M.Yu. LERMONTOV AND A.P. SUMAROKOV: POSSIBLE CONVERGENCIES

The article reveals one of the aspects of the “Lermontov and Classicism” problem, which to this day remains in the unexplored category. The subject of the study is the possible points of convergence of the artistic systems of A.P. Sumarokov and M.Yu. Lermontov. The purpose of the article is to identify and analyze facts that indicate the direct or indirect perception by M. Yu. Lermontov of ideas, images, motives, features of the poetic organization of works by A.P. Sumarokov. Scholars name two possible parallels between Lermontov’s work and Sumarokov’s tradition: the first is connected with the attempts of writers to reproduce the metrics of folk poetry, the second – with the appeal to the form of the Poet’s dialogue with an unidentified interlocutor. In Lermontov's poem “Journalist, reader, and writer” this form allows readers to identify the consonance of the author’s understanding of the poet’s purpose and the poetic Word, which should actively influence the society and human consciousness, with Sumarokov’s position expressed in the poem “Piit and His Friend”. Using the methods of comparative, comparative historical and transtextual analysis, the author also discovers a number of other “convergences” of the two artistic systems. First, it is their interest in the Hamlet theme. Second, their semantic closeness of interpretations of the image of the wave and the "marine theme". It is suggested that the indirect source of the poem “Waves and People” for Lermontov could be Sumarokov’s miniature “Sea and Eternity”. Destroying the classic interpretation of the image of the sea and its associated rivers, A.P. Sumarokov finds it as a symbol of eternity, establishing a similarity between the flow of waves and the unidirectional movement of human life. M.Yu. Lermontov, refusing the idea of directional movement and drawing the parallel between the coldness of the waves and the coldness of human souls, which Sumarokov lacks, nevertheless addresses the same motive for the transience of life and the inevitability of death. Thus, in the text of the poem "Waves and People" by M. Yu. Lermontov's text we can see the emergence of miniatures by A.P. Sumarokov, which may serve as new significant evidence of the dialogical connection between the two poets.

A.P. Sumarokov, M.Yu. Lermontov, classicism, marine theme, “Journalist, reader and writer”, “Waves and people”.