Poetics of Prose of Vyacheslav Ivanov of the End of the 19th – Beginning of the 20th Century: Artistic Philosophy and the Discovery of Esthesis

This paper is the study of the early philosophical prose of the Russian symbolism theorist Vyacheslav Ivanov during the period of the 1880-s–1900-s. This issue has been understudied and requires approach based on interdisciplinary methods. The materials from the writer's archive and publications reflecting the development of his prose, characterized by a synthesis of philosophical, religious and artistic principles characteristic of the poetics of Russian symbolism, are analyzed. The materials analyzed include early prosaic sketches of Ivanov, fragments of his so-called Intellectual Diary, religious, philosophical, literary and critical essays, articles and other works. Emphasis is placed on the principles of forming a metaphysical discourse, as well as the genre dynamics of Ivanov’s early prose, which can be characterized by essay type of writing and the increasing importance of the philosophical parts. These works are compared to his prose of the early 1900-s published in the “Vesy” journal. It is concluded that Ivanov’s prosaic manner is characterized by the poetic and cultural discourse and his thesaurus is based on the metaphysical language of images. The important components of this discourse include principles of ancient aesthetics of thought and the revitalization of text via various metaphors. A vital role is played by esthesis as one of the methods of philosophical perception and aesthetic reflection of the sensual world. The texts of the Old and New Testaments and the Christian tradition prove to have an essential impact. The influence of works by Aristotle, Plato, B. Pascal, J. W. Goethe, V. Solovyov, F. Nietzsche on the development of metaphysical language of Ivanov’s prose is noted. The conclusion is made that the author’s early prose is the result of attaining an individual style, reflecting the phenomenology of the symbolist consciousness.