The author's meta-reflection in the novel by Matvey Komarov "Vanka Cain"

The subject of the study is the author's metafictional discourse, expressed in a complex of discursive elements, having a different genre and functional nature. In Matvey Komarov's novel Vanka Cain, metraleflexion is a complex that includes metalepsis, digressions, generalizations, glosses, but also elements of paratext, for example, "Forewarning" and metatext, for example, footnotes. All these elements are in a unique configuration, form a single system of the author's discourse, and reflect the general meta-ethics of the work. Therefore, analyzing them as a system, we do not separate individual elements, but two of their complexes reflecting the key opposition of the metapoetics of the work: metafictional commentary and metanarrative commentary. The first one thematizes the work of fiction and fantasy. The second focuses on the reflection of literary and rhetorical forms. In Komarov's novel, they have their own specifics, peculiar to the rhetorical consciousness, modified by the folk tradition of popular literature.  In the study, we use the teleological approach developed in Russian philology by A. Skaftym, in which the emphasis is placed on the total importance of all elements of the work. Also, following Yu. Chumakov, we include the author's notes in the text of the work. Based on postclassical German narratology, we separate the metafictional and metanarrative author's comments. The novelty of the research lies in the consideration of the author's metapoetics in the early work of Matvey Komarov. In the analytical allocation of its explicit, verbalized form by the author, in the commentary, which had not previously been the subject of research. This required a methodologically innovative combination of the perspectives of the immanent analysis of a literary work and the narratological analysis of an author's work, during which it became possible to distinguish two, metanarrative and metafictional, systems of author's judgments in the text. At the same time, due to the specifics of the subject, the identification of the features of Matvey Komarov's literary consciousness became particularly valuable research results. His conceptualization of literature as a quality of form, the rhetorical perception of fiction as a technique. And, on the contrary, relying on evidence and experience in the design of history, understanding its nature as a reflection of reality, an emblematic vision of it as a fragment having didactic value.

Metareflexion, Authorial commentary, metafictional commentary, Metanarrative comment, Matvey Komarov, The novel of the XVIII century, Metapoetics, The author's voice, Narratology, Authorial intrusions