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On the Meaningful and Plot-Forming Features of a 'Ghost' in the Flash Fiction of the XIX Century

Научные исследования: 
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On the Meaningful and Plot-Forming Features of a 'Ghost' in the Flash Fiction of the XIX Century

 

For citation: Kuznetsova N.V. (2019) K voprosu o smyslovykh i syuzhetoobrazuyushchikh funktsiyakh «prizraka» v maloy proze XIX veka [On the Meaningful and Plot-Forming Features of a 'Ghost' in the Flash Fiction of the XIX Century]. Mediaskop 2. (in Russian). Available at: http://www.mediascope.ru/2543

DOI: 10.30547/mediascope.2.2019.2

 

© Natalia V. Kuznetsova
PhD student at the Chair of Foreign Journalism and Literature, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia), nataly-journ@yandex.ru

 

Abstract

This work is aimed at the question of the ghost's birth circumstances in the short stories of the 19th century (in the works of E.T.W. Hoffmann, C. Dickens, N. Gogol, A. Pushkin, E.A. Poe, H. Melville, etc.). The author examines as well the basic functions of the ghosts and the common storyline in the ghost stories. The ghost is considered as a person whose position is between presence and absence. Such border position determines the ghost chronotope that is outside of the common time and space. The ghosts are seemed as a sign of some problems in the usual course of things. The ghost appears when some events begin to repeat instead of changing one after another. The author distinguishes two models of the short stories about the ghosts. In a "positive" model the circle of recurrence is interrupted. In a 'negative" model the circle of recurrence is remained and the ghost is still alive (but he could mutate).

Keywords: romanticism, plot, ghost, repetition, disrupted balance.

 

Notes

Bierce A. (2010) Strazh mertvetsa: rasskazy [A Watcher by the Dead: Stories]. Moscow: Eksmo Publ.

Dom s prizrakami: Angliyskie goticheskie rasskazy [House with Ghosts: English Gothic Stories]. St. Petersburg: Azbuka-klassika Publ., 2008.

Gogol' N.V. (1959) Sobranie khudozhestvennykh proizvedeniy v pyati tomakh [Collection of Fiction Stories in 5 Volumes]. Vol. 3. Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences Publ.

Goticheskiy rasskaz XIX−XX vekov: antologiya [Gothic Stories of XIX−XX Centuries: Anthology]. Moscow: Eksmo Publ., 2009.

Hoffmann E.T.W. (1962) Izbrannye proizvedeniy v trekh tomakh [Selected Works in 3 Volumes]. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura Publ. Vol. 1.

Kleist H. von. (1969) Dramy. Novelly [Plays. Novels]. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura Publ.

Melville H. (1988) Sobranie sochineniy: v 3 t. [Collected Works in 3 Volumes]. Vol. 3. Povesti i rasskazy. Stikhotvoreniya [Novels. Poems] Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaya literatura Publ.

Poe E.A. (1970) Polnoe sobranie rasskazov [Complete Set of Stories]. Moscow: Nauka Publ.

Pushkin A.S. (1975) Sobranie sochineniy: v 10 t. [Collected works in 10 vol.]. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaya literatura Publ. Vol. 5.

Wilde O. (1993) Izbrannye proizvedeniya: v 2 t. [Selected Works in 2 vol.]. Moscow: Respublika Publ. Vol. 1.

 

 

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