“A Plump Amour with an Inverted Torch”: Notes on Pushkin’s “Grobovshchik” Cover Image

«Амур с опрокинутым факелом»: Заметки о повести Пушкина «Гробовщик»
“A Plump Amour with an Inverted Torch”: Notes on Pushkin’s “Grobovshchik”

Author(s): Elena Kardash
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Literary Texts, Fiction, Studies of Literature, German Literature, Russian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Tallinna Ülikooli Kirjastus
Keywords: 19th-Century Russian Literature; Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837); Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781); Allegorical Image of Death; History of Signboards;

Summary/Abstract: This article is devoted to one of the most enigmatic details of Pushkin’s Grobovshchik (1831), namely, “a plump Amour with an inverted torch.” The author investigates its variable semantic structures, and a range of narrative potentials determined by such contexts as a) classical allegorical tradition, b) patterns of the anecdote genre, c) elegiac language, and d) some elements of funeral practice.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 4
  • Page Range: 9-39
  • Page Count: 31
  • Language: Russian