Three Werthers over the precipice. Goethe allusions in Goncharov’s novel

Abstract

The article discovers an allusion to Goethe’s Werther in Goncharov’s The Precipice [Obryv] and explains its role in the novel. The author notices how the book’s leading male characters — Boris Raysky, Mark Volokhov, and Tit Nikonych Vatutin — exhibit the intertextual markers. The triple allusion to Goethe’s protagonist is examined as a key to understanding the novelist’s aesthetic testimony of the diversity of the forms of life, which calls for adequate, i. e., flexible, artistic representation. The author proposes and goes on to justify a hypothesis that The Precipice should be treated as a juxtaposition of two novelistic models. The article uncovers the supposed discrepancy between Goncharov’s own artistic method and the one perceived through his character Boris Raysky’s literary experiments. While Goncharov abandons the linear and monolithic nature of artistic structures, Raysky (if only subconsciously at times) prefers his characters and plots to be well-rounded and complete. The scholar finds that, through an ingenious use of the complex structure of a novel-within-a-novel, Goncharov on behalf of his hero invokes the classical paradigm of the 1800s — 1850s novel, only to deconstruct it in his own work.