Abstract: The article focuses on the analysis of Thomas Mann’s letters which mention J. W. von Goethe who had a substantial influence on the writer’s personality and literary works. The interest in Goethe initially arose in the context of the problems that interested Mann (problems of eroticism, the nature of creativity, genius), and became the basis of the short stories "A Weary Hour" and "Death in Venice". The timing of most citations and allusions to Goethe often overlaps with the anniversaries of the Weimar classic (1932, 1949) and the period during which Mann was working on "Lotte in Weimar" (1936–1939). The purpose of this article is to systematize the numerous references to Goethe in Mann's letters, to describe the dynamics of Goethe's image and the process of turning it into the author's myth. The methodological basis of the article is the historical and literary approach, in which the analysis of Th. Mann's letters is carried out. Some excerpts from Mann’s letters are presented in Russian translation for the first time. The writer's interest in mythology and psychoanalysis during the years of work on the novel "Lotte in Weimar" significantly influenced some aspects of Goethe's image in his perception. The letters showcase the writer's enthusiasm for life-creation and a tendency to construct the myth of Goethe as well as his own myth as Goethe’s successor. The analysis of the letters allows to trace how the writer's perception of Goethe's personality changed over time (from 1910 to 1955) — from the Apollonian image of the "Olympian" and the divine "child of nature" to the dual figure of the "demonic" genius, torn by the contradictions of his own artistic nature.

Keywords: Doctor Faustus, Death in Venice, A Weary Hour, life-creation, imitatio Goethe’s, author’s myth, Lotte in Weimar, letters, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Thomas Mann

Abstract: The article is devoted to the history of the relationship between two outstanding German writers Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann. The relationship between them developed as a rivalry, reflected not only in their work, but also in their correspondence. At different periods of their acquaintance, Hauptmann and Mann experienced the most contradictory feelings towards each other – from enthusiastic recognition to categorical denial. The publication in 1925 of Mann's novel "The Magic Mountain" became the first harbinger of the beginning of mutual estrangement after many years of friendship. The image of Mynheer Peperkorn sensitively hurt Hauptmann's ego. In addition, there was a rivalry between the writers related to the imitation of Goethe and the struggle for the right to be considered the national poet of Germany. In 1929, with the support of Hauptmann, Mann received the Nobel Prize in Literature. However, the latter's reaction provoked hostile rejection from an older contemporary. In 1933, the rupture of contacts between Mann and Hauptmann occurred for political reasons, and communication was never resumed, despite an attempt at reconciliation on Hauptmann's part.The methodological basis of the article is a historical and literary approach, in which the biographies, correspondence and diaries of Mann and Hauptmann are analyzed, as well as the interaction between writers reflected in their artistic work is studied. The scientific novelty of this article is determined by the lack of domestic research on the relationship between Thomas Mann and Gerhart Hauptmann. This work introduces for the first time into Russian literary criticism a number of relevant texts: letters and diary entries of Mann and Hauptmann, in which they express their attitude to each other and raise a wide range of issues of literary creativity and culture. The difficult relationship between the two writers, who defended completely different literary and ideological positions, is not only reflected in their correspondence and in their artistic work, but also largely reflects the experience of creative self-reflection of each. The main issue turned out to be the relationship between art and life, the possibility of creativity autonomy. If Mann insisted on the inevitable invasion of "life" into the sphere of the artist's activity, then Hauptmann saw in art the poet's salvation from his unworthy vanity.

Keywords: Death in Venice, freudian complexes, imitatio Goethe’s, Nobel Prize, Magic Mountain, Thomas Mann, Gerhart Hauptmann, german literature, dionysian principle, Nietzscheanism

Abstract: The aim of this article is to analyze the genre form of a short story on the example of Jhumpa Lahiri’s short prose in the aspect of the phenomenon of romanization. The subject of the study is the determination of the features of romanization disclosed in the genre structure of the second part of short stories’s collection «Unaccustomed Earth» entitled «Hema and Kaushik». As an object of research the three stories («Once in a Lifetime», «Year’s End», «Going Ashore») united by a common plot were chosen which form the second part of the collection. The relevance of the work is explained by the fact that the study of works of modern multicultural and postcolonial literature in the genre aspect allows us to reveal the features of the functioning and modification of stable genre forms in the literary process. The method of structural analysis and the comparative method have made it possible to examine the process of romanization on the compositional, subjective and spatial–temporal levels of the text and reveal the correlation of the short story form with the American tradition of the genre. The scientific novelty consists in applying the new approach to the analysis of the genre form of this collection within the framework of the concept of romanization. The study concludes that the romanization of a short story is based on the complication of compositional, subjective and spatial–temporal organizations. This leads to the integration of the stories into a cohesive narration united by the several main characters whose names gave the title to the second part of the collection. Besides, the genre strategies of a short story including a narrator’ figure, covering a single event of the past are putting in the front which is expressed in the use of the ending like in a novella.

Keywords: space, subject, composition, novella, novel, short story, romanization, genre, Jhumpa Lahiri, time

Abstract: The article offers a comparative consideration of two social models in the fiction of V.F. Odoevsky. The researcher focuses on the unfinished novel "4338" and the insert novella "The City without a Name" from the novel "Russian Nights" by Odoevsky. When comparing both texts, the article points to the indissoluble semantic unity of the author's cultural and social views on the proper (ideal) future society.  If "Russian Nights" is entirely turned to the present, so that the dystopian paintings in the short stories "The City without a Name" and "The Last Suicide" are needed only to properly look at the modernity of the 1840s and the consequences of mistakes that can be made in the present, then "4338" really aspires and into the future and projects a new scientific and social world. "4338th year" can only be considered a utopia in part. In the light of satirical criticism in the novel "Russian Nights" and other works by Odoevsky, "The 4338th year" turns out to be not so unambiguous a text as was commonly believed in literary studies of the early twentieth century.

Keywords: future, an artistic painting, scientific progress, utilitarianism, Russian Nighs, dystopia, Year 4338, utopia, romanticism, Odoevsky

Abstract: The purpose of the work is to analyze the autofictional novel by the modern American writer Teju Cole "Open City" using memory studies' optics. Relevance is ensured by an appeal to one of the most important genres of modern literature, autofiction, which combines and fundamentally non-distinguishes documentary and fictional discourses, and the use of the methodological apparatus of the cross-disciplinary sphere of memory studies. The subject of the study is the urban chronotope of New York after the 9/11 terrorist attack and its specific memorial loci. The artistic text in this case acts as a medial representation of reality, and the urban space in it is perceived and can be analyzed as a text. One of the founders of memory studies is French scientist Pierre Nora, whose term "sites of memory" becomes the basis in this work. The narrator of the novel "Open City," Julius, in the process of flaring through New York, perceives the city as a semiotic space, reading the markers of the urban chronotope as memorable and/or historical signs. "Sites of memory," located at the junction of living memory and frozen history, become the most important loci that fix the individual and collective commentary of social history, while being pushed out of the sphere of relevance into the sphere of the forgotten, whilst the narrator of the novel occupies an intermediate position due to the ability to reactualize historical events and memorial narratives, albeit only at the personal level. Such a comparison of "I" and "others" allows to address the issue of national identity and reveal the specifics of the American nation as focused on the future, and not on the past, and erasing the "Sites of memory" from contemporaneity.

Keywords: Teju Cole, urbanism, urban text, memory studies, memory, sites of memory, Pierre Nora, autofiction, Open City, chronotope

Abstract: Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu is one of the most prominent representatives of the ghost story genre. His works were widely popular not only during the years of their publication, but also many years after. The subject of research in this article is the problem of creating a genre typology. Based on the material of Gothic novels (collections "Purcell Papers", "In a glass darkly", etc.) by the British writer of the XIX century Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, the question of the optimal typological criterion is considered, which would allow creating an objective typology, the application of which would be possible when studying the works of other authors of Gothic minor prose of the second half of the XIX – early XX century. The methodological principles underlying this study take into account the achievements of cultural-historical, comparative, and structural-descriptive approaches. The novelty is associated with the absence of such a typology of Le Fanu's short stories, as well as with the fact that researchers prefer the novel form in the writer's work. However, this typology makes it possible to clarify some aspects of the development of Gothic minor prose both in the works of Le Fanu and in the works of other writers of this period. In addition, the typologization of Le Fanu's Gothic novels allows us to trace in more detail the change in the figurative system of Gothic short prose. Conclusions made as a result of the study: the objective typological criterion can be considered the specifics of the narrator's attitude to the category of the supernatural. Based on this criterion, the classic Gothic novel, the "scientific" Gothic novel, the humorous Gothic novel, the socio-psychological Gothic novel, the folklore-mythological Gothic novel are distinguished in Le Fanu's work.

Keywords: the Victorian era, ghost stories, novella, gothic, supernatural category, narrator, gothic novella, genre typology, english gothic novella, cycle

Abstract: The article investigates the separation of the protagonist August Pullman in the novel Wonder written by R. J.Palacio from his previous world that is his home, and the reintegration in his society. This study is made in the lence of literary criticism. It is devoted to trace functions of liminality and the psychological development in the fictional postmodern novel Wonder. As almost all the postmodern children’s novels, Wonder mainly revolves and sheds light on the protagonist’s change of identity. Using the psychoanalysis approach and the theory by Carl Jung of introversion and extroversion, the article analysis how August manages to figure out how to bridge the gap between the sorts of person he feels, and the kind of person the rest of the world sees him. It depicts his journey of looking for his real identity. The article aims at depicting the journey of the hero crossing the threshold seeking for social acceptance. Furthermore, it depicts the development of the hero’s identity from an introvert to an extrovert kid. The novelty lies in employing the concept of liminality interrelated with psychoanalytic theory in the study of the novel. The result shows that the novel is an instance of liminality and introversion/extroversion through the application of anthropological concept of the Rites de Passage and liminality in parallel with the use of the theoretical approach of C. G. Jung’s psychoanalysis of introversion and extroversion. Eventually, the protagonist’s personality is developed through out the story in parallel with his reintegration in his society.

Keywords: Van Gennep, Turner, Carl Jung, mask, identity, introvert, extrovert, threshold, rites of passage, liminality

Abstract: The novel "The Ocean at the end of the Lane" sheds light on the children's view of the world and the unique perception of reality, which is completely different from the perception of adults. The object of the study is the manifestations of memory impairment in the novel. The subject is the analysis of changes in memory with age, as well as its role in overcoming stress caused by trauma. The purpose of the article is to understand, in the light of personality psychology and memory research, how and why the memories of the child protagonist change and merge with the imagination as the narrative changes. This helps to identify oppositions of imagination and reality in the novel, which echoes the perception of the world by the main character-a child in parallel with the perception of the world by adults. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that psychological research is used in the article in order to show how magical realism reflects the problem of memory changes in the novel "Ocean at the End of the Lane", and, therefore, provides a basis for further opportunities to study children's magical perception, realistic memory in postmodern novels. The results of the study demonstrate to what extent the style of magical realism expresses the transformation of mental abilities and perception of reality during the transition from childhood to adulthood in the novel. In this sense, "The Ocean at the end of the Lane" is an image of the world seen both from the point of view of adult life and from the point of view of childhood.

Keywords: childhood, adulthood, magical realism, imagination, psychology, supernatural, visualisation, unconsciousness, memory, autobiographical memory

Abstract: The article deals with the problem of interschool interaction between Platonists and Christians in the third century on the example of the figure of Amelius Gentilianus. Amelius' openness to the tradition external to Platonism finds precedent in the second century with Numenius, who was familiar with Christian scripture and included biblical quotations and information from the Apocrypha in his writings. Numenius himself was familiar with the Jewish tradition, also thanks to the texts of Philo of Alexandria, whose convergences the author analyses specifically in the text of the article. Philo of Alexandria, in turn, influenced the Christian tradition, not only through his allegorical method, but also through his teaching of Logos (Justin), which Numenius and Justin the Philosopher have in common. The figure of the Christian Ammonius, a pupil of Numenius, is a key figure in third-century philosophy: his pupils Origen, Longinus and Plotinus developed the doctrine of Logos. The lineage of the Philo-Numenian tradition proved productive of both Christian and Platonic philosophical schools, which not only created a common philosophical foundation, but also defined each school's claim to philosophical renewal.

Keywords: exegesis, Neoplatonism, Middle Platonism, Justin the Philosopher, Philo of Alexandria, Numenius of Apamea, Amelius Gentilianus, Origen, Late Antique Philosophy, Early Christian Theology

Abstract: This article examines the modern Indonesian women’s prose and its interaction with the elements of postmodernist paradigm. The object of this research is the novelistic writing of the prominent Indonesian author Dewi Lestari on the example of the novel "“Supernova: The Knight, The Princess, and The Falling Star” (Supernova: Ksatria, Puteri, dan Bintang Jatuh, 2001), which is part of the series “Supernova” (2001-2016). Fiction, as the “median” field in literature, embraces various codes of language art. Relying on the tested patterns of popular literature, it can also appeal to postmodernism. In the latter case, the works are characterized by the presence of deconstructive and game (including simulation) principles. The example of application of the codes of fiction and postmodernism is the novel of under review. An important role in the research is played by the literary-theoretical, typological, and descriptive methods. The work of Dewi Lestari has not yet been considered from the perspective of postmodernist game technique and involvement of the concept of simulacrum. An attempt to do this on the example of her most famous works defines the novelty of this research, as well as the noticeable place of postmodernism in Eastern literatures makes relevant it analysis based on the original Indonesian literature. Reference to the poetics of postmodernism through borrowing the simulation game technique allowed Lestari to create a commercially successful product. The perception of the text by each reader in accordance with their worldview, and engagement in the game proposed by Lestari, correspond to the ideas of the postmodernist interpretation of the literary text, as well as to the laws of the market. This is why modern Indonesian writers refer to the postmodernist paradigm.

Keywords: simulation game, simulacrum, postmodernism, popular literature, belles-lettres, Indonesian women’s prose, Indonesian literature, deconstruction, rhizome, Dewi Lestari

Abstract: This article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the last novel of the Irish writer James Joyce “Finnegans Wake”, written in 1939. James Joyce paid deliberate attention to the linguistic arrangement of his work, resulting in the novel becoming difficult to translate, as well as to read and comprehend. Analysis is conducted on the fourth chapter of “Finnegans Wake” for demonstrating a peculiar feature of James Joyce's style of writing. Provocation of the Irish novelist is consists in usage of various puns for confusing the reader. This instigates the reader to seek different meanings that correspond to the writer’s concept throughout the text or a specific fragment. The article employs semantic and structural methods of analysis for interpretation of pun. The research also uses historical- cultural and biographical methods for analyzing the complex instances of interpretation. Field analysis is applied for allocating the acquired results into three zones: nuclear, close, and far peripheries. The main result of this research consists in analysis of the novel in the context of author's provocation. The fancy linguistic arrangement of the literary text should be viewed from the two perspectives: on the one hand, the reader analyzes the language and perceives pun as an intended concealment of the novel’s message; on the other hand, interrelation of the meanings of one pun with forces the reader to ponder on a play of sorts between the author and the reader. It can be unequivocally claimed that the reader is constantly uncertain in their correctness.

Keywords: postmodernism, modernism, pun, provocation, Finnegans wake, James Joyce, English literature, interpretation, game, novel

Abstract: This article examines the modern Indonesian women's prose. The object of this research is novelistics of the prominent Indonesian writer Dewi Lestari and the compilation of stories “On Both Sides” (Rectoverso; 2013). The collection demonstrates the features common to popular women's literature, as well as to meaningful, socially biased women's prose of Indonesia of the XXI century, known as “sastra wangi”. The subject of this analysis is the correlation of characteristics inherent to the two aforementioned phenomena in the stories by Dewi Lestari; while the goal consist in finding the beginning that allows the writer to blend different literary codes. The research is based on descriptive and comparative methods. Neither in Indonesia nor outside it, the women's prose “sastra wangi” has not been considered as a holistic literary phenomenon due to diversity of the discourses applied therein. The scientific novelty and relevance of this study are defined by the attempt to analyze sastra wangi based in on the works of the prominent contemporary Indonesian writer. It is revealed that literary unity of the texts of stories of Dewi Lestari imparts belletristic character on her writing, which allows combining the fields of classic and popular literature. This fact is important for understanding the artistic peculiarities of contemporary Indonesian women's prose sastra wangi as a whole.

Keywords: chick-lit, mass literature formulas, popular literature, fiction, sastra wangi, Indonesian women’s prose, Indonesian literature, romance novel, short stories, Dewi Lestari

Abstract: The subject of this research is the rhymed and rhythmic prose (Saj’) in Hadith. The article is dedicated to the comparison of perception of rhymed and rhythmic prose by Companions of the Prophet Muhammad and subsequent Muslim tradition with the contained in Hadith records testifying to the use of Saj’ by Muhammad. The author cites an example of the rhetoric of Prophet Muhammad and his closest Companions articulated in rhymed and rhythmic prose, which were recorded in Hadith. These include sermons, speeches on religious topic, religious-legal decrees, and prayers. The scientific novelty consist in the statement that both, the medieval Arab-Muslim scholars and Orientalists traditionally pay lesser attention in their works to the rhymed and rhythmic prose than to poetry. Saj’ in Hadith remains one of the most insufficiently studied topics. The research demonstrated that despite the records on denial of Saj’ by Prophet Muhammad and his closest Companions, as well as distrusts of the medieval Arab-Muslim authors, Hadith has documented evidence of using the rhymed and rhythmic prose by Prophet Muhammad and his closest Companions. This can be explained by the established representations of religious discourse in the Early Islamic Arabia.

Keywords: islamic tradition, Arabia, early Islam, prayers, orations, sermons, prophet Muhammad, hadith, rhymed prose, saj

Abstract: This article examines the dramaturgy segment of Malaysia, usually referred by literature scholars and critics to the theatre of the absurd. This circle of dramatic texts was created in the 1970’s – early 1980’s. The subject of this research is the worldview foundation of this layer of dramaturgy and the fundamental principle of creation of the scripts. The goal of this work consists in determination of specificity of the Malaysian absurdism, generated by a distinct perception of its Western prototype by the Malaysian dramaturgists. The key objective of this analysis is to identify the methods of realization of the author’s ideological message in the plays. The orientation of the Malaysian theatre towards the Western source suggest the use of the comparative-typological approaches. This aspect of the Malaysian theatre of the absurd has not been previously examines in the works dedicated to modern literature. The research results demonstrate that the key approach towards structuring the script is the approach of literary paradox, as well as recommend the term “neo-absurdism” as a more precise designation for the phenomenon in question.

Keywords: dramaturgy of neo-absurd, literary paradox, theater of absurd, contemporary theater, postrealistic dramaturgy, Malaysian dramaturgy, Malay literature, Dinsman, Johan Jaafar, Hatta Azad Khan

Abstract: The article discusses the influence of aesthetical ideas and figurative language of Heinrich von Kleist's essay 'On the Marionette Theatre' on the early writings of Thomas Mann. The denial of reflection and gracefulness described in Kleist's essay is similar to the problem of the cognition and creativity relation that had been brought by Thomas Mann throughout his life. Published in 1810, the essay 'On the Marionette Theatre' was left unnoticed but in the early XXth century it experienced the burst of interest. The images, ideas and metaphysics of the essay were reflected in Rainer Rilker's, Hugo von Hofmannsthal's, Gerhart Hauptmann's and Thomas Mann's writings. By using the comparison method, the author of the article demonstrates that a series of motifs and images repeated in the early short stories by Thomas Mann (clumsiness of some heroes and careless gracefulness of others, vain and funny attempts to imitate the ideal image) are a bright example of the main metaphysical idea of Kleist's essay about the destructive influence of the mind on gracefulness. This allows to conclude that Thomas Mann's opposing concepts of spirit and cognition on the one side and true life on the other side are similar to the concepts of reflection and gracefulness described by Kleist. Kleist's inspiring conclusion about the need to 'again taste the tree of knowledge' is similar to the aspiration of Mann's heroes, artists, to again become 'naive and sentimental'. 

Keywords: On the Marionette Theater, artist and creation, reflection, naiv and sentimental, Heinrich von Kleist, Thomas Mann, literary influences, German literature, Tonio Kröger, Death in Venice

Abstract: The object of this study is the two works that are thought to be written by the Byzantine Empress Eudoxia (V century): the poem "On St. Cyprian" and Homeron centon, and the subject of the study is the use of apocryphal motifs in these works. With respect to both works, it is still an open question whether the poetess took part in plotting, or she took advantage of already existing models, since both works are paraphrases (the poem is the life of St. Cyprian and Justina, and centon is the Four Gospel). In her paper Alexandrova uses a comparative method of research. The apocryphal sources used in each of the works and the motives borrowed from them are consistently considered. The novelty of the research is caused by the fact that the use of sources reveals the features of a single author's manner, manifested in both of the works in question, which helps to solve the question of authorship. Among the sources of the poem "On St. Cyprians ”-“ Apocrypha Iannia and Jambria ”,“ Acts of the Apostle Andrew ”,“ Lives of the Prophets ”and the Gospel of Nicodemus. The sources of the Homeric Center are the “Proto-Evangelical of James,” the legend of Veronique the Bleeding, and the Gospel of Nicodemus. The author comes to the conclusion that the interest in apocryphal motifs unites both works, and it can be attributable to Eudocia, although the use of apocrypha cannot be considered an exhaustive proof of her authorship.

Keywords: Byzantine literature, Late ancient literature, apocryphal motifs, narrative, apocrypha, provenance, Martyrdom of Cyprian, Homeric cento, empress Eudocia, Christianity

Abstract: The subject of study is a novel of contemporary novelist Milan Kundera "The unbearable lightness of being". The object of research is problems raised by the writer, in particular, the problem of attitude with the characters and social adaptation. The author in detail investigates the images of the main characters, especially the composition and the main ideas of the novel, allowing to understand the issues. We study the question of the relationship of the narrator, characters and author. Special attention is given to reminiscences, among them the myth of king Oedipus, the interpretation of which is important for understanding the mindset of the characters. The main methods of this study are comparative historical and analytical. Analyzes proposed by the writer of philosophical concepts and moral and ethical. Scientific novelty of the article lies in the fact that the question of the worldview of the heroes of the novel "the Unbearable lightness of being" in relation to the image of the narrator, philosophical and ethical concepts in detail not investigated. This novel is very important for understanding of creativity of M. Kundera, because, on the one hand, it marked the most important human problems associated with the choice of life, "body and soul"; on the other hand, this work is one of the most widely read in the works of the writer, because the serious problems of a philosophical worldview revealed through human values.

Keywords: narrator, social adaptation, worldview, reflection, problem, Milan Kundera, myth, composition, storyline, reader

Abstract: Object of research - the work of the great master Dante Alighieri of Vita Nyova, the first work of the poet having difficult genre accessory. In the text of Vita Nyova of Dante Alighieri are combined outlook of "the medieval person" and "person Renessans". The main objective of research consisted in pointing to some concrete forms of this combination in Vita Nyova. The philosophy of Love of Dante Alighieri is built as an indissoluble combination of poetry and philosophy, as transformation of human love in immortal divine love. In the Vita Nyova center of Dante Alighieri - transformation of abstract and theological theses about immortality of soul alive and an ekstazny form of transformation of the mortal person in immortal. The main method of research - germenevtichesky procedures in relation to Vita Nyova. Identification of symbolical complexes which contain in the text of Vita Nyova. Scientific novelty of research is connected with the instruction on concrete features of a genre, images, citings, the plots stated in Vita Nyova of Dante Alighieri and pointing to transition from medieval outlook to Renessans's outlook. The concept "Renaissance" is considered not only as "Revival of the Antique cult of the sensual world", but also as "Revival of human soul", search of ways of finding by human soul of real divine immortality. The master Renessans was looked for and found the forms for new ways of revival and release of human soul in line with Christian tradition.