THE POETICS OF FEAR IN THE SHORT STORIES BY V. F. ODOEVSKY AND E. T. A. HOFFMAN: CONVERGENCE AND ESTRANGEMENT
Abstract
https://doi.org/10.18522/1995-0640-2025-2-90-100
The article examines the similarities and differences in the artistic embodiment of the motif of fear in V.F. Odoevsky and E.T.A. Hoffman. The material of the study is the short stories by V.F. Odoevsky from the novel “Russian Nights” (“The Ball”, “The Last Suicide”, “The Mockery of the Corpse”) and the novellas by E.T.A. Hoffman (“The Sandman” and “The Deserted House”). Traditionally, the “dreadful” element in artistic texts is examined through such formalcontent categories as imagery and motifs. However, this time attention should be paid to the subjective, communicative nature of fear and it`s connection with the structural features of the artistic world. In connection with that the analysis of the chronotope, the system of points of view and the narrative instances was carried out. The investigation allows us to establish that in both writers fear is caused by the collision of material and ideal. The differences are manifested in the concept of this conflict and its capture by artistic means. Thus, Odoevsky abandons the category of the irrational and opposes spaces of different axiological significance, retains the highest spiritual authority and uses a narrative strategy of “exposure”, presenting a sharp conflict objectively existing. The fear in Hoffmann's texts is associated with the instability of the boundary between rational and irrational at the level of the microcosm and macrocosm, the absence of a higher spiritual authority, as well as a special narrative strategy of “hiding” objective information about the world.
Key words: dual conception of reality, fear, chronotope, point of view, artistic philosophy, F. Odoevsky, E. T. A. Hoffman
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