The tradition of Walter Scott in the work of Ivan Turgenev: SaintRonan's Well and Clara Milic

The article develops the problem of Ivan Turgenev’s perception of Walter Scott’s non-historical novel SaintRonan’s Well (1824) with the focus on the comparative study of Turgenev’s ClaraMilich (1883), whose composition reflects Walter Scott’s motifs and images. Forty years after reading Saint Ronan’s Well in the original, Turgenev turns to it within the framework of his own plan. In Clara Milich, the English novel and its author are brought into focus of deep artistic reflection. Turgenev’s Clara Milich genetically ascends to Walter Scott’s Clara Mowbray, which proves that Turgenev creatively interacted with the English novel. The dialogue between the two authors is mediated by William Shakespeare. Following the logic of the English novel, steadily leading to a dramatic denouement, Turgenev creates a brief story of a woman’s loving soul, yearning for sincere understanding and responsiveness, yet doomed to death. Taking Walter Scott’s novel as a model, Turgenev draws a parallel between Clara Minich’s life and the tragedy of Shakespeare’s Ophelia, putting the main mail character in the position of Hamlet. Twice compared to Shakespeare’s heroine, Scott’s Clara Mowbray repeats Ophelia’s suffering path in its pivotal points: collapse of happiness in love - loss of a lover -madness due to the experienced shock - death resulting from melancholy and madness. Turgenev gives no direct textual references to Ophelia, but transfers the essential elements of this image to his Clara Milich, which manifests not only in the motif of madness, but also in the general design of the tragic love story. A theatrical production in Saint Ronan is based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream - the story of Athenian lovers parallels the collision of Tyrrel and Clara. Tugenev’s epic also includes a play with similar overtones: a small performance about a tragedy of love is arranged in the house of the Georgian princess. Like Walter Scott, Turgenev uses the metaphor “all the world’s a stage” to create a narrative subtext that enhances and deepens the human drama. Following Scott, Turgenev accepts Shakespeare’s concept of the tragic state of the world and, in order to unfold the tragedy of the human, introduces a fantastic element into the story in a similar vein. For Turgenev’s Aratov, the intrusion of the unreal leads to admitting his guilt and, at the same time, reveals a hitherto unknown feeling. However, like Shakespeare and unlike Scott, Turgenev uses the otherworldly image not only as a sign of disaster, but also as the hero’s hope for an imaginary salvation. The author declares no conflicts of interests.