Gurevich P.S. The Influence of Psychoanalysis on the Fate of the Novel

Abstract: In this article Gurevich tries to track back the influence of psychoanalysis on the fate of the novel in the XXth century. The transformation of the novel as a genre at the beginning of the last century was closely related to the countercultural movement against the Victorian system of values. The Victorian era was characterized by the evangelistic-puritan ethics, utilitarianism and liberalism, hypocrasy and dictate over the erotic behavior. However, the Victorian era was replaced by the other system of life and practical attitudes. The new system was called anti-Victorian. In the beginning new values were established in the everyday life and way of thinking but later started to have a significant influence on arts. This is how the first movement of the Pre-Raphaelites appeared in the British culture during the Victorian era. However, the most significant changes happened in the sphere of novel writing. In his research Gurevich used the principle of historicism which allowed him to compare two eras in the history of the Great Britain and describe similarities and differences therein. For the first time in the Russian academic literature the transformation of the novel as a genre that happened at the beginning of the last century is compared to the origin of Freudism and the strong influence of Freudism on artistic intelligentsia. The artistic process itself happened to be influenced and changed by the new values. British philosopher Herbert Spencer described philosophical grounds for the new sense of values towards making hedonistic attitudes 'legal'. This is how the transformation of the novel began and from that moment on the novel was aimed against hypocracy. Changed involved not only the plot. Many traditions that characterised the poetics of the novel changed, too. The novel started to have a more open nature and the novel did not have a previously estabilshed scheme any more.  

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