Montage as a peculiarity of narration in the prose of late Lermontov and early Dostoevsky
The transitional character of the epoch of the 1830-40s, changing aesthetic paradigms provide the possibility of a creative search. In this article the problem of search of narrative strategies in the late works of Lermontov and early works of Dostoevsky is considered. Montage effect as the basic act of search of narrative strategies traces the process of creation of a new "content form", demonstrates the manifestation of identity processes of heroes, plays an important role in the manifestation of the dialogue nature of works. The incompleteness of many Lermontov's and some Dostoevsky's texts, the emergence of "intermediate" genres (letters, diaries, notes, pictures), attempts to create a ''body'' from separate parts, the procedural nature of many texts, - all this is evidence of the search for new forms of dialogue between parts and meanings. In the article an attempt to identify levels that demonstrate the features of the montage building in later texts of Lermontov and early texts of Dostoevsky is realised. First, experiments in the genre field present inconsistency in the definition of the boundaries and character of forms, what makes these forms most transformable, able to engage in dialogue. Second, the striving for miniaturization of separate parts by a single whole (the system of subtitles in Dostoevsky's works) points to the process of form and genre creation. Thirdly, the change of narration plans and frequent redirection of authorship, cases of double vision of the reality and characters allow to organise a specific rhythm of narration in the confined space of the plot, which makes for the heighten expression of the event line and entails the psychologisation of montage. Fourth, many later Lermontov's and early Dostoevsky's texts have contractions / widening of space and time limits, the total deformation time and the disparity between individual parts of the text. Fifthly, the division into the exegetic and the diegetic plan of narration is of special significance, it creates the problem of definition of bounds of changes between forms, and explicitly expresses the processes of self-consciousness of heroes and promotes the psychologisation of the form. Thus, the demonstration of the montage form promotes "content form" (M.M. Bakhtin) and new forms of psychological analysis. It also provides reader's perception of the ideological side of the text with the help of the reflection on the composition. Furthermore, the principle of montage building provides the ability to realisation and demonstration of self-consciousness of heroes and promotes the integration of contrasting vision views, which will later become the basis for the development of a special type of Russian novel.
Keywords
narrative strategies, montage, content form, early Dostoevsky, late Lermontov, нарративные стратегии, монтаж, содержательные формы, ранний Достоевский, поздний ЛермонтовAuthors
| Name | Organization | |
| Khrabrova Anastasia V. | Tomsk State University | anastasiahrabrova@yandex.ru |
References
Montage as a peculiarity of narration in the prose of late Lermontov and early Dostoevsky | Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta – Tomsk State University Journal. 2014. № 378. DOI: 10.17223/15617793/378/8