Humanities & Social Sciences, Vol 7, No 5 (2014)

The poetic of interpretative ecphrasis in the V. Rasputin’s novel “Izba”

Vasilina Stepanova

Abstract


This research is devoted to the problem of implementation features of interpretative ecphrasis in the V. Rasputin’s novel “Izba”. The particular interest of contemporary literature criticism to the problem of intermedial poetics is associated with the replacement of cultural paradigm: replacement of literature-centrism by art-centrism. The poetic of interpretative ecphrasis allows us to consider text in a metatextual way.

In the novel the most of general constructs, which simulate plots, of the «village prose» are transformed. There are such constructs as coming out to war, the continuing of the traditions, preparation for the death and interment itself, the destruction and reconstruction of cosmogonia. The space of hut in the novel is describing as an «another place» (heterotopia). The anent world in the exegesis is acosmic and, moreover, eschatological.

The analyzing of ecphrasis allows us to understand and determine all these meaningful constructs. Thus, the  hut remains heterotopia, based on its own “axis mundi”, and consequently able to preserve one's existence amid the chaos of the “ worn-out” world.

Agafia’s hut itself, which has been already incurable, rises from within the soul, becomes the peculiar tree of life, which is transformed to the spiritual haven, where the righteous and sinful people can meet. Such transformations show the loss of previous utopian ideals and the attempt to find alternatives to being inside the space of chaos, which in turn is a sign of departure from traditionalism