Reineke Island appeared. A fog hung over him like a fur hat pulled down on the head of a homeless teenager. From the pier it was necessary to walk through the hill along a forest path for about thirty minutes at a leisurely pace. A two-story country house is nestled on the shore of a cozy bay, about fifteen meters from the edge of the sea, on the outskirts. Trees hung over the house from the slope of a gentle hill - broad-leaved oaks, a huge linden with faded tassels, birches, delicate Amur velvet. By noon the fog cleared.
The sea smiled from the depths of its soul,” Margot sang cheerfully.
Silence lurks. On the opposite shore of the lagoon, pebbles could be heard crumbling under someone’s feet. Orestes estimated by eye that he could swim across the bay without difficulty, and, without hesitation, he rushed to the water with puppy delight, throwing his clothes behind him. Margot was setting up the movie camera. She had already learned several lessons from the aesthetics of the English writer David Lawrence and was not averse to playing “cowgirl and cowgirl.”
The movie camera chirps like a grasshopper. Orestes emerges from the sea, slightly losing his balance; his hair falls in wet strands over his shoulders. A full-mouth smile revealed a broken tooth. A mole on the right cheek is creeping onto the cheekbones. She likes to be a voyeur with a movie camera rather than just sitting on a bench and watching her man. The sun is behind him: he seems to be walking into the sea along a sunny path strewn with golden husks. Click! Thirteen seconds away!
Well, the movie show has begun,” Margot says, handing over a pink terry towel.
How it smells here! - says Orestes, inhaling the air.
His chest rises, pulling his stomach. Margot counts the ribs with her index finger. The hand slowly fell on the thigh bone and immediately pulled back. Margot was embarrassed and took a step back.
How's the water? Warm?
Orestes makes a stupid face, closes his eyelids and simply hums, expressing pleasure. They sit down on a bench under an apple tree, which grows in the very center of a round table painted blue. The rays of the midday sun penetrate the foliage and dot the happy faces of lovers. The lady glances at the young “gardener” with all his sweet poetic obscenities. They have not yet entered the house, which is being looked after in the absence of the owners by a married couple from a village on the island. A light breeze rustled through the leaves of the apple tree. It was the wind that ran its fingers into its fragrant crown, revealing a green apple.
From the side of the house, from above, Orestes’ sensitive ear catches sounds as thin as a cobweb: ding, ding, ko, kin, ding... It seems that these are droplets of rain one by one falling on the strings, extracting the melody of the singing wind.
These sounds are echoed by the praying mantises, but more rudely and persistently, languishing with lust, with a rolling Spanish “rrr” mixed with dull Chinese “sss” and “tsks”. From somewhere behind the fence, from the rosehip bushes, the praying mantis’s friend calls out. Suddenly they rang in unison, and with such force that it seemed that in a fit of passion they rubbed the calluses on their bellies with their paws. An invisible thread stretched about fifteen meters diagonally across the entire yard - from bottom to top, top to bottom. And suddenly ding! The string, unable to withstand the tension, burst!
Ay! - Orestes shouted.
Mmm,” Margo hummed sweetly, swallowing the wet, warm sounds of “yyy.”
If it weren’t for the roguish bumblebee, who ran into the invisible thread of the mantises’ love song with his contemptuous “bdz,” then other characters in the next scene could have enjoyed this music. They had just approached the iron gate. The bell notified the owners about unexpected visitors.
Cover your shame! - Margo says.
Orestes bends over for a towel, demonstrating the brilliant slalom of his back. Snowy sunlight fell like an avalanche on Margot, her eyes darkened for a split second.
What kind of sounds are these? - asked Orestes.
Oh, these are Chinese bells, they hang on the eaves of the house, a gift from Japan,” Margot explained.
“And I thought that it was the music of bliss that was playing in my head,” Orestes said with a fifth of disappointment.
The singing wind,” says Margot, moving away towards the gate.
Orestes goes to the sea and lies down on the hot stones, hiding behind the bushes, from where he can hear Margot’s conversation with the guests. He buried his face in the shore. The sun was hot on the body, even on the heels. The sweet smell of sea grass and hot stone caressing your cheek tickles your nostrils. Orestes listens to the conversation and carefully, like a draftsman, examines the praying mantis in the rosehip bushes.
The praying mantis, or Mantis religiosa, or otherwise the soothsayer, looks like a warrior. From time to time, the insect's legs begin to move, as if it were overcome by an itch on the abdomen. The praying mantis scratched itself as hard as it could. Then he froze.
Wanting to draw an insect, Orestes studied its structure.
In the lower part of the curved legs of the praying mantis there are channels, studded on the sides with movable spines. The shins slide freely into these channels, like the blade of a penknife, with the sharp, jagged edges meeting.
Now the insect has set its sights on something. Orestes also froze, intrigued by the behavior of the praying mantis, which, spreading its half-bent front legs, like a devout Muslim performing prayer, froze on its four hind limbs, waiting for its victim. Then he began to slowly creep up to her. Mica golden grains of sand slipped out from under his paws. Suddenly the hunter, grabbing the fly with saber-shaped blades, began to quickly, quickly absorb his prey.
Oof! - Orestes exhaled, imagining himself as a victim of a praying mantis.
Margot talked with the workers - Masha and Borey, a married childless couple from the village. She gave the money, ordered the bathhouse to be heated, and the housework to be done. It turned out that Vladik and Valentin arrived at the dacha last night, and early in the morning they left for Red Rocks. Orestes came out from behind the rosehip bushes, tied with a towel. He said hello and said that he was dying of thirst. Masha helpfully explained that behind the fence there was a spring with ice water. Orestes took the glass from the table and walked along the shore. “It’s nice here, it’s quiet, no one is roaming around, even if you walk around naked. No one will judge, there is no need to look back at anyone,” thought Margot, following Orestes with her gaze. She envied his naive, harmless shamelessness. If it weren’t for his frivolity, if it weren’t for the wind in his head, if only... But he’s a good lover, but not a husband! But as a life partner... No, he clearly did not apply for such a role.
She sighed. There was a white cloud in the blue sky, like a sail. She sat down and, leaning her hands behind her back, threw back her head, feeling how not a cloud, but an island was moving with full sails. A huge swallowtail, Maak's sailboat, fluttered in zigzags over the sea. “Tossing like my soul!”
All her life Margot was afraid of being out of place, while Orestes was always out of place, that is, unattached. It seems that the island freed her from her fears for three days. It was more suitable for their love than the city that threatened her with imaginary revelations. She didn't know that if you want to be in love, then get ready to be a funny girl. Her fear of losing her place, of losing face, held back her passion. They loved each other with a taciturn love, without confessions, and did not make plans for the future. Every day I mentally said goodbye to him, but the parting was postponed until tomorrow, then the day after tomorrow.
While Orestes was disappearing somewhere, Margot tried to forget about him, as if preparing herself for future loneliness. If he got bored, he would go to his attic or disappear from the city, or spend time on the beach among other idlers. She was in her eternal present.
The trip to the island relaxed Margot a little and gave a slight respite to her fears. Orestes tamed her to himself; she didn't know what to do with him next. It was as if he was with her and on his own - a free, prodigal dog. Margot lived with a feeling of terrible inevitability, irreparability, impending emptiness, which did not free her from illusions, but was the very “place” to which her soul was attached...
The rustling of pebbles distracted her from her thoughts. It was Orestes approaching with a steamed glass of water. The sun was refracted in it, scattering the rays on the stomach. Margot admired the play of light on her dark skin, forgetting everything sad. Orestes gestures for a drink. She extends her hand and the towel falls off Orestes, revealing his loins. Margot looks around in fear. Water splashes from the glass onto her face. Margo gasps:
How icy!
Orestes laughed. She grabbed a towel, quickly covered his privates, and only then wiped her face with the edge. After a light breakfast in the open air - a sandwich with cheese and sausage - Orestes went to explore the coast, taking a movie camera with him.
Be careful, don't break it! - she warns.
I listen and obey, my lady!
The sun has moved to the west, is still high, its light floods the entire water area, where several sailboats roam homeless in the distance. Orestes's gaze is attracted by a boat on the shore, as well as a rocky ridge protruding from the water, like a sea animal that has washed ashore, similar to a seal or a dolphin. Nothing worries him, his heart is an empty shell filled with the illusory sea, the sound of the wind, the past storm. Orestes took out a movie camera, loaded the film, and inserted the battery. A man comes out from behind a rock, he is trying to push a boat into the sea.
Enlightened by the idea of filming a panorama of the coast in a circle from the middle of the bay, Orestes headed towards the boat. The owner turned out to be a boy of about fifteen - a fisherman of mussels and sea cucumbers. He squinted his gray eyes, kept brushing his faded hair from his forehead, and his freckled nose was peeling funny. In the boat there was a mask and fins, a spear, a green net for catch, like a string bag, and also oars. On the shore lay a pile of long black mussel shells, reminiscent of giant husks of sunflower seeds.
Orestes explained what he wanted, the boy agreed. The two of them took hold of the boat and pushed it into the sea. Orestes suggested rowing. He was glad to have the opportunity to take a good view, but to do this he had to sail a little further from the usual fishing spot.
The water was so clear that it seemed that if you stretched out your hand, you could grab a sea urchin from the bottom. The shore curved around the bay like a horseshoe. On the edge there was a cottage hidden in the foliage of trees. Orestes noticed how Margot followed his trail. The guy took off his clothes and was left in only blue shorts. I pulled on my fins and mask. Taking a deep breath, he dived from the boat. Orestes watched. Some people appeared in the courtyard of the house. There were two of them. They waved their hands, as if sorting things out, and voices were heard.
Orestes reloaded the camera and began filming circles on the water, the coast, a seagull, tiny Margot walking along a hill adjacent to the shore, and then the circles opened and ran into the future, towards the horizon, where rocks protruded like sailboats. The boy was still under water. Orestes began to worry. “The minute apparently hasn’t expired yet,” he thought, driving away bad thoughts. Throwing off his clothes, he dived. The empty boat rocked on the waves. The shadow of a cloud came over her...
Margot lost Orestes and went in search of him. In her left hand, with a ring on her finger, she held a whole apple for him, and in her right hand, a bitten one, for herself. The wasp, captivated by the aroma of the apple, crawled between the fingers from the bite. Margo screamed and dropped the apple from her hand.
She bent down to pick it up from the ground and noticed a tiny crab crawling onto the shore, basking in the sun. He had one claw, and with this claw he rubbed his shell.
What, you're consoling yourself, right? - Margot asked the crab mockingly.
In the distance a boat swayed, bathed in a stream of rays. Her vision went dark. Suddenly the boat began to rapidly approach, flapping its wings. Then it split in two, and Margot realized that it was a black swallowtail flying towards her. My heart skipped a beat. Her premonitions did not take on the shape of any image. She attributed it all to high blood pressure. “Apparently, she overheated in the sun,” Margot thought and decided to return for a Panama hat.
A couple of steps from the shore there was a clearing overgrown with clover in the shade of trees, where you could play football, pitch two or three tents, and gather friends for a barbecue. Here stood a long table, made of planks painted blue, with benches on both sides; Above it hung clusters of long-faded old linden trees, its thick, double-girth trunk bent on a steep hill.
Margot's foot in a lilac, blunt-toed shoe without a heel stepped into the clearing, and the hem of her linen dress, strewn with blue cornflowers, caught on a rosehip bush. While Margot was unhooking her dress, sea cucumber catchers passed by her, rustling stones. She followed them with a suspicious look. She didn't like the fact that all sorts of personalities were walking through their coastline. Their house stood almost right next to the hill, and a little further away there were cliffs with almost no shoreline: they didn’t rest there, but it was a fertile place for fishing.
The thought of the fragility of happiness did not leave Margot. She walked along the path and scared away a magpie, which was prowling on the ashes of a fire, fenced with boulders among lush green clover. Another magpie was pecking at a snail at the edge of the clearing. Large red dragonflies in their mating flight rustled with transparent wings, sparkling in the sun like golden scales. She sat down on the bench to shake a pebble out of her shoe, and, left alone with her thoughts, became sad. “A light surf bordered the silence... Silence rustled with the wings of a dragonfly... Silence hid its horns in the shell of a dead snail...” Margot dressed up her feelings in empty shells of words. She imagined that Orestes had never existed, that he was just a fiction, the most wonderful fiction in her life, and fictions remain forever, they, once created, never disappear again, unlike lovers who come and go, leaving behind is the slam of a door in an empty room.
This imaginary clap resonated with acute pain in her heart. Taking a deep breath, she stood up and straightened the hem of her dress. The iron gate was locked with a hook from the inside. Margot stood up on tiptoe, extended her hand and, throwing back the hook, opened the gate.
As she walked through the courtyard, the door to the bathhouse slammed. Margot looked around, but did not attach any importance to it, being sure that it was Borya who was busy with the housework. Her cheeks were hot. On the threshold of the house, she remembered that she had forgotten the apples on the table, but did not return...
Margot went up to the second floor into a room with a large window curtained with tulle overlooking the sea, went to the dressing table, and looked in the mirror.
Yes, my cheeks and nose are reddened,” she said out loud.
Orestes loved to bite her lobes, saying: “Why are they beautiful, like cherry petals!” He sneaked up on her from behind and bit her.
Margot was shivering. She lay down on the bed, her eyelids closed. At the same moment, a dream overtook her, as if she was sitting on the shore and combing her long hair with a tortoiseshell comb; Young girls pass by, their long blond hair tied up in a bun, then one girl invites her to come with them. They are sailing in a boat to get kelp from Kanza.
“We’re going to scratch the sea grass,” said one girl.
Margot takes up the oar to row and feels a surge of joy; The sun is shining in her eyes, she squints. Someone said: “I am an oar prepared to row...” She swims in the sea, opens her eyes, and a dolphin swims towards her with a sly smile. She opens her mouth to greet him, but the words are buried somewhere inside, and speech is not heard. When he disappeared into the depths among the thickets of sea grass, she realized that it was Orestes, and not some dolphin, and was glad to have a good dream...
* * *
Vladik! - Valentin was indignant. He barely had time to jump away from the door, which slammed shut in front of his nose. - What happened to you? This is the third time you almost killed me!
Sorry, I forgot. The doors let whoever they want in or turn them out,” Vladik said mysteriously, sitting down in a white plastic chair on the porch of the sauna.
This noise woke up Margot. She opened her eyes: the ceiling was cracked, a yellow chandelier that looked like a flower vase hanging upside down; In some places the lime had fallen off. Margot pulled her toes - forward, backward. She did not notice the spider descending with good news. “Where is Orestes? Didn't he drown? Ugh! Ugh! As if I wouldn’t overheat in the sun...” she was worried in her sleep. Margot yawned. She remembered the dream and smiled.
Burning with heat, two naked males sat opposite each other and gesticulated energetically. If Margo had looked out the window at the head of the room, she could have become an involuntary witness to this scene, but she saw a notebook on the chair and began to leaf through it.
Okay, I forgive you. With you, you need to enter a gate where there are no jambs or doors,” said Valentin.
This is how they enter the sea or river. Let’s go for a swim,” Vladik suggested, rising from his chair. He slipped. Valentin picked him up and put him on his feet:
What are you really doing today?
They ran to the sea along the garden path.
Margot went to the window; there was no one in the yard. Margot leafed through several pages of the diary: curiosity trumped decency. On one page there was the inscription “Play” at the top. She did not read, got up and left the house. There was no one in the yard - neither Vladik, nor Valentin, nor Masha, nor Bori, nor Orest, nor the dog. “Where has everyone gone?” A stray cat meowed. One of her eyes was lapis lazuli, the other jasper. She beckoned to the cat, but it did not respond.
Oh, you felis cerval! - Margot snorted, loving her thoughts more than cats.
She walked to the end of the house, past the sauna, past the guest wing at the edge of the yard. Some person was walking through their territory. Margot walked out into the clearing and headed to the table, where she had forgotten two apples. There was nothing on the table, and two stubs were lying on the ground. While she was collecting her thoughts, Orestes appeared in the clearing, accompanied by a teenager. Having said goodbye to him, Orestes stretched his mouth into a smile and approached Margot. He extended his hand forward, demonstrating his catch of sea cucumbers.
You're burned out! - Margot exclaimed. - Let's go, I'll treat you. There is a jar of country sour cream in the refrigerator. In the meantime, go to the bathhouse and rinse yourself with fresh water, but not hot!
Margot touched his chest with her hand. A white imprint of her hand remained on the skin.
Orestes went to the sauna and rinsed himself with water from a ladle. On the way out, I picked up a plastic chair lying on the floor. Margot was already taking a jar of sour cream out of the refrigerator. Someone has already managed to halve it. The procedures were carried out right in the kitchen. Using a wooden spoon, Margot took sour cream out of a liter jar, plopped it onto her shoulders and slowly spread it all over her back. Both of her hands slid over Orestes' shoulders, she felt all the triceps and biceps. Margot ordered the guy to stand on a stool, then began to lubricate his chest, stomach, legs, and buttocks. Orestes, purring and purring, licked her hands and licked the sour cream from his shoulders.
There's a monster under a pitchfork! On! - Margot said and let me lick the spoon.
She was discovering new sensations, as if she had never touched a man before. Meanwhile, Orestes joked around, telling a joke. Margot giggled and continued to put sour cream on Orestes' body.
Well, now you're like a plaster statue! - Margot concluded and laughed loudly.
She stepped aside to admire her statue. Orestes spun on his stool. His gluteal muscles were rock hard. “If you put a walnut between the two halves, like in a vice, it would crack with a bang,” Margot suggested cheerfully. Orestes contracted his gluteal muscles rhythmically, nervously, fieryly. It seemed to her that these were hot garni horsemen dancing a dance with sabers from the famous ballet. What mischief-makers they both were! It was then that the literal meaning of the words “to pin”, “to prick”, “to prick someone”, “to chop off something” was revealed to her.
In this form she captured him on film. Orestes depicted all sorts of Roman “priapist” statues. Here's to the fun of lovers! If a moment of Orestes' life was not filled with eros, then he simply died of boredom.
Margot did not understand this, she forced him to “sublimate” erotic energy into some kind of harmless activity for eternity. This meant a translation of the damned novel by Hideo Tagaki, which by chance brought them together once and for all in metaphysical realms, remote from atheistic reality, as they wisely joked with each other...
Not everything that Orestes invented to relieve his despondency delighted her. Most often, Orestes' fantasies seemed dangerous to her. He was a man, as they say, without inhibitions, with a crazy streak. It was in risky situations that he experienced the greatest lust, leading Margot into fear and trembling. She was a timid woman, like a domestic chicken. Orestes gradually began to lose interest in Margot, who perceived his experiments as pure whim. The ride on the Reineke revived Orestes and reawakened his faded imagination. And here Margot was unable to curb the fountain of his fantasies. He overcame her everywhere he caught her by surprise: in the doorway, on the stairs, on the shore, in the water, on the porch, on the table, in the forest.
The bed was a place for relaxation, not lovemaking. He tired her.
I came here to relax! - she was indignant.
On Reineck, he began to mentally say goodbye to her, so he was extraordinary, wonderful, delightful - as never before. Orestes has not yet found a way to say goodbye to her. If you want to leave your mistress, find her a lover. He continued to love her with mischief, and now, being smeared with sour cream, he tore off her dress, as if picking petals from a Chinese rose.
Margo whispered:
There's someone here, someone here, hush!
The window in the kitchen looked out onto the courtyard, the edge of the sea and the outbuilding were visible. It seemed to her that someone in the outbuilding looked out the window, that the curtain twitched, that someone slammed the door. Her fear and danger excited Orestes even more. His sex was noisy, destructive and fast. So the tuesok fell to the floor and rolled under the table, scattering salt...
Orestes did not like penmanship, and, developing this metaphor, we can say that sex for him was something like writing, a form of creativity. He wrote dirty, his handwriting could be compared with Pushkin’s drafts, his crude revelations in letters about love affairs...
Vladik was tapping something on a typewriter. Valentin was resting, turning the radio in search of a melody.
What a long day! You don't want to snack on some of the Machine's cooking, huh? - he asked.
I want to, but I’ll just put an end to my “intimate diary” and let’s go. What about wine? We have it in our bins,” Vladik said without turning his head.
No, in order to write diaries, you need to have the temperament of an accountant,” said Valentin. - I wonder what you can write about today: “we spent the day at sea”? That's all! Well, we walked, swam, sunbathed, and nothing else. Am I in your diary?
Valentin found the melody, put down the receiver, turned on his left side, and propped his head on his hand. Vladik turned to him:
Of course, every word! Only you fill my pages. I study you like an ornithologist! - Vladik said with a laugh. - I imagined that I had landed on someone else’s land, and everything suddenly became interesting to me. This is what I am writing about, opening up the universe. Imagine yourself as a clown and the world will become funny. You can sit on the seashore all day without leaving your spot, and you will never be bored. With one effort of your will the waves will move...
And what kind of bird am I?
No one remembers the name of this bird, but whoever remembers will gain eternal life. She lives in a double nest and feeds on the hearts of young men who do not yet know shame.
I haven't heard of this one. Does this bird live in a flock or on its own?
Oh, this is a rare bird, they say it is prophetic. Sometimes her shadow flies over everyone, but rarely does anyone see her. The shadow of this bird flies by itself.
I'm too dark for your metaphors.
It is not you who is dark, but the one who is hiding.
And who?
The one whose word is true and true.
Ah, then it's clear.
What is clear is that we are not threatened by its sharp beak and claws.
Why?
I don’t know about you, but my heart is stained with shame.
“Mine too,” Valentin sighed.
The one who retains his flesh and his name will live with his double.
I understand! We live to be reunited with him!
Yes, with him, with his double.
Valentin looked expressively at Vladik. The wings of his slightly sun-scorched nostrils quivered, as if he was sniffing. Valentin also involuntarily inhaled, as if clearing his nose:
“You’re a terribly interesting guy, and a funny conversationalist,” he said, taking Vladik’s chin with his fingers. - You can easily drown in your eyes. So you dive and never come up again. By the way, now they are darker than during the day.
What are you talking about?
About the fact that it’s not boring with you, that I haven’t thought about Tamara all day. By the way, he'll arrive tomorrow. You won't get bored with her either...
What do you want, artist? No way! Do you know what this gesture means? Vladik also took Valentin by the chin and looked into his dark green eyes with red veins. “As if covered with swamp mud,” he thought.
This is a loving gesture among the Greeks. When a man declares his love, he takes the ephebe by the chin.
Like this! And which of us is an ephebe?
They laughed.
Oh - la - la! - as Tamara Efimovna says, - said Valentin.
So, are we going to get some wine?
Wine loosens tongues.
They got up and went outside. The evening sun spilled olive light and rolled through the clouds like cheese in butter. The missing dog came running - a St. Bernard named Flaubert. He wagged his tail and trotted after him.
In the kitchen they met Margot and Orestes. Flaubert sniffed everyone and recognized them; True, he growled at Orestes. “Who is this? It’s unfamiliar and smells like a stranger.” Margot thought: “But what an embarrassment it could have been if we had been caught...”
While dinner was being prepared and the table was being set in the courtyard, dusk fell. It was a wonderful family evening with a bottle of red wine.
Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky is a classic transitional figure in the Russian literary tradition, and, moreover, a highly original figure. Perhaps none of the writers of the early 18th century had such an individualized literary style and such an original literary position as Trediakovsky, whose position in the contemporary literary process was very special due to the fact that he was, as it were, a “man without a middle” . Trediakovsky sometimes amazes with his archaic nature, but he is able to amaze with the sharpness of his literary intuition.
In terms of style, Trediakovsky’s lyrics represent a unique literary analogue of the linguistic situation of the first decades of the 18th century. At this time, both in colloquial and literary language (which was basically the same thing, since no special standard for the literary language existed) the greatest stylistic confusion of Russianisms, Slavicisms, barbarisms, archaic and vernacular forms reigned. The same situation is observed not only in stylistics, but also in poetics, and in genre composition, and in the formal features of Trediakovsky’s lyrics. His poetry is composed, as it were, of three heterogeneous layers - syllabic pre-reform poems, poems of Trediakovsky’s individual meter (toned syllabic thirteen syllables, from the point of view of syllabic tonics it was a caesurated hetameter trochee) poems of Lomonosov meters: short (tri- and tetrameter trochee, iambic tetrameter ), and long (Alexandrian verse). And each of these three groups of lyrics is distinguished by its genre and style properties.
One of the most important branches of Trediakovsky’s literary activity was translations of Western European prose. Through his works, the early Russian narrative tradition was enriched by three translations of Western European novels - Tallemann's "Ride to the Island of Love" (written in 1663), Barclay's "Argenida" (1621) and Fenelon's "The Wanderings of Telemachus" (1699). In Trediakovsky's translations, they were published in 1730, 1751 and 1766, respectively.
"Riding to Love Island"
Trediakovsky’s choice of “Going to the Island of Love” demonstrates the young writer’s keen literary sense and precise understanding of the needs of his contemporary readers. The craving for the gallant love culture of the West and the new quality of national love life, reflected in both authorless histories and love songs of the Peter the Great era, became a sign of the novelty of the emotional culture of Russian society and an indicator of the process of formation of a new type of personality generated by the era of state reforms. The encyclopedia of love situations and shades of love passion, which Talleman's novel offered in allegorical form, was perceived in Russia as a kind of concentrate of modern emotional culture and a kind of code of love behavior for a Russian person of a new cultural orientation. Since it was the only printed book of its kind and the only secular novel in Russian literature of the 1730s, its significance was incredibly great.
Talleman's novel is written in the form of two letters from the hero, Thyrsis, to his friend Lycidas; they tell about the journey that Thyrsis, accompanied by Cupid, made around the Island of Love, about the meeting with the beautiful Aminta and the violent passion that she aroused in Thyrsis; about the betrayal of Aminta and the attempts of Thyrsis to console himself with the love of two girls at once, Phyllis and Irisa, about how Thyrsis finally left the island of Love, where he knew heartache, and followed the goddess Glory. It is noteworthy that the plot of the novel develops in two literary forms at once - narrative prose and poetry: all the vicissitudes of Thyrsis's journey around the Island of Love are invariably accompanied by poetic inserts.
The geography of the Island of Love is closely connected with the different stages of love passion: traveling from city to city, visiting villages and castles, walking along the banks of a river or lake, climbing a mountain, the hero of the novel successively goes through all the stages of love: his journey begins from the town of Small Servants, where Thyrsis sees Amyntas in a dream and meets Cupid; the latter leads him to the Announcement, that is, a declaration of love; however, on the way they meet Reverence, who, reproaching Thyrsis for haste, leads them to the castle of Silence, where his daughter Precaution rules.
In the fortress of Silence, Thyrsis sees Aminta, and she guesses about his love, because at this stage of love feelings, lovers communicate not with words, but with their eyes and sighs.
Having guessed about the love of Thyrsis, Aminta retires to the cave of Cruelty, near which a stream of Love’s tears (“This stream began to be // Love’s tears began” - 107) flows into Lake Despair, the last refuge of unhappy lovers (“Having spent many of their days in sadness, / / They come to this in order to end life” - 107), and Thyrsis is close to throwing himself into this lake. But the maiden Pity leads Aminta out of the cave of Cruelty, and the lovers end up in the castle of Sincerity, where an explanation takes place. Further, the path leads them to the castle of Straight Luxury - the apotheosis of love, where all wishes come true. But from the top of the highest mountain, the Desert of Remembrance, Thyrsis sees the unfaithful Aminta with another lover in the castle of Straight Luxury. Contempt (pride) and Glacier (coquetry) are trying to moderate his despair; Contempt appeals to his sense of honor and dignity, and Love of the Eyes sends him to the places of Impartiality and Fun, where he can love without pain. As a result, the inconsolable Thyrsis, who has lost Aminta, leaves the Island of Love, following the goddess Glory.
Thus, the different stages of the love feeling experienced by Thyrsis on the Island of Love are embodied in different geographical locations, and the characters of the novel - Reverence, Pity, Annoyance, Honor and Shame, Doom, Contempt, Cupid - are allegorical embodiments of love emotions. Consistently meeting with Thyrsis and becoming his temporary companions, these characters symbolize in their figures the consistent development of love passion - from the beginning of love to its end. In Talleman's text, the ideal, conceptual reality of emotional spiritual life is recreated with the help of plastic embodiments of an abstract concept in an allegorical landscape (rock, cave, lake, stream) or an allegorical figure of a character, whose character is determined by the concept that he embodies (Reverence, Caution, Pity, Coquetry, etc.). Thus, Talleman’s novel operates on the same levels of reality - ideological, or emotionally conceptual, and material, plastic, from which a holistic picture of the world was formed in the aesthetic consciousness of the 18th century.
Another reason that determined the success of the novel “A Trip to the Island of Love” was the emphasized concentration of its plot in the world of private and intimate human experiences, which perfectly corresponded to the heightened personal feeling characteristic of the mass cultural consciousness of the early 18th century. However, here too we can observe a duality characteristic of the era: despite the fact that love as such is a purely personal and individual feeling, it is also a universal, universal human feeling
The peculiar literary form of the novel “A Trip to the Island of Love,” written in prose and poetry, could not help but attract the attention of the Russian writer and Russian readers. The double lyro-epic playback of the plot of “A Trip to the Island of Love” in the epic description of Thyrsis’s wanderings through the material space of the fictional island and in the lyrical poetic outpouring of love emotions, which together create a picture of the spiritual evolution of the hero - all this added volume to the novel’s picture of the world, combining descriptive- plastic and expressive-ideal aspects of the literary world image. Thus, in new Russian literature, a prototype of the future model of novel narration appears, combining two essential genre-forming features of the novel epic - the epic of wanderings and the epic of spiritual evolution. And since the plot of the novel is entirely concentrated in the area of a person’s private emotional life, we can say that Trediakovsky’s translation offers Russian literature a unique original genre model of the novel “education of feelings.”
"Tilemakhida"
Undertaken by Trediakovsky in the 1760s. the poetic translation of François Fenelon’s prose novel “The Wanderings of Telemachus” offers a completely different genre modification of the novel both in the original and in translation. François Salignac de la Motte Fenelon, in his novel The Wanderings of Telemachus, outlined his pedagogical concept and his views on the nature of the monarchy and its social purpose. It was in Fenelon's novel that the ideal of an enlightened, law-abiding monarchy found its artistic embodiment.
The plot of "The Wanderings of Telemachus" goes back to cantos 1-4 of Homer's poem "The Odyssey", which tell how Odysseus' son, Telemachus, went to look for his father. Fenelon significantly expanded the geography of Telemachus’s travels, forcing him to visit all the countries of the ancient Mediterranean, including Phenicia and Egypt. Fenelon needed this expansion of geography for a specific purpose: in this way he led his hero through acquaintance with all systems of government - from absolute monarchy and tyranny to a commercial republic. As a result of the life experiences and observations that the journey gave him, as well as as a result of the instructions of the goddess of wisdom Pallas Athena, who took the guise of the teacher Mentor, Telemachus returns to his island of Ithaca as an enlightened monarch. Dressing his political and educational treatise in the images and plot of an ancient epic, Fenelon followed the tradition of the genre of state-political novel, which prescribed to teach while amusing.
For Trediakovsky, Fenelon’s novel thus had two attractive aspects - ideological (the concept of an enlightened monarchy) and aesthetic (plot connection with the Homeric epic
The second, no less important ideological leitmotif of “Tilemakhida” is the need to educate and enlighten the future ruler. All the adventures and meetings that await Telemachus in his wanderings in search of Odysseus invariably pursue the same goal: to give a life lesson, the opportunity to comprehend error and truth, grief and joy from his own experience, so that the future monarch can understand universal human feelings. This parallel effect on the feelings and mind of Telemachus is achieved as a result of the life experience he gains on the journey, and the assimilation of moral rules taught by the wise instructions of his companion and leader Mentor Athena Pallas, who leads her pupil to the final goal of the journey; and this goal is not only to find a father, but also to develop the personality of Telemachus as a future ideal monarch.
As a result, the ideological novel translated by Trediakovsky became the same shock to the foundations - but this time not moral, but political - as it was for the 1730s. was a translation of the romance novel “Riding to the Island of Love.” And if the love affair brought Trediakovsky troubles from the church ministers, then “Tilemakhida” aroused the displeasure of Empress Catherine II, the real reason for which was the politically inconvenient content of “Tilemakhida”: the apology for a law-abiding monarchy sounded especially acute in the case of Catherine II, who occupied the Russian the throne in the most illegal way possible.
Another aspect of Trediakovsky’s translation - aesthetic - is no less important in the future of the development of Russian literature. Here, of paramount importance is the fact that Trediakovsky translated Fenelon’s prose novel into verse, and with a completely original meter, which he himself developed - a syllabic-tonic analogue of Homer’s hexameter.
From the point of view of syllabic tonics, the hexameter dactyl became such an analogue: the structure of the dactylic foot, consisting of one stressed and two unstressed syllables, as closely as possible in a language with a different accentology, conveys the rhythm of alternating long and short sounds in ancient hexameters. Thus, from Fenelon’s novel, Trediakovsky tried to make something like an ancient epic, turning to the primary sources of Fenelon’s imitation - the Iliad, the Odyssey and the Aeneid. Hence the characteristic change in the title of the translation: the novel title “The Wanderings of Telemachus” is opposed to the Homeric and epic title: “Tilemachida”, formed by analogy with the titles of ancient epic poems.
How important this task seemed to Trediakovsky himself, and what fundamental meaning he attached to his hexameters, is evidenced by the beginning of “Tilemakhida”, a traditional component of any epic, the so-called “sentence” - designating the main subject of the narrative - and “invocation” - an appeal to the muse for inspiration .
And, putting the narrative of Telemachus’s wanderings into Homeric hexameters, Trediakovsky consistently sought to reproduce the characteristic features of the Homeric epic style. One of the main such signs was the so-called compound epithets, formed from two different roots and conveying a complex combined characteristic. Trediakovsky’s translation is filled with similar epithets: “multi-destructive sea”, “loving son”, “loud singer of poetry”, “beauty is effeminate”, “busy labor”, “severe stones”, “radiant day” - all this creates the basis of a special, Homeric style in Russian poetry.
Translating Fenelon's prose into hexameters, Trediakovsky, in fact, combined an entire prose genre - romance - with verse, and his "Tilemakhida" is, in fact, the first Russian novel in verse, the prototype of the genre model of the verse novel, brilliantly implemented by Pushkin in "Eugene Onegin" " And if, from the point of view of its formal and verse characteristics, “Tilemakhida” lies at the origins of the Russian poetic Homeric tradition, then as a genre form it offers precisely the novel model: an educational novel, a travel novel, an ideological-political novel - all of these are realized by later Russian novels. traditional genre perspectives of "Tilemakhida".
Trediakovsky, in his tireless genre experiments, managed for the first time to express some features of national aesthetic thinking with regard to understanding the nature and characteristics of the novel genre, if only due to the fact that he was, firstly, an encyclopedic educated philologist, and secondly, a Russian writer . And the fact that Trediakovsky’s novelistic experiments are so widely associative in relation to the further evolution of the Russian epic lies their main historical and literary significance.
POEMS FROM THE NOVEL “THE GO TO LOVE ISLAND”
* * *
There is this lover who could please her,
Happily the sky fixes everything hanging,
In the heat of love he kissed me forever;
And the unfaithful woman allowed him to fix everything!All the boiling lust was visible in his face;
Like a burning coal, everything turned red.
He pressed her hands, groped her whole body.
And the infidel was quite amused about it all!I wanted to kill myself there, you know:
She was all in his will then,
He did as he wanted, sat down with her, or;
And she was unfaithful, like me, she opened all her breasts!
* * *
Stop resisting the intense heat:
Two virgins in your heart will fit together without conflict,
For if you cannot be happy without love,
Who will love you more?
He is happy to eat longer.
Love the red Sylvia, the courteous Iris,
And two more are not enough, if you need to chivu.The powerful goddess of love has so much sweetness,
That on a hundred altars the sacrifice to her is wretched.
Oh! If it is sweet for the heart to indulge in it!
Not happy to love alone?
Then a friend needs to look for it,
So as not to stop when you love in lust
And don’t forget what happens in love.Don't be sad that you will have so much love:
For it is possible to keep up with the service to both.
If you can please one, do the same for the other;
There are enough hours in the days,
It’s free to be with the other.
Having satisfied the first, the second is also satisfied,
And although it’s only a dozen, I’ll say a little!
* * *
Do not make my memory weak anymore,
That it is impossible to live in the world without sweet love,
Don’t tell me, my heart, it is necessary that Glory
More than a thousand Phyllis had rights.
Go and do not resist where it leads:
This love cannot be better than another.
You will win with this exchange: Glory is more red,
Than a hundred Aminth, Iris, Silvius, and it is clear to everyone.
POEMS FOR DIFFERENT OCCASIONS
The song I wrote
while still in Moscow schools,
for my trip to foreign lands
Spring is rolling,
Winter is falling,
And the leaf and tree are already making noise.
The birds are singing
From a titmouse,
Foxes also wag their tails.The furrows have been dug up,
The grapes are blooming,
The goldfinch calls, the blackbirds whistle,
The waters are flowing,
And the weather;
But we are famous for our campaigns.The rope breaks
The anchor is beating
You know, the boat will rush.
Well, hurry up and swim
It's no harm
Swim boldly, then successfully.Oh! wide
And deep
The waters of the sea will break your sides.
Eight will be forced
They won't leave
The winds are kind and will help.Spit on the bitch
Sea boredom
Stay strong, but know this:
Become otish
And not magnificently;
This way there will be no waves and you won’t hear it.
Description of the thunderstorm
ex in Gaga
Thunder from one country
Thunder from another country
Vague in the air!
Terrible in the ear!
Clouds have rolled in
Carry the water
The sky was closed
They were filled with fear!Lightning flashes
They strike with fear,
Cracking in the forest from Perun,
And the moon darkens,
The whirlwinds run with the dust,
The strip breaks in one fell swoop,
The waters roar terribly
From that bad weather.The night has come
Changed the day
My heart sank:
All evil has arrived!
Rain poured into the lids,
The towers are shaking
The hail is falling,
Heliports are hitting.All the animals are prowling,
They won't find peace,
Beating their chests
People are to blame
Afraid of misfortune
And so as not to disappear,
Hands are raised
They say to heaven:“Oh, the sun is red!
Become clear again
Lighten up the clouds
Tears are burning,
Push the change
Off to Vienna.
I wish I could breathe in marshmallows
With the quietest world!And you, Aquilons,
Be like them;
Put aside the cruelty
Just cool it down.
Run away all the anger
To the eternal grave:
We need red days,
Pleasant and clear."
1726 or 1727
Poems of praise for Paris
You are no better than the Elysian Field:
All the joys of home and sweet peace,
Where there is neither winter nor summer heat.The sun is rolling across the sky above you
Laughing, but it doesn’t shine anywhere better.
Nice marshmallow dresses flowers
Red and vibrant after many years.The lymph flows through you, everything is cool,
The nymphs, while walking, sing beautiful songs.
Lubo plays and Apollo with the muse
In lyres and harps, also in flutes.Red place! Dear Shore of Senski!
Where rustic manners dare not be:
For you hold everything within yourself nobly,
You are a natural place for gods and goddesses.The laurel will give your sweet waters to drink!
All kinds always want to be in you:
You melt milk, honey and sweet fun,
Which truly did not exist anywhere.Red place! Dear Shore of Senski!
Who doesn't love you? Was the spirit brutal!
And I can never forget
While I have to be here on earth.
Poems of praise to Russia
I’ll start sad poems on the flute,
In vain to Russia through distant countries:
For all this day I receive her kindness
There is a lot of desire to think with the mind,Russia mother! my endless light!
Allow me, I beg your faithful child,
Three centuries later, the creative asceticism and fate of the first Russian professor and academician Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky, the son of an Astrakhan priest, stirred up his native Astrakhan. These days, his anniversary is widely celebrated in his homeland, where he received his first education - “he studied with the Roman monks living there.”
Vasily Kirillovich Trediakovsky belonged to the circle of people awakened by Peter's reforms. The son of an Astrakhan priest, he, like Lomonosov, seized by a thirst for knowledge, left his parental home, studied at the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy, and then abroad at the Sorbonne. At the same time as Lomonosov, he was awarded the title of professor of the Academy of Sciences.
As a poet, he was eclipsed during his lifetime by Lomonosov and Sumarokov. But as a theorist and experimental writer who opens new paths in Russian literature, Trediakovsky deserves the most serious attention. “His philological and grammatical research,” wrote Pushkin, “is very remarkable. He had a more extensive understanding of Russian versification than Lomonosov and Sumarokov... In general, the study of Trediakovsky is more useful than the study of our other old writers.”
In 1730, Trediakovsky published a translation of the gallant allegorical novel by the French writer Paul Talman entitled “A Trip to the Island of Love.” This was one of the examples of a love story. The text of the work is prose, with numerous poetic inserts of a love and even erotic nature. The experiences of the characters - Thyrsis and Amyntas - are presented in allegorical form. Each of their feelings corresponds to the conventional toponymy of the “Island of Love”: “cave of Cruelty”, “castle of Straight Luxury”, etc. Along with the real ones, conventional characters such as “Pity”, “Sincerity”, “Eye-lovingness” are presented, i.e. coquetry . In European literature of the 30s of the XVIII century. P. Talman's novel was an anachronism, but in Russia it was a great success.
Trediakovsky’s enormous merit to Russian poetry, not only contemporary to him, but also subsequent, was the reform of versification he carried out. Its principles were outlined by him in 1735 in the treatise “A New and Brief Method for Composing Russian Poems.” Before Trediakovsky, in Russian poetry there was only syllabic (from the Latin word syllaba - syllable), i.e. versification in which poets did not pay attention to quality, i.e., stressed and unstressed syllables, but only followed an equal number of syllables in rhyming verses. In most cases, the rhyme was feminine, inherited from Polish poetry, under the influence of which the Russian syllabic arose. The main disadvantage of the syllabic was the vagueness of the manifestation of rhythm, as a result of which, as Trediakovsky wrote, syllabic verses “are more decent... to be called prose, running in a certain number” (p. 366). Trediakovsky replaced the syllabic system of versification with a syllabic-tonic one, or, in his terminology, “tonic”, from the word “tone”, i.e. stress, stressed syllable.
Trediakovsky did not invent this new system. It already existed in a number of European literatures, including German, with which Trediakovsky was well acquainted. But in Russian poetry the syllabus dominated. The question was which of the two systems existing in European literature to give preference to - syllabic or syllabic-tonic, and Trediakovsky, unlike his predecessors and contemporaries, chose syllabic-tonic. The new system differed from the old rhythmic organization of verse. Rhythm (in Trediakovsky - “fall”, from the French word cadence) is created by a regular alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables, occasionally complicated by pyrrhic (a foot consisting of two unstressed syllables) and spondees (a foot of two stressed syllables). The unit of rhythm is the foot, that is, the connection of one stressed syllable with one unstressed syllable (Trediakovsky recognized only two-syllable feet).
When creating a new type of versification, Trediakovsky sought to proceed from the peculiarities of the Russian language. “The method of composing poetry,” he wrote, “is very different according to the difference in languages.”
The significance of the reform carried out by Trediakovsky is difficult to overestimate. He was the first in our literature to draw attention to the enormous role of rhythm in versification, which, in his words, is the “soul and life” of poetry. Another theoretical work by Trediakovsky, “On Ancient, Middle and New Russian Poems” (1755), echoes the treatise on Russian versification. This was the first attempt to outline the history of Russian poetry since ancient times.
On March 5-6, the international scientific conference “V.K. Trediakovsky and Russian literature of the 18th - 20th centuries” was held at Astrakhan University, which brought together the best philological and historical thought of higher education. The rector of the university, Doctor of Economic Sciences, Professor A.P. addressed its participants with an opening speech. Lunev. Doctors of Philology G.G. made presentations at the plenary session. Isaev and G.G. Glinin from Astrakhan, T.A. Alpatov and A.M. Bulanov from Volgograd. The sections discussed continuity and innovation in Trediakovsky’s creative system, his heritage in Russian literature and the traditions of Christian culture in his work. The conference participants greeted Alla Sidorenko's television film "The Forerunner" with applause, in which the author talentedly and sincerely talks about our great fellow countryman. This trilogy is shown on the Lotus TV channel during the anniversary days.
On Wednesday, the Department of Culture, Art and Cinema, the Astrakhan branch of the Union of Writers of Russia invited Astrakhan residents to the local history museum for a literary and musical evening dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the founder of Russian poetry and literature. Candles were burning in candelabra, music and poetry were sounding. The first anniversary was celebrated in the gallery of outstanding Astrakhan residents - and it was Trediakovsky’s anniversary. The laureates of the V.K. Prize gathered here. Trediakovsky, philologists, musicians, artists. Deputy Head of Administration of the Astrakhan Region I.V. Rodnenko presented a laureate diploma to writer Mikhail Kononenko for his book “With Love and Reverence.” And the evening opened with a stage improvisation based on the poems of Yuri Shcherbakov, where young Peter the Great meets in Astrakhan with a student of the Latin school Vasily Trediakovsky and admonishes him for the literary feat that our fellow countryman was about to accomplish.
Candidate of Philological Sciences V. Gvozdey, laureates of the prize named after him Vasily Makeev from Volgograd, Larisa Kachinskaya, Yuri Shcherbakov, Boris Sverdlov spoke about Trediakovsky, who asked a rhetorical question: “Will they remember us in 300 years?” “We’ll wait and see,” the audience reacted.
The cant to Trediakovsky’s poems “Vivat, Russia” was performed in a soulful performance by the chamber choir “Lik” under the artistic direction of the Honored Artist of Russia S. Komyakov, and the Honored Artist of Russia L. Vlasenko addressed the audience with a proposal to find in the archives notations of musical works written by Trediakovsky. The evening's program included the men's chamber choir of the Philharmonic under the direction of L. Egorov, and the ensemble "Ars Nova" under the direction of E. Belinskaya. Of course, V. Babakhanyan’s flute sounded.
The refrain was Trediakovsky’s beautiful lines:
I’ll start sad poems on the flute,
It’s in vain to go to Russia through distant countries.
And three centuries later, his poems resonated in the heart with love for Russia.
Prepared by Elena Kiseleva
novel "education of feelings"
Another important branch of Trediakovsky’s literary activity was translations of Western European prose. His laborious Russian narrative tradition was enriched by three translations of Western European novels - “Riding to the Island of Love” by Talleman (written in 1663), “Argenida” by Barclay (1621) and “The Wanderings of Telemachus” by Fenelon (1699). In Trediakovsky's translations, they were published in 1730, 1751 and 1766, respectively. These dates at first glance indicate that Trediakovsky is hopelessly archaic in his literary tastes: the gap between the time of creation of the text and the time of its translation into Russian averages about a century, and at the time when Trediakovsky translated “Journey to the Island of Love” , all of Europe was engrossed in Lesage’s picaresque adventure novel “Gilles Blas,” and the author of another famous novel, the family chronicle “The Story of Tom Jones, a Foundling,” Henry Fielding, had just made his debut as a writer. However, this archaic nature of Trediakovsky’s literary preferences is only apparent. In all three cases, his choice is strictly motivated by the peculiarities of the national literary process.
Despite its apparent archaic nature, Trediakovsky’s choice of “A Trip to the Island of Love” demonstrates the young writer’s keen literary sense and precise understanding of the needs of his contemporary readers. Just as the navy and merchant fleet were a symbol of the entire novelty of Russian statehood, politics and economics, the craving for the gallant love culture of the West and the new quality of national love life, reflected in both authorless histories and love songs of the Peter the Great era, became a sign of novelty emotional culture of Russian society and an indicator of the process of formation of a new type of personality generated by the era of state reforms. The encyclopedia of love situations and shades of love passion, which Talleman's novel offered in allegorical form, was perceived in Russia as a kind of concentrate of modern emotional culture and a kind of code of love behavior for a Russian person of a new cultural orientation. Since it was the only printed book of its kind and the only secular novel in Russian literature of the 1730s, its significance was incredibly great; as Yu. M. Lotman noted, “A Trip to the Island of Love” became “The Only Novel.”
Talleman's novel is written in the form of two letters from the hero, Thyrsis, to his friend Lycidas; they tell about the journey that Thyrsis, accompanied by Cupid, made around the Island of Love, about the meeting with the beautiful Aminta and the violent passion that she aroused in Thyrsis; about the betrayal of Aminta and the attempts of Thyrsis to console himself with the love of two girls at once, Phyllis and Irisa, about how Thyrsis finally left the island of Love, where he knew heartache, and followed the goddess Glory. It is noteworthy that the plot of the novel develops in two literary forms at once - narrative prose and poetry: all the vicissitudes of Thyrsis's journey around the Island of Love are invariably accompanied by poetic inserts.
The geography of the Island of Love is closely connected with the different stages of love passion: traveling from city to city, visiting villages and castles, walking along the banks of a river or lake, climbing a mountain, the hero of the novel successively goes through all the stages of love: his journey begins from the town of Small Servants, where Thyrsis sees Amyntas in a dream and meets Cupid; the latter leads him to the Announcement, that is, a declaration of love; however, on the way they meet Reverence, who, reproaching Thyrsis for haste, leads them to the castle of Silence, where his daughter Precaution rules:
In the fortress of Silence, Thyrsis sees Aminta, and she guesses about his love, because at this stage of the love feeling, lovers communicate not with words, but with their eyes and sighs:
Having guessed about the love of Thyrsis, Aminta retires to the cave of Cruelty, near which a stream of Love’s tears (“This stream began to be // Love’s tears began” - 107) flows into Lake Despair, the last refuge of unhappy lovers (“Having spent many of their days in sadness, / / They come to this in order to end life” - 107), and Thyrsis is close to throwing himself into this lake. But the maiden Pity leads Aminta out of the cave of Cruelty, and the lovers end up in the castle of Sincerity, where an explanation takes place. Further, the path leads them to the castle of Straight Luxury - the apotheosis of love, where all wishes come true. But from the top of the highest mountain, the Desert of Remembrance, Thyrsis sees the unfaithful Aminta with another lover in the castle of Straight Luxury. Contempt (pride) and Glacier (coquetry) are trying to moderate his despair; Contempt appeals to his sense of honor and dignity, and Love of the Eyes sends him to the places of Impartiality and Fun, where he can love without pain. As a result, the inconsolable Thyrsis, having lost Aminta, leaves the Island of Love, following the goddess Glory:
Thus, the different stages of the love feeling experienced by Thyrsis on the Island of Love are embodied in different geographical locations, and the characters of the novel - Reverence, Pity, Annoyance, Honor and Shame, Doom, Contempt, Cupid - are allegorical embodiments of love emotions. Consistently meeting with Thyrsis and becoming his temporary companions, these characters symbolize in their figures the consistent development of love passion - from the beginning of love to its end. In Talleman's text, the ideal, conceptual reality of emotional spiritual life is recreated with the help of plastic embodiments of an abstract concept in an allegorical landscape (rock, cave, lake, stream) or an allegorical figure of a character, whose character is determined by the concept that he embodies (Reverence, Caution, Pity, Coquetry, etc.). Thus, Talleman’s novel operates on the same levels of reality - ideological, or emotionally conceptual, and material, plastic, from which a holistic picture of the world was formed in the aesthetic consciousness of the 18th century.
Another reason that determined the success of the novel “A Trip to the Island of Love” was the emphasized concentration of its plot in the world of private and intimate human experiences, which perfectly corresponded to the heightened personal feeling characteristic of the mass cultural consciousness of the early 18th century. However, here too we can observe a duality characteristic of the era: despite the fact that love as such is a purely personal and individual feeling, it is also a universal, universal human feeling:
Consequently, no matter how paradoxical it may seem at first glance, it is through the culture of love feeling, with all its particularity and intimacy, that a person is not only able to recognize himself as an individual person, but is also able to identify himself with any other person - and this already means that he rises to high social passions.
Finally, the unique literary form of the novel “A Trip to the Island of Love,” written in prose and poetry, also could not help but attract the attention of the Russian writer and Russian readers. The double lyro-epic playback of the plot of “A Trip to the Island of Love” in the epic description of Thyrsis’s wanderings through the material space of the fictional island and in the lyrical poetic outpouring of love emotions, which together create a picture of the spiritual evolution of the hero - all this added volume to the novel’s picture of the world, combining descriptive- plastic and expressive-ideal aspects of the literary world image. Thus, in new Russian literature, a prototype of the future model of novel narration appears, combining two essential genre-forming features of the novel epic - the epic of wanderings and the epic of spiritual evolution. And since the plot of the novel is entirely concentrated in the area of a person’s private emotional life, we can say that Trediakovsky’s translation offers Russian literature a unique original genre model of the novel “education of feelings.”
