The novel of A. Bely «Petersburg» in the context of foreign modernism

Abstract

Andrei Bely’s novel «Petersburg» is in the context of the development of Western literature. The
poetics of Andrei Bely and Joyce’s novels is based on the reduction of anthropological characteristics of
literary characters.
Both writers actively use grotesque, irony and parody. These sources of comic effect contribute to
the reduction of anthropological poetics characteristic of realistic literature. Satirical art techniques based
on the concentration and synthesis of human characteristics (the grotesque), on the game of meaning
(irony and parody). In addition, a significant part of satirical techniques distorts, even schematizes the
appearance of a person.
In the novel «Ulysses» Joyce draws broken images of characters, expands the artistic world, including
spatial images and cultural context. This brings together the creative method of Joyce with the poetics
of Andrei Bely, whose novel «Petersburg» presents laconic portraits of characters that have turned into
shadows, global images of Russia, Petersburg, East and West, playing a significant role in the work.
It is also obvious that Proust and Andrei Bely updated the genre of the novel on similar principles.
The writers’ consistent interest in the past, the high status of ontological images in their novels, the single
stream of the past and the present, the reduced anthropological properties of the characters – that’s what
brings together the novels of Proust and Andrei Bely.