Филологический класс (Oct 2022)
The Character of a Loafer in the Works by I. Beer, J. Von Eichen- dorff and I. Goncharov
Abstract
The article is based on the idea of A. V. Mikhailov about the similarity of the character of a loafer of the Austrian baroque writer J. Beer and the Russian realist writer I. Goncharov. The German romantic J. von Eichendorff also has a character who can be called a brother of “Lorenz behind the stove” and Oblomov (the images of Eichendorff and Oblomov are also compared by the German researcher L. Fust, however, this article does not only correlate the three images, but also discovers their roots, which go back to the fairy tale; all this contributes to the novelty of this study). In the article on Eichendorff’s poetics, Mikhailov notes the Baroque emblematicity in Eichendorff’s poetry, which leads to the idea of the possibility of correlating not only their poetics, but also the characters. Drawing on the concept of V. I. Tyupa about the rhetorical era – baroque, post-rhetorical (romanticism) and meta-rhetorical (post-romanticism) – the author of the article puts the loafer characters in one row and explores the similarities and differences between them, as well as studies their common origins – fairy tales of the pre-rhetorical era, which can be found in the collections of fairy tales by A. Afanasyev and brothers Grimm and the structure of which was studied by V. Propp in his works on fairy tales. All works have magical helpers and things and events that determine the turns in their lives. At the same time, each work contains outlines of the features of the worldview inherent in the era – normative-rhetorical in the baroque (Mikhailov emphasizes the metaphysical nature of Beer’s laughter and the desire of his characters to cognize the fullness and all varieties of baroque life), post-rhetorical in romanticism (Eichendorff’s loafer is partly a romantic hero – he makes a trip to Italy, is in love with a beautiful stranger, but also carries Biedermeier features – he returns home and finds a wife) and in realism (Oblomov travels only in his dreams, and the German romantic spirit is rationalized in the image of Stolz). With all the similarity of motifs and topoi in the three works, the writers revealed to us through their characters their connection with their homeland and with the past; here are the dreams of the future, and the bitterness of self-consciousness, and the joy of being, and poetry, and the prose of life; here is the soul of writers in their personal, national and global elements.
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