The role of musical ecphrasis in the works of A. I. Kuprin in the late 80s - early 90s of the 19th century

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to find out the role of musical ecphrasis in the early stories of A. I. Kuprin (works of 1889-1896). The scientific novelty of the work lies in the fact that for the first time a detailed sequential analysis of the precedents of musical citation and references to musical sources is given, their role in the narrative structure is analyzed. The identification and analysis of cases of verbal representation of musical works in Kuprin's texts gives an idea of the writer's search and formation of his own unique artistic handwriting. The significance of this research is generally associated with the little-studied phenomenon of the game poetics of Kuprin's early prose, especially the earliest stories, which for a long time were considered as learnedly immature, therefore not deserving any serious literary attention. As a result of the study, it was shown that the innovation of the young Kuprin consisted in a bold experimental attempt to combine fiction with related art forms, for example, musical opera, romance, to create precedents for "musical citation" as a complex genre symbiosis. Such syncretism is explained by the desire of the young writer to develop his "corporate" style by creating centonic texts in which musical allusions and quotations take on the role of a complex language of allegory and form new semantic connections. Musical ecphrasis in the analyzed works serves as a tool for encoding meanings, sets the axial points of the unfolding of the plot, programs the fate of the characters, motivates their behavior.