Synthesis of documentary and fiction in A. Polezhaev's poem "The Prisoner"

https://doi.org/10.26907/2658-3321.2021.4.4.487-498

Abstract

Modern literary criticism is showing increased attention to works based on documentary facts that combine the factual nature of the depicted and elements of fiction. Evidence of this interest is the ongoing debate to this day regarding the genre and style diversity of fiction and non-fiction literature. The article uses biographical, historical-typological, historical-functional and systemic research methods. The main objective of the article is to reveal how documentary and fiction are refracted in Alexander Polezhaev's poem “The Prisoner”. The article discusses the key techniques by which the biographical material, namely the poet's imprisonment, acquires artistic comprehension. The poem is analyzed, among other things, in the context of theomachist romanticism, within which any documentary evidence must go through several stages of artistic comprehension. Polezhaev actively uses the traditions of the satire genre when creating images of the poem, which enhances theomachist motives, and also resorts to the werewolf motif. Another prism of artistry is the poetics of the elegy, which manifests itself in the motive of imprisonment. The final form of the embodiment of artistry in the poem is the problem of Beauty in the world. However, the hero turns out to be unable to build a harmony of beauty, which distorts his perception of the world, returning him to satire. The experience of such an analysis is important for the further study of both Polezhaev's work and the study of the problem of documentary and fiction in the context of classical Russian literature.