Генезис и притчевая поэтика рассказа Л. Н. Толстого «Кающийся грешник»
Genesis and Parabolic Poetics of Leo Tolstoy’s Short Story “The Repentant Sinner”

Summary/Abstract: This article examines the artistic transformation of Leo Tolstoy’s short story “The Repentant Sinner” (1886) as a case study of the author’s reinterpretation of the folklore tradition within the context of his religious-philosophical evolution during the 1880s. By comparing the drafts and the final text of the work with its direct source — “The Tale of the Brawler” as published by A. N. Afanasyev — the article analyzes the fundamental poetic and semantic transformations that Tolstoy undertook in the process of composing the text. Particular attention is devoted to the architectonics of the final version of the short story: the structural principle of trinity, the ascending gradation of ethical foundations, as well as the role of the Gospel epigraph as a hermeneutic key to the work. The article examines how the movement from the everyday particularity of the initial drafts toward the extreme narrative generalization of the final text brings to light the key concerns of the late Tolstoy: the aspiration toward a parabolic poetics, the affirmation of love over the logic of judgment and retribution, and the universality of the Gospel teaching as the foundation of Christian ethics.

• Details
• Contents