Рассказы H.C. Лескова 70-80-х годов (вопросы стиля)

Abstract

The author analyses the style of Nicolai Leskov, a prose writer of the eighteen seventies and eighties, as a phenomenon determined by the characteristics of the literary process of that tim e. Life in Russia after the Reform of the sixties required of the writers of the critical realism trend that they should narrate their story in an impartial and accurate way. This found expression in the genre structure, in plot and composition, and in the vocabulary of the works produced at that time,and in the stories of N. Leskov in particular. His works, in fact, present a synthesis of various features typical of different literary genres; story, essay, chronicle, memoirs, and oral tale. Leskov himself considered as the most "genuine, true-to-life" form a story written as memoirs (with elements of a chronicle and an oral tale in it), since he asserted that it alone permitted to avoid any romance-like artificiality. By giving his works various non-traditional sub-titles ("A Genre Scene", "A Landscape and Genre Scene", and others) Leskov also tries to emphasize the close relation of the events and problems presented in his stories to real life. Within the system of diverse epic forms the essential character of Leskov’s story as a genre did not disappear, but its structure was altered. It is, in fact, founded no more on plot, but on inner connections, with an important "undercurrent". In his story, "The Scarecrow", the conflict, highly characteristic of Leskov's work, (two opposed views regarding the protagonist) - takes place not in a man-to-man contact, but in the mind of a single character. This type of plot, according to the author of this article, was an innovation in Russian story-telling of the ’seventies and ’eighties of the last century. Its occurrence had been prepared by the novels of Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, while its mature shape was provided in the short stories of Anton Chechkov. Upon the example of "The Left-handed Man" and "The Artistic Barber" the author of the article has been able to show how Leskov to attain his goal was slowing down, then accelerating the development of his plots. The "artistic detail" helped Leskov to create an "undercurrent", to intesify his narration. This "artistic detail" idea was in perfect harmony with his general attitude of a "draughtsman from nature". An unusual genre structure, the construction of the plot, the rate at which it was evolved, and the artistic detail while on the one hand created an illusion of "impartial" narration in Leskov’s stories, on the other were subordinated to his conception of an artistic analysis of reality.