Universal Situation as a Literary-Semantic Phenomenon: On the Example of Works by N.S. Leskov

Abstract

The starting point of the research was the understanding of the fact that a literary work is created and exists in a particular social and cultural area and that a writer is guided by existential universals, eternal themes, motives, images, typological genre components and poetical means. The individual style of an author is revealed by the presentation of universal situations and his perception of them. In the works by N.S. Leskov the key universal situations are transfiguration of a person and the world by a righteous man, leaving home and a comeback, deception. The realization of a universal situation of transfiguration of the world and a man are impossible without some righteous activity performed by characters. Righteous characters are able to increase their spiritual grace and with the help of it to transfigure space and time, the world and mankind. The situation of leaving and coming back home is connected with Leskov’s idea that a home is a place which is full of peace, coziness. It correlates with the concept of a home in Russian culture and is the basis of the author’s world vision peculiarities. Referring to such situation the writer illustrates the degradation of a person who has lost his home as well as his renunciation of roots and loss of moral landmarks. The universal situation of deception in Leskov’s Christmas tales has an effect of a distorting mirror, a change in value landmarks (from material and spiritual), moral lesson that highlights the axiological perception of the writer.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n3s7p91