Literary criticism

Though the term ‘author’s strategies in literature’ is being widely used, its extended definition has not been coined in literary theory encyclopedias and reference books yet. In an effort to partially fill in this gap, I would like to make an attempt to answer the following questions: What is the meaning of the notion ‘author’s strategies’ in literary studies? How do author’s strategies manifest themselves in the literary process? What is the role of the reader in author’s strategies? How do author’s strategies function in the text?

The paper explores the compositional and genre features of Raymond Carver’s short story collection Cathedral. The analysis of the problems raised in the short stories, the system of characters and the principles of narrative organization reveal the cyclical structure of the book.

The article traces the evolution of J. B rodsky’s poetics driven by the desire to ‘be free from emotional sensitivity’ on the example of the poems The Letter in a Bottle (1964) and The New Jules Verne (1976). The transformation of the poet’s artistic manner is considered through the aesthetic categories of the tragic and the sublime.

In this article one of the metapoetic principles of A. I. Solzhenitsyn is analyzed – ‘a dialogue with a classic writer’. In his sketch Immersing into Chekhov Solzhenitsyn renders the pleasure of aesthetic insights from the encounters with Chekhov, enters into a conversation with him, argues with Chekhov’s world outlook. Thereby Solzhenitsyn’s own ‘creative lab’ is revealed to the reader.

This article regards conceptual, structural and thematic strategies used by Beckett in the works of the short story collection Nouvelles et Textes pour rien. It indicates that the late Beckett builds upon the modernist short story with the finishing event of epiphany.

This article studies the functions of the opposition ‘one’s own – other’s’ in the system of characters in M. A. B ulgakov’s plays Days of the Turbins, Zoyka’s Apartment and Flight. A group of characters is singled out, from whose perspective this opposition is not relevant, not significant. Particular attention is paid to their common features. The conclusion is made that the opposition in question is marked in the problems of Bulgakov’s plays of the 1920s.

The article reveals the originality of the artistic embodiment of the image of the house in the novel Summer of the Lord by I. S. Shmelev, interpreted as the space of love, coming from the family and people around them. The house takes on the significance of a Temple and includes an image-symbol of Russia – the gracious world of God, forever lost in the world’s cataclysms.

The article deals with the development of poetic images and motifs associated with Mandelstam’s ideas about the steppe space. The author reveals national and universal aspects of this complex of images and motifs, as well as their connection with the Russian literary tradition and the individual poetic mythology of Mandelstam.

Based on myths, epic, romance and adventure literature, classical fantasy books often depicted their heroes as warriors physically fighting evil. Nowadays the British writer Joe Abercrombie, whose works belong to the so-called grimdarkfantasy, depicts wars questioning the value of violent heroic deeds and the concept of a ‘hero’ itself.

The article studies the lyrical cycle of poems by the famous children’s poet E. A. Blaginina “Why do you cherish your overcoat?” published in 1975 and understudied by researchers. Comprehending the particular features of the cycle’s poetics (composition, original characteristics of the lyrical hero, the functions of poetic syntax, etc.) allows us to reveal the range of its meanings; to identify the special features of E. A. Blaginina’s creative manner; to consider children’s poetry as a special artistic phenomenon.