Aux origines du descriptif

The Origins of Description : The Sources of Mimesis in Eighteenth-Century Russian Narrative The present paper aims to uncover some of the sources of description in early Russian narrative, by examining passages from Mixail Čulkov’s collection of "Slavic Tales", Peresmešnik (The Mocker), published between 1766 and 1768. I argue that these sources were both iconographical and literary. Among them are André Félibien's descriptions of Court celebrations in Versailles and/or texts by Russian imitators of Félibien. Such depictions were not detailed enough though to provide a ready-to-use pattern of description. Therefore, Čulkov probably also used an iconology. Despite the fact that the most famous of iconologies, written in 1593 by Cesare Ripa, was not translated into Russian in the 18th century, Russian readers could use French imitations of Rippa’s work. In conclusion, the article demonstrates Čulkov’s radical departure from the usual use of iconologies. Whereas these were supposed to help readers to become familiar enough with mythological figures so that they could instantly identify them without the need of relying on annotations, Čulkov dismantled this technique and replaced it with textual description, thus advancing the method of depiction in 18th century Russian prose

Art · Depiction · Humanities · Literature · Mythology · Narrative · Russian literature · Slavic languages · Classics · Historical and Literary Analyses · Historical and Literary Studies · History