Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences
of the Russian Academy of Sciences
LITERATUROVEDCHESKII
ZHURNAL
The Journal of Literary History and Theory
Peer-reviewed Academic Journal

An «optimistic fatalist». Bunin in England

Krasavchenko T.N.

Abstract

The author dwells on the mechanism of Bunin’s reception in England (translations, reviews in periodicals, literary criticism) and especially concentrates on the translation (1922) of the short story «Gentleman from San Francisco» by S. Koteliansky and a famous English writer D.H. Lawrence; the success and uniqueness of it is explained by the congeniality of Bunin and Lawrence. Analysis of the British literary studies shows that Bunin is usually interpreted terms of English traditional culture as аn «optimistic fatalist», «metaphysical author», who understands the «vanity of civilization». So one can say that recognition of Bunin in Great Britain was not as wide and full as the recognition of Chekhov there, but still one can find Bunin’s echo in English literature, for example in the novel «On Chisel Beach» (2008) of an outstanding contemporary writer Ian McEwan. So it is evident that Bunin was accepted by British culture in a peculiar way.

Keywords

intercultural communication; literary translation; literary criticism; modernism.

DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2020.49.08

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