Comparisons in the book of travel essays Frigate "Pallada" by I.A. Goncharov

The article deals with the content and significance of comparison in I. A. Goncharov's travel essays Frigate "Pallada". Comparison is an important artistic device in Goncharov's book: it is the poetic core in the expression of the author's concept that consists in the humanistic idea of the universal nature of all peoples on earth. Comparisons reflect the uniqueness of the writer's philosophy and aesthetics, reveal a dialectically complex synthesis of romantic and realistic tendencies with the dominant assimilation and development of enlightening ideas. The wide educational concept, subjected to critical thinking by Goncharov, regulates the ratio of the ideal and the real both in depicting nature and the world of everyday life. When depicting natural phenomena, the principle of combining romantic vocabulary with everyday life organizes numerous comparisons. Two groups of comparisons are distinguished: by aesthetic perception and color and by form and size. The ideas of the great and mysterious nature, the expression of sleep and creative power that go back to Goethe, fill Goncharov's comparisons with a romantic content, the form of which is balanced by the real basis of the image. The animation of nature, its connection with the world of human existence, the similarity in form and size, marked by Goethe, are realistic. Goncharov turns to antiquity to express the mythological meaning of modernity in specific plastic images. However, the ideal attitude towards life, characteristic of antiquity, seemed insufficient to Goncharov. The dialectic position of the writer, connected with the problem of ancient idyllic, manifests itself in relation to artists who revived the idyllic tradition in modern times: Jean Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), Antoinette Des Houlieres (1638-1694), Solomon Gessner (1730-1788). Deeply sympathetic is the attitude of Goncharov to the Spanish school: Cervantes (15471616), Velazquez (1599-1660), Murillo (1617-1682). But the closest to Goncharov was the Flemish school: Paulus Potter (1625-1654). Willem van Mieris (1662-1747), David Teniers (1610-1690). Goncharov assimilated the principles of the Flemish school as poeticization of the image of the prose of life. In describing the actual Dutch scenes in Frigate "Pallada", via comparisons Goncharov introduces a sketch of the unassuming life of a common person and gives a model of its prose in the Flemish spirit, comparing the depicted life with events and images of the same simple level. This technique extends to the entire poetics of Goncharov: a combination of high poetry and humor becomes a way of analyzing Russian patriarchy, as well as Japanese, Chinese, Korean and other. The Flemish style of Goncharov absorbs the experience of mastering the poetics of the Flemish school by Russian literature - primarily by Gogol and Pushkin.

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