Article

Name: Thematic composition of the emigrant autobiographical novel: “Life of Arseniev” by Ivan Bunin

Authors: E. V. Kapinos

Institute of Philology SB RAS, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Study of literature

Abstract: The paper provides the analysis of the original, four-book edition of the novel “Life of Arseniev” by I. Bunin. The thematic rhythm of Bunin’s novel is subject, as often is the rhythm of his stories, to elegiac laws with alternating and contrasting semantics of death, failure, and rebirth, love, life, and creativity. The first four books of the novel were separated from the full, five-book variant by a pause. The last (fifth) book of the novel has a different plot compared to the first four ones, can be read independently, and changes the rhythm and the composition of the text, if added to the other four parts. The novel’s composition formula is thus 4 + 1. Particular attention is paid to the finales of all four books offering the most striking examples of harmony of all thematic lines. Spring and south motifs are considered predominant in the novel. The finales of the second, third, fourth, and fifth books are marked with spring, with the descriptions of the final springs being quite a contrarian: deaths and losses are inseparable from the dawn, abundance of life, youth. The four-book edition has its own finale that is also contrarian: open and closed at the same time. Arseniev’s meeting Lika, leaving home, adapting to new spaces, even foreign lands (the first edition includes fragments from the life in emigration) all give a broad perspective to the text while, at the same time, the ruin of the estate, the death of relatives and Grand Dukes predetermine the tragic final point of the story.

Keywords: I. Bunin, “Life of Arseniev,” “Mitya’s Love,” subject, thematic composition, five- and four- book editions, book finales of the “Life of Arseniev”

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