, Tverskoi Blvd., 25, 123104 Moscow, Russia.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4830-4797
E-mail: galina-yuz@yandex.ru

Section

Philological sciences

Year

2022

Volume

Vol. 66

Pages

pp. 238–254

Received

March 05, 2021

Approved after reviewing

April 16, 2021

Date of publication

December 28, 2022

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37816/2073-9567-2022-66-238-254

Index UDK

821.161.1.0

Index BBK

83.3(2Рос=Рус)53

Abstract

The paper considers a particular case of interaction between A. P. Chekhov with a previous literary tradition, namely, with the romantic motif of the union of a hero and a woman, which has a mythical, otherworldly nature. According to the aesthetics of romanticism, the hero in this case seeks to join the ideal world through love, but such a union is always doomed, moreover, it is destructive either for one or for both. One of the options for the development of such a plot is that the the heroine misleads the hero (sometimes, being just a hostage of her essence) with her beauty, singing, etc., subsequently revealing her chthonic or infernal nature. Analysis of a number of A. P. Chekhov’s stories showed that on the external plot level, romantic stylistics and imagery are subject to reduction and parody. However, at the inner, latent level, Chekhov repeatedly uses this very romantic plot — the exposure of the ideal lover. The plot is shaped by allusions to mythology and folklore; these are primarily portrait and landscape descriptions, names, details, repetitions. The non-obviousness of this underlying plot is that all of the above may be read and from purely realistic standpoint.

Keywords

Chekhov, Stories, Female Images, the Tradition of Romanticism, Mythopoetics.

References

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