Category Archives: LITERARY CRITICISM

Summary

Nelly A. Tadevosyan

Key words – Western and Diaspora literature, the «pagan» literarymovement, Daniel Varuzhan, VazgenShushanian, HambardzumAraqelyan, «O, Lalage», criticism, worship of beauty, romanticism.

The article presents the main concepts of the «pagan» literary movement, particularly, the positive influence of the movement leader, great Western-Armenian writer Daniel Varuzhan on French-Armenian novelist Vazgen Shushanian’s creative system. Examining V. Shushanian’s «Gentle Letters of Spring Love» and «Summer Nights» we attempt to demonstrate the deep literary relationship between the two artists, along with analyzing D. Varuzhan’s «pagan» heritage program.

Summary 

Tadevos V. Tonoyan

Key words – words, context, textual logic, contextual logic, abstract, tangible symbols.

Charents’s attitude toward word (language) is one of the main realities in Armenian lingual-thinking and value system. Due to intertextual logic, it was considered for a while that in the text of Charents there was the word “harvest” instead of the word “word”. It is understandable that the “harvest” is a more tangible symbol than the “word”. However, in the context of the Armenian language, the word “word” seems more logical.

Sammary

Arsen M. Gljyan

Key words – Paronyan, Aristotle, philosopher, culture, Aristophanes, tragedy, comedy, mimesis, catharsis, Goldoni, Boileau, Moliere, Shakespeare.

Paronyan, like Goethe, understood that it is necessary to learn from Shakespeare, Moliere, Boileau, but above all among the ancient Greeks, since their knowledge and experience are an important criterion for humanity. He learned a lot, studying ancient Greek mythology, legends and myths, as well as the heritage of artists and theorists of art. Among the theorists of Greek art, Paronian’s special attention was attracted especally to Aristotle. Artists of the Ancient World – Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and others, reviving the appropriate artistic forms, made the theory of classical folklore of a more serious nature, and Aristotle summed up the experience and ideas of all of them.

Paronyan learned a lot from Aristotle, but never imitated him. The younger generations are generally involved in literary culture, appropriating the experience and knowledge of various cultures, but they compose on the basis of a clear understanding of folklore, which is the result of a person’s psychologic development. Paronyan, having passed through the Aristotelian readings, using his knowledge as a methodological index, built his own individuality and created his immortal works on his own heights of the folklore genre.

In the works of J.-P. Sartre, K. Abe, L. Khechoyan and G. Khanjyan

Summary

Ruzanna R. Voskanyan

Key words – symbol of the wall, archetype, collective unconscious, existentialism, loneliness, absurdity, despair, God, personality, comparative analysis.

This article explores the symbol of the wall from the position of existentialism philosophy. The author uses comparative analysis to similar works entitled “The Wall” by J.-P. Sartre, K. Abe, L. Khechoyan and G. Khanjyan. The wall is investigated as symbol of despair, understanding of the meaninglessness of existence, the absurdity of life, loneliness, overcoming oneself and other realities. The fact that the symbol of the wall is used and interpreted almost identically by the authors living in different time periods and in various countries, allows us to admit the archetype of the wall.

Summary

Ara H. Yernjakyan

Key words – Shakespeare, Horatio, Horace, Maecenas, Brutus, Hamlet, Stoicism.

Comparing basic moments of life of ancient Roman poet Quintus Horatius Flaccus, his work, outlook at life, they are surprisingly common with the character of classmate and friend of Hamlet – Horatio.

They both received good education, both gravitated towards the philosophy of Stoicism, both lived discreetly. Severe trials befallen on the Roman poet did not forge a fighter out of him. To a certain extent, this also concerns Horatio.

In addition to these and other facts, one can review the famous characteristics given by Hamlet to his friend on the eve of the palace play as a kind of hint by the playwright in choosing the poet Horace as the prototype of Horatio.

N. Mailer, J. Saramago, A. Burgess, N. Kazantzakis

Summary

Haykanush A. Sharuryan

Key words – Virgin, Mary Magdalene, Salome, Jesus, prototype, medieval, Bible, Norman Mailer, José Saramago, Anthony Burgess, Nikos Kazantzakis, Carl Jung, gnostic, character, symbol.

The presented article is devoted to the comparative study of novels by world- known four authors – American novelist Norman Mailer, English writer Anthony Burgess, Portuguese author José Saramago and Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis: all novels have biblical themes (“The Gospel According to the Son”, “Man of Nazareth”, “The Gospel According to Jesus”, “The Last Temptation of Jesus”). Here are mainly presented unique literary personification and deeply humane nature of three heroines – Virgin, Mary Magdalene and partially Salome.

 About Charents’ attitude towards Stalin

Summary

Ashot V. Voskanyan

Key words – poet, political power, totalitarism, Charents, Stalin, anti-stalinism, Charents’ last manuscrupts.

The analysis of Yeghishe Charents’ last manuscripts (“There was a naive poet…” and “Ode”) reveals the poet’s ambivalent attitude towards Joseph Stalin – almighty leader of Bolshevik Empire. External pressure of totalitarian system metamorphoses into the subconscious controlling instance similar to the Freudian “super-ego”. The ambiguous alloy of fear and reverence, loathing and love manifests in the ambiguity of poetical texts.

Summary

Albert A. Makaryan, Astghik V. Soghoyan

Key words – R. Patkanyan, “I was Engaged”, ”Mistress and Maid”, “Ambitious”, N. Gogol, Chichikov, Armenian romanticism, aesthetics of romanticism, genre peculiarities, creation of characters.

The article is dedicated to the study of composition peculiarities of the novels by Rapael Patkanyan (“I was Engaged”, “Mistress and Maid”, “Ambitious”). It’s an attempt to newly reveal the ideological-aesthetic and poetic peculiarities of the novels written by the writer, who has long before become classic, to identify their literary ties and methods used for creating characters as well as other related issues. The main conclusion of the study is, that though the novels under consideration are not perfect and in the genre of novel the author is unable to reach to such a harmony of form and plot, that is perceived in his poetry, nonetheless, they are interesting expressions of romanticism and sentimentalism, are of some literary value and have their peculiar place in the history of Armenian literature.

In the context of socio-political life of the time

Summary

Ulyana A. Kostanyan

Key words – village prose, human relations, main character, rural life, contrast, context, rural world, hero, literary critic.

The article considers the matter of two writers’ depiction of the socio-political problems of their time, becoming the eternal issues of history and existence. In paralel with the eternal problems they also depict numerous social problems of the village, discuss the difficult life of villagers earning money heavily and overcoming great difficulties.

Hrant Matevosyan and Sergei Dovlatov

Summary

David V. Petrosyan

Key words – civilization environment, bells lettres, H. Matevosyan, S. Dovlatov, totalitarianism, literature, freedom to create, author, narrator, F. Braudel, archetypal symbol.

Based on the novels “Hangover” by H. Matevosyan and “Reserve” by S. Dovlatov, the article discusses the relations of political environment and narrative art, which develop in a very interesting way in parallel to the creation of the text. The comparative study was conducted in the context of civilizational time. Both stories are built around the principle of fragmentation, full of events (in a short period of time) that lead the story to the impasse. H. Matevosyan and S. Dovlatov overcome this problem by means of metaphysical self-contemplation: the narrative ends with the help of the archetypal symbols in the territory of a long civilizational duration.

The subject of the relation of civilizational environment and narrative art, represented by H. Matevosyan and S. Dovlatov, also has the possibility of other hypertext analysis that can lead the researcher towards new discoveries.