Suchergebnisse

The review analyses a book by K. A. Chekalov — a well-known scholar,
Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Classical Literatures of the West
and Comparative Literature Studies. His work continues the series of studies of mass
French literature from its origins to the beginning of the last century. Th e author
does not aim to cover all the phenomena of mass literature over a century and a half,
trying at the same time to fi ll the gaps in their research, to turn to the least studied
works of those novelists which his predecessors had already addressed (Eugène Sue,
Alexandre Dumas, Maurice Leblanc), to the less explored writers (Paul Feval, Ponson
du Terailles, Xavier de Montepin, etc.), as well as those famous writers whose
relationship to mass literature is still ambiguous (Jules Verne). Comprising 11 essays,
Chekalov's monograph not only provides an insight into the poetics and function
of the mass novel in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century France, but also shows
the nature of its reception in Russia, from the fi rst published translations to the
publications of the 2000s.

The article analyzes the novel "La Poupée" ("Doll") by a French writer of Italian origin Jean Galli de Bibiena, which introduced into the literature of the 18th century the theme of the doll mentoring an adult. The doll character combines, on the one hand, the ideas of the era about "man-machine", the fascination with "live" automations, on the other hand, the tradition of depicting fairy-tale creatures, concentrated in Montfaucon de Villar's book "Count Gabalis". The writer sets up a kind of an artistic experiment through the play of sensuality and sensitivity. The sylph doll gives lessons in gallantry to a young Abbot who has tried in vain to succeed in love by imitating the coxcombs (petit-maîtres) Libertines. She explains to the hero the difference between love generated by feeling and simple sensual attraction. Libertines' tactics turn out to be untenable. In the end, the reformed Abbot falls in love with the doll, who, while the student was acquiring the norms of sensitive gallantry, reached the natural size of a living being. The ambiguous game of gallant eroticism simultaneously in the field of reality and imagination is emphasized by the novel features of narrative, including the chain of narrators: the Abbot – the "author"-observer of the story, the Abbot, the narrator of the doll story, the doll as a narrator. The layering of narrators creates an uncertain discourse, makes the readers doubt the truth of the story and at the same time makes them suspect that it is real. Despite the fact that later romantics sharply deepen the relationship of the "mechanical" and the "natural", in Rococo there was already a conflict between these concepts. However, this conflict in Bibiena's novel does not achieve the contrasting absolute confrontation characteristic for the romantic vision. In this text Rococo poetics demonstrates its compromising nature.