Article

Name: The plot “aspiring provincial woman-writer – famous literary man” in the fiction of the middle of the 19th century (the novel “The Meeting” by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya)

Authors: A. A. Ponomareva

Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper presents an investigation of the plot “aspiring provincial woman-writer – famous literary man” in the fiction of the middle of the 19th century. This plot is found to be connected with the typical tendency of that time: the mass entrance of women-writers to the literary scene. The analysis of correspondence of N. D. Khvoshchinskaya, E. A. Ladyzhenskaya, and N. S. Sokhanskaya revealed typological characteristics of the situation in which a provincial woman found herself when she decided to begin a literary career: in order to become a valuable member of literary life, one would get acquainted with famous literary man by means of correspondence. The situation developed according to the same model regardless of the nature and views of the addresser and the addressee: a literary man took an active part in the life of the young writer (he gave advice on editing manuscripts, helped with their publication, etc.). The paper gives a detailed analysis of this biographical plot development in the novel “The Meeting” by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya (1860). The basic components of the plot are found to be ironically rethought in the novel: women’s complaints on the difficulty of realizing the creative potential, “teacher-student” relations between provincial woman-writer and famous literary man. The biographical plot, as developed by N. D. Khvoshchinskaya, was proved to acquire the original problematics. The writer tried to determine the inconsistency of literary programs relevant in the middle of the 19th century (“art for art” and “natural school”) and to formulate her opinion on the relation of literature to reality.

Keywords: N. D. Khvoshchinskaya, the novel “The Meeting,” provincial woman-writer, biographical plot, fiction, the middle of the 19th century, woman’s emancipation

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