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Byron and the Russian Silver Age (1900s). The Protestant Cain as ‘native’ and ‘foreign’
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2019-1-152-177
Abstract
The influence of Calvinism on Byron’s philosophy, as evidenced by his journals and epistolary legacy, as well as the leitmotif of his oeuvre, is well researched. But his unique interpretation of the Protestant ideas in specific works is largely uncovered by his scholars. Particularly interesting in this context is Byron’s mystery play Cain. The piece is a dramatization of Calvin’s idea about humanity’s predisposition to falling from grace or being saved, from the viewpoint of a man seeking knowledge who is branded with a curse. Byron’s Cain is typified by anxiety, a hungry search for knowledge, suffering, struggle, and defiance of God. This newly coined Cain entered Russian literature during the Silver Age. A keen look at the works of Nikolay Gumilyov, Ivan Bunin, and Vyacheslav Ivanov, as well as the latter’s polemic with Dmitry Merezhkovsky, reveals the emergence of the romantic Protestant character on a quest to supersede the traditional Russian understanding of the biblical story and the endemic beliefs about good and evil.
Keywords
G. G. Byron,
N. Gumilyov,
I. Bunin,
V. Ivanov,
D. Merezhkovsky,
Cain,
Protestantism,
Romanticism,
artistic image
About the Author
S. B. Korolyova
N.A. Dobrolyubov State Linguistics University of Nizhny Novgorod
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Svetlana B. Korolyova - Doctor of Philology.
31а Minin St., Nizhny Novgorod, 603155
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Review
For citations:
Korolyova S.B. Byron and the Russian Silver Age (1900s). The Protestant Cain as ‘native’ and ‘foreign’. Voprosy literatury. 2019;(1):152-177. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2019-1-152-177
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