THE TALE OF THE PRIEST AND OF HIS WORKMAN BALDA BY A. PUSHKIN
The Tale of the Priest and his Worker Balda seems the most simple of all the Pushkin’s fairy tales. However, this is a very specifi c simplicity, which can be called ‘the simplicity of complexity’. The story contains diff erent levels, which are not apparent immediately. Traditionally, The Tale o...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Russian |
| Published: |
Petrozavodsk State University
2014-11-01
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| Series: | Problemy Istoričeskoj Poètiki |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://poetica.pro/files/redaktor_pdf/1429879028.pdf |
| Summary: | The Tale of the Priest and his Worker Balda seems the most simple
of all the Pushkin’s fairy tales. However, this is a very specifi c simplicity, which
can be called ‘the simplicity of complexity’. The story contains diff erent levels,
which are not apparent immediately. Traditionally, The Tale of Balda has been
interpreted as an acute socio-political satire; another approach refers to the
peculiarities of folk tales poetics and its literary transformation, determined
by the difficulties of combining the folk fairy-tale function of the character
with the nature of a literary tale hero. Both of these approaches raise a number
of questioins, the main of which is why the Priest was punished, aft er all. The
third interpretation, which is presented in the second part of the article and
considers Pushkin’s fairy tale in the Christian context, allows us to reveal the
deeper connotations of Pushkin's intention, giving the opportunity to
comment diff erently some parts of the text, usually overlooked by researchers
that are focused only on a "superfi cial layer" of the meaning of the text. |
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| ISSN: | 1026-9479 1026-9479 |