Article

Name: “Reviving Pictures” in “The Adolescence of Luvers” by B. Pasternak

Authors: K. V. Abramova

Institute of Philology of the SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section A Plot in the 20 Century Artistic Culture

Abstract: We consider the features of the images’ construction in the story “The Adolescence of Luvers” by Boris Pasternak. In this regard, we turn to the analysis of individual episodes in the story, which, in our opinion, become key for revealing the theme of the main character’s growing up. The narrative itself in the poet’s prose texts is constructed in such a way that all its components are endowed with special internal dynamics, owing to which the images lose their outlines, transform, receive additional, not always decipherable meanings. We dwell on three points in detail: the collision of Zhenya Luvers with Motovilikha – the moment of the end of her infancy – and the two meetings of the heroine with Tsvetkov, an “stranger” whose figure influences Zhenya’s consciousness, her transition to growing up. In the episodes under consideration, there is a hint of an “ecphrastic mark”: the images and objects in the story seem to add up to a kind of description of the picture, although there are no direct references to pictorial or sculptural images in the story. We analyze how the similarities of the ecphrase appear in Pasternak’s text and how they transform the space of the story. The pictures appearing in the story are often enclosed in a kind of frame (visual or symbolic, for example, acoustical), they freeze for a moment, but then come back into motion. The objects that appear in these descriptions and the boundaries between them become unsteady, everything in the space of the text oscillates between static and dynamic. We dwell in detail on the analysis of images and motives that accompany the turning points for the heroine of the transition from infancy to childhood, and then to adulthood, and we come to the conclusion that they are filled with pictorial allusions, all objects are in a complex relationship: objects lose their outlines and endow internal dynamics – paintings “come to life”. Thus, we can speak of an “ecphrasis mark” that supports the internal dynamics of the text of the story “The Adolescence of Luvers”, and “reviving pictures” become an important element of the artistic world of the story by Boris Pasternak.

Keywords: ecphrasis, ecphrasic mark, pictorial code, dynamics, statics, Boris Pasternak, “The Adolescence of Luvers”

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