Double-world and metamorphoses in the Italian short story «Metamorphosis» by D.S. Merezhkovsky

The paper considers the short story «Metamorphosis» by Merezhkovsky that is taken from the cycle «Italian short stories». The author of the paper reveals the writer’s tendency to synthesize fabulous and mythological plots and motives after the models of classical and romantic short stories, and analyses the peculiarities of reconsidering the history in the framework of the Italian text. Merezhkovsky modifies the genre of the short story. Characteristic of his stories is rather ironical, peculiar to the 20th century theme of romantic dual world, duplicity, uncertainty, erasure of the borders between the real and the imaginary. Merezhkovsky connects history and modernity, fiction and reality, magnificent works of art and everyday situations. The «Italian short stories» are patterns of symbolist short stories, containing the author’s individual myths, each of them combining an Italian text, historical stylization, and the author’s philosophic and religious ideas.

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