About the author:
Olga A. Grinevich — Master of Philology, Lecturer, Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno, Ozheshko str., 22, 230023 Grodno, Republic of Belarus.
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ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3831-805X
Abstract:
The article examines the interaction between fact and fiction in V. Nabokov’s “estate text” at three levels of semiosis. The level of semantics is made up of a system of images, motifs and toposes that together form the semantic core of the “estate” text. The level of syntactics is formed by horizontal connections between elements of semantics, the sequence of their implementation (for example, a plot), as well as the interaction between text and contexts. At the level of pragmatics are considered dialogical connections within the supertext (for example, the features of the subjective structure) and the interaction between different artistic languages that form the supertext (verbal and visual, artistic and documentary, poetry and prose). The semantics of “estate” poetry is associated with the topos of remembrance, the transformation of the real space of the estate into the space of memory and imagination. At the same time, a mechanism of decontextualization is operating: attention is focused not on the historical and cultural contexts of the functioning of the “estate topos”, but on the author’s personal memories. In autobiographical prose (the novel “Other Shores”, 1953–1954) the different relationship between text and context can be observed: the space of the estate fits not only into the biographical, but also into the literary context. At the pragmatic level, there is a blurring of intersemiotic boundaries, which leads to an active interaction between verbal and visual, poetic and prosaic artistic languages. Thus, in the novel “The Gift” (1938), the ecphrastic border between reality and the image is blurred, and in the prose text the plot of an elegiac walk is used, being typical for the “estate” poetry of the 19th century.