I. A. Goncharov and Dante: Poetics Issues

Abstract

The article is a continuation of our works devoted to I. A. Goncharov's novel trilogy (“Ordinary History”, “Oblomov”, “Cliff ”) and, at the same time, to the traditions of Dante's “Divine Comedy” in this trilogy. We are talking about the similarity of philosophical and theological attitudes (“the deification of man”), which found expression in the poetics of Dante's poem and Goncharov's novels, built into a single work. It is suggested that the early “super-task” of the writer to create a novel trilogy could have been formed under the influence of F. S. Schelling’s article “On Dante from a Philosophical Point of View”, which suggests that every major epoch can reproduce a three-part work in the spirit of the “Divine Comedy”. Especially important, in addition to the three-part structure, is the poetics of light in “Divine Comedy” and Goncharov’s novels — with a weakened attention (and almost complete absence in Goncharov’s works) of the color scheme. This feature of the poetics of the two writers seems to be connected with the deeply embedded theological meaning of their works and a single common source — the Holy Scripture.

Keywords

• i. a. goncharov
• a. dante
• poetics
• f. schelling
• trilogy
• light
• holy scripture