Article

Name: Implicit Motive and Its Role in the Plot of A. S. Pushkin

Authors: Yurii V. Shatin

Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation; Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section The Theory of a Plot

Abstract:

The article examines the concept of implicit motive. Its specificity lies in the fact that it does not actively manifest itself in the plot and does not directly influence the development of the action. Its purpose is different: to connect texts that are far apart from each other into super-textual unites, organizing the author’s model of the world. Using the example of three works by A. S. Pushkin – “My Pedigree”, “Yezersky” and “Bronze Horseman” show how ancestry motive creates such unity. “My Pedigree”, written three years before the other two texts, reflected Pushkin’s dual position: an impoverished aristocrat among poets and a poet among the wealthy nobility. Thus, the poem turned out to be a rhetorical invective directed at two addresses: against the literary party of Bulgarin, on the one hand, and against the new nobility, on another. In the first case, Pushkin’s victory was unequivocal and consolidated the poet’s fame for centuries. It was more difficult with another addressee: the nobility, very far from the literary struggle and who continued to look at Pushkin with considering disdain. A reflection of continuing duality was the poet’s rejection of direct rhetoric and the transition to poetics, where the autobiographical motive of ancestry was transformed into fate of fictional characters: first Andrey Yezersky, then Eugene from “The Bronze Horseman”. Such a transition, in our opinion, gives grounds to consider the three works as a single super text.

Keywords: implicit motive, super text, Pushkin, ancestry

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