Biography of elusive vitality: I. Turgenev’s extrapolation of age-related sorrows on the feeling of the characters
Abstract
This article focuses on the problem of the writer’s age, which partly, and sometimes very
noticeably, influences the author’s worldview and discourse. Age often sets a special type
of confession that is manifested in Ivan Turgenev’s letters and novels. The writer’s protagonist turns out to be the object of the normative prescriptions of the age-related experiences
of their creator.
The article considers a new image of a literary hero, one who is close to real life and
opposed to young sufferers, who are not burdened by past memories. A comparison
of I. S. Turgenev’s novels and his letters enables the possibility of revealing the author’s
self-awareness, which was transferred to his characters.
The issue of the age-crisis is considered from different points of view. The first is an attempt
to determine the psychological differences between youth and maturity on an example
of the relationship between heroes of different ages. The peculiarities of the love between
a 35-year-old character and a young girl is emphasized by the ideological position
of the author and his character inside the romantic plot.
The interpretation of how age influences the writer’s work allows one to trace the process
of transformation in his creative world. The point of view presented in this article is one
of many possible keys to considering the topic of age as a philosophical and aesthetic
concept of the writer.
Keywords
Russian literature, I. Turgenev, mythology of art, writer’s reputation, vitality, character’s age.
For citation
Yastrebov A. L. Biography of elusive vitality: I. Turgenev’s extrapolation of age-related sorrows on the feeling of the characters. Theatre. Fine Arts. Cinema. Music. 2022, no. 4, pp. 151–168.
DOI: 10.35852/2588-0144-2022-4-151-168
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Received: 29.09.2022
Revised: 01.11.2022
Accepted: 07.11.2022