Psychological tradition of "Poor Lisa" by N. M. Karamzin in the poem "Eda" by E. A. Baratynsky

Abstract

The article examines the structure of Baratynsky’s poem and compares it to a Karamzin’s tale because in spite of some substantial differences these two works prove to be clearly similar. The characters could be more deeply understood if the esearch goes into their inner world. Such analysis allows to discover a few psychological strategies introduced into literary practice by Karamzin: the author’s presence in fictional world, "closeups", "anthropocentric" landscape, specific fictional details, bodily "code". Comparativistic analysis of the two texts, that are storywise close to each other, not only allows to trace Karamzin’s psychological tradition in Baratynsky’s poem "Eda", but gives grounds to make a broader conclusion: with "Poor Liza" the Russian literature started to explore the most subtle emotional moves in human soul showing them as a process, and the tradition founded by Karamzin paved way for the most important psychological discoveries of great Russian writers.

Keywords

• karamzin
• “poor liza” (“bednaya liza”)
• baratynsky
• “eda”
• psychological tradition
• author’s self-representation
• landscape
• depiction