Lev O. Mysovskikh, Master of Philosophy, PhD student at the Philological Faculty, Ural Federal University named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin, 51 Lenin Ave., 620083, Yekaterinburg, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0731-1998 E-mail: levmisov@yandex.ru
The article discusses the topic of death in the poems and letters of Fedor Tyutchev in the light of the theories of religious existentialism by Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Jaspers. The author of the article claims that Tyutchev was immersed in a borderline state caused by guilt and despair, which became the basis for his gloomy reflections on death. Realizing that he is a sinner, a religious person constantly returns to thoughts about his guilt before God. In Jaspers’ existential theories, guilt is closely associated with death. Jaspers puts the concept of existence, introduced by Kierkegaard, into the basis of his theory with the help of the borderline situation of guilt and death. In Kierkegaard’s theorizing, death is understood as a way of comprehending paradoxes that are insoluble for the human mind. The author of the article offers an interpretation and shows the way out of the crisis situation in which the Russian poet was, based on the views of Kierkegaard, who saw salvation from despair in Divine faith. It is claimed that Tyutchev shared the path proposed by Kierkegaard. This is clearly seen in his poems and letters, where the poet constantly turns to religious motives, which makes it possible to verify the sincerity of his faith in God.
existentialism; Russian literature; theory of literature; Tyutchev; Kierkegaard; Jaspers.
25.12.2022
28.01.2023
Mysovskikh, L.O. “Death as an Existential Category in Fedor Tyutchev’s Poems and Letters”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(60), 2023, pp. 148–159. DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2023.60.08
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