On Lermontov's Creative Art From The Aesthetic Perspective Of“Unification Of All Things”

Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov(1814-1841)was a famous Russian classic writer in the 19^thcentury,also one of the major writers that have been studied in the field of Russian literature in China.Most researches have been primarily concerned with the influence of the thoughts and ideas of the Russian Orthodox Church on the thoughts and content of Lermontov's works and the research on the influence of its artistic form is still in its infancy,although the relationship between the Orthodox Church and Russian literature has long been the focus of these researches.This dissertation attempts to focus on exploring the influence of Orthodox thoughts on the content of Lermontov's literary creation,and more importantly on his artistic creative form.At the same time,it reveals the two-way interactive relationship between Lermontov's creative art and the Russian Orthodox Church,so as to show that the relationship between writers'creation and the Russian Orthodox Church is not a unidirectional one but one of cross-fertilization.The dissertation focuses on four works written by Lermontov successively,namely,the long poem Demon(1829-1839),the drama Masquerade(1835),the long poem Mtsyri(1838-1839)and the novel A Hero of Our Time(1838-1840).The main underlying aesthetic theory is the aesthetic thought of“Unification of all things”put forward by the famous Russian Orthodox philosopher Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov(1853-1900),that is,the unity of God and all things based on the“Complete Knowledge”system of theology,philosophy and science.The critical method used is the“Trinity”critical method introduced by Sergei Nikolaevich Bulgakov(1871-1944),a cultural criticism theorist of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Silver Age,based on the“Unification of all things”.This method is to transform the“Father,Son,and Holy Spirit”of the Russian Orthodox Church into the“Trinity”,from“subjective”to“objective”and then“together”.The purpose of this dissertation is to delve into the revelation and artistic representation of the Orthodox spirit in Lermontov's literary creation at both the ideational and formal levels.It seeks to reveal that Lermontov's creative art not only is a reflection of the Russian society in the first half of the 19^thcentury,but also is deeply influenced by Orthodox culture.From the perspective of Bulgakov's“Trinity”literary criticism,Lermontov's creative art is indeed the product of the fusion of writer's personality(subject)and objective world(object),rationality and emotion,reality and belief.“Trinity”is actually the unity of all things and all spirits.“Trinity”is not only embodied in the contents and thoughts of literary works,but also in literary forms.Even forms themselves are a manifestation of spirits,embodying the philosophical idea of“Unification of all things”in the Russian Orthodox Church,thus influencing and developing the thought and connotation of the Russian Orthodox Church in reverse.From the aesthetic perspective of“Unification of all things”,this paper mainly studies Lermontov's artistic forms.It not only pays attention to narrative in Lermontov's lyric poetry,that is,the addition of storylines to give poetry narrative functions,but also explores how the writer's romantic language contributes to the atmosphere in the novel,presents the characteristics of“turning inward”in the overall structure of the novel,that is,from the outside to the inside,step by step,and gradually explores the protagonist's psychological structure.Based on all this,the dissertation will further analyze the interweaving of art and emotion in Lermontov's drama creation.From the perspective of the transformation of the writer's creation style,Lermontov,who only had a writing career of slightly more than ten years,had already traversed three major literary creation fields:poetry,novel and drama,exhibiting a dual influence from both Pushkin(1799-1837)and Byron(1788-1824)and reflecting the spiritual strength of the Russian Orthodox Church.It can be said that the literary creation of Pushkin and Byron inspired Lermontov's creative passion,while the Orthodox spirit has become the inner driving force of his creation.On the whole,this dissertation discusses diachronically the four works by Lermontov.First,Lermontov created the Russian demon embodying the combination of good and evil from the fictional worlds of fairy talesand folklores.Second,the writer's creation gradually deepened and transferred the reality of social life,with the creation of a human demon Arbenin possessing multiple personalities.Then,a series of spiritual redemptions were launched through the pursuit of good things and freedom by the child monk.Finally,through a series of actions of the noble disciple Pechorin in real life,the author makes a final summary and reflections,so as to explore the future of Russian intellectuals in the 1830's and even reflect on the future of mankind as a whole.In the process of the creation of these works,the spirit of“Unification of all things”,the thought of“Cohesive consciousness”and the“Messiah consciousness”always run through.Obviously,Lermontov's creation is actually an compact version of the history of Russian literature in the first half of the 19^thcentury,that is,from romantic poetry creation and folklore narrative to deep realistic exploration,in all of which the Orthodox spirit,as the soul of Russian literature,plays an extremely important role.Obviously,the interpretation of literary creation from the perspective of the Russian Orthodox Church should be an important dimension of the study of Russian literature in the 19^thcentury.This is especially true in the case of Lermontov,a writer who was influenced by the Orthodox culture from childhood on.The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church on this great writer was profound,especially in terms of his artistic forms.Through the study of the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and Lermontov's creative arts,the dissertation tries to explore valuable approaches to the study of Russian literature in China.