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"Мысль, описавшая круг" ("The Thought that has made a circle")by Lidiya Ginzburg as a literary and philosophical study
DOI of the paper: 10.15382/sturIII201439.46-66
Abstract
The paper deals with problems and semantic structure of a specimen of the «interim» prose by Lidiya Yakovlevna Ginzburg, who is better-known to the reading audience as a philologist and a specialist in the history of literature. The author proceeds polemically from the established notion of the writer as a bearer of a sceptical worldview and a relentless unmasker of cultural myths. The author thinks that such a notion may lead to significant misinterpretations as it only pays close attention to one side of a complex and multifaceted phenomenon. The paper looks at the narrative «Мысль, описавшая круг» («The Thought that has made a circle») and traces a complex of motifs that are opposed in their substance to the motifs of philosophical distrust, scepsis and relativism. The author of the paper examines the balance and interrelationship between the meditative (philosophical and axiological) discourse and literary aspects of the work in question. This is conditioned by the fact that a prominent feature of the text is an original combination of traits of an essay and some traits typical of literary narration. The object of the study is a complex relationship of meditative and narrational strategies, philosophical refl ection and literary imagery. Attention is paid to the fact that the position of the subject-speculator is embraced by the whole, being transformed from the key position to one of the many factors of aesthetic impression. The narrator functions simultaneously as a subject of meditation (reflecting «author»), as a story-teller and as a character in the narration. Special attention is focused in the paper on how the theoretical thought of the character immerses itself in poetic contemplation, loses the element of total distrust and acquires the positive and uplifting element. The main generalisation and conclusion is that the narrators’ thought moves from the critical (and, in fact, demythologising) analysis of sacral and metaphysical precepts of the consciousness to the affi rming and apology of the totally metaphysical nature of cultural being.
Keywords
Lidiya Ginzburg, «interim literature», narration, «self-exclusion», inductive thinking, symbol, symbolisation, death, value, sense, absolute.
References
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