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Abstract:

The present paper calls into question the traditional opinion that commenting on realia cannot distort the meaning of the commented text or influence the readers’ interpretation. The paper shows how, when the authorial meaning of an element of realia is understood inadequately, commentary can block the access to deeper levels of understanding, change the base coordinates of the text, or annihilate the operation the author performed to incorporate a quote into his context. It also shows how commentary can destroy the process of “cultivate verses from rubbish” and discover the deep meaning of ordinary things that is the main purpose of poets and writers. Sometimes, for no evident reason commentators seem to make a point of reducing the deep implications the author put in his text to the most comment and obvious meanings. The paper describes how an author can work with realia, by the example of Dostoevsky’s theory of art — the theory of “correcting” realia he saw in the “the flowing immediacy of proximate and visible” to discover “ends and beginnings” — the roots of being. It also investigates what should be considered realia when commenting on symbolic/metaphysical texts (e.g. Crime and Punishment). The analysis of Notes from the Underground illustrates the results of a “harmless” attribution of the epigraph. “The legend of the Green Stick” by B. Eichenbaum and “O.E. Mandelstam’s Poem ‘The Stream of Golden Honey Poured, so Viscous’: Experiences of Commenting on Realia” by V.P. Kazarin, M.A. Novikova, and E.G. Krishtof serves as an introduction to the problem and exemplify the consequences of commentary on authorial intentions.