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

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.

Keywords

19th-Century Russian Literature, Alexander Pushkin (1799—1837), Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729—1781), Allegorical Image of Death, History of Signboards.