АДРОГИННОСТЬ «ГЕНИЯ ЧИСТОЙ КРАСОТЫ»: ОБ ОДНОМ КОНЦЕПТЕ У НИКОЛАЯ КОНОНОВА
ANDROGYNOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF THE “GENIUS OF PURE BEAUTY”: ABOUT ONE CONCEPT IN NIKOLAY KONONOV‘S PROSE

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the term “androgyne” and the evolution of the notions of genius in the history of culture. It reviews the concept of the “genius of pure beauty” in V.A. Zhukovsky’s and A.S. Pushkin’s poems. The authors of the article discover a close connection of this concept with androgynous characteristics. The modern writer N. Kononov develops different semantic aspects of the concept. He raises the following questions: is it possible for a genius to be beautiful but impure, or is it possible for a genius not to be beautiful, etc. Such questions often organize the plot. N. Kononov’s distinguishing feature is the simultaneous assertion and negation of the content: the initial unity of the concept is reconstructed at the coded level. N. Kononov, both implicitly and explicitly, plays on sexual deviations and perversions of the characters, reconstructing their androgynous unity. For representing a fuller picture, one should examine the semantics of the hidden level. It implies taking into account the meaning of proper names and key words, etymology and paronymy, polysemy and homonymy, the multilingual code, and a great variety of cultural, historical, and literary associations. It is concluded that the importance of the concept of the “genius of pure beauty” for N. Kononov, as well as for his predecessors, is determined by the relation with the process of creation.

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