Dialogue between I.A. Goncharov and V.G. Benediktov (the image ofthe sea in The Frigate Pallada)

The article discusses the role of the romantic tradition in the book of travel essays by I.A. Goncharov The Frigate Pallada. A dialogue between the writer and poet V.G. Benediktov which can be found in The Frigate Pallada and in poetic letters discussing the content and the poetic image of the sea served as the material for the study. Features of Goncharov's art were formed in the early 1840s, at the times of the crisis of romanticism and the birth of a new realistic method of depicting reality. Many researchers of Goncharov's art point at the connection between the writer's work and the legacy of romanticism. One of romanticists, a poet famous as a master in creating the image of the sea, was V.G. Benediktov. In 1838, Benediktov wrote a poem "The Sea". Considering the fact that the two poets got acquainted two years earlier, Goncharov was undoubtedly familiar with this poem and Benediktov was one the poets who wrote about the sea. In the poem by Benediktov the image of the sea is represented in all its artistic diversity. His images of the sea resemble the seascapes in The Frigate Pallada. Both Goncharov and Benediktov picture widely epic seascapes. The main thing that unites Goncharov's seascapes with those by romanticists is the philosophical understanding of the elements and the psychological factors that influence the perception of the sea. Benediktov's poem became a model for Goncharov, in a sense that in "The Sea" Benediktov draws on the traditions of Russian and European literature, combining basic techniques for the picturing of the seascape. Benediktov's poems were inspired by the works of Zhukovsky, Byron and Pushkin. In his book of travel essays The Frigate Pallada, Goncharov enters into controversy with romanticists, which does not exclude a deep interest in the romantic style of the image of the sea. The main provisions of Goncharov's art discrepancies with the tradition of romanticists can be found in a letter to Benediktov ("Swimming in the Atlantic tropics"). Notes made by Goncharov on the pages of Works by Benediktov are of particular importance for the study. It is impossible to determine whether Goncharov read the aforementioned poem before his departure to travel around the world or not, because the three volumes by Benediktov were published in 1856, a year after the end of Goncharov's voyage. One thing is clear: Goncharov had a particular interest in the images of nature in the works by romanticists. In Goncharov's seascapes the traditions of antiquity, romanticism, realistic art and nonfiction are combined. The feature of his seascapes is associated with the synthesis of different traditions. The idea of spiritual development as an immutable axiom of human existence was the basis for Goncharov's deep sympathy to philosophy and poetry of romantic poets.

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