Пространство идола: Визуальные структуры в «Медном всаднике»

Новое литературное обозрение. 2021. № 172. С. 130–162.

Zenkin S.

The article endeavors to describe how the structure
of Pushkin’s poem The Bronze Horseman shapes the
individual experience of its protagonist and its reader.
This experience is considered not so much in its lexical
as in its visual aspect, taking into account such
features of the poem as its narrative structure, the
inter weaving of two instances of vision and speech
(the narrator’s and the protagonist), implicit referen -
ces to “local knowledge” of inhabitants of St. Petersburg,
and magical motifs tracing back to romantic
fantastic stories. The protagonist’s traumatic visual
experience includes changing the perspective from
which he looks at the monument of Peter the Great,
a mimetic imitation of the sculpted horse’ affect, the
emperor’s gestures mapping the space of the city.
The monument is experienced as an idol, an image
endowed with sacred power and associated with the
element of water. The confrontation of a madman
with a statue manifests the aesthetic interaction of
the author and the character of the poem.

Keywords: «Медный всадник», A.S. Pushkin, визуальность, visuality, А. С. Пушкин, Bronze Horsman