The poetics of transgression in Andrei Bely's novel Petersburg

The purpose of the present article is to study the transgressive aspects of the poetics of A. Bely's novel Petersburg. The article proves the thesis that the concept of transgression covers most of the basic features of the artistic organization of the novel. The authors argue that Petersburg presents transgression of space, time, consciousness, the physical body, objects and literary images. Transgression in A. Bely's work serves as the basic principle and technique for depicting virtually all layers of life: physical, mental, historical and aesthetic. The authors use the methodological principles and theories of M.M. Bakhtin and Yu.M. Lotman. The spaces of Petersburg and the Russian Empire are the main theme of the novel. Bely unites the rich and complex heritage of the "Petersburg text" of Russian literature and philosophy in one work. The image of Petersburg accumulates the topic of confrontation of East and West in the cultural-historical space of Russia, the contradiction between the rational and chaotic elements of the Russian Empire. The article shows that in A. Bely's artistic and philosophical outlook, Petersburg is a grandiose yet failed attempt to take control over the "Russian chaos" by reason and law. Reason and law are elements of the European culture, rational in its basis. Russia is a transgressive phenomenon, constantly escaping from the power of European rationality. Through the poetics of transgression in the novel Petersburg is de-ontologized: the space of the capital city is deprived of an independent onto-logical status, its being is represented as illusory and ephemeral. The authors come to a conclusion that transgression also serves as a basic principle of time image creation. In Petersburg, time is inhomogeneous and nonlinear. The main feature of the time image in the novel is the interpenetration and crossing of different layers of time and dimensions. The past (and, in some cases, the future) emerges through the present, personal time intersects with historical and cosmic, a second equates to millions of years, and a moment is extended to the whole eternity. In the novel transgression acts as a basic principle of human body imaging. In Petersburg, two types of transgression of the bodily element dominate: anatomization of the body and the body's going "beyond". The body's going "beyond" corresponds to going beyond consciousness. In A. Bely's artistic and philosophical outlook, consciousness does not exist in the outside world as opposed to the sphere of internal, spiritual world. The being of consciousness is a constant going beyond itself, a permanent violation of its borders, transgression.

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