2025 Issue №2

The article explores the symbolism of the forest in N. Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter.” This study aims not only to interpret the meanings associated with this topos but also to illus­trate its role in developing three internal plots within the novel. A brief overview of the for­est’s reception as a symbolic space in European culture reveals four primary interpretations: the forest as a source of materials and resources, the forest as hell, the forest as paradise, and the forest as a frontier — a space for the hero’s initiation. This analysis of “The Scarlet Let­ter” through the lens of literary historicism and archetypal criticism demonstrates that Haw­thorne ironically reinterpreted all four readings of the forest to highlight the internal contra­dictions in the history of his native New England. For instance, the Puritans' fear of the for­est as the “abode of the Black Man” did not prevent them from using timber from the forest to build their New Canaan. Similarly, their dreams of an earthly paradise were contradicted by their act of cutting down the forest, which is depicted in the novel as a locus amoenus. The forest serves as a transformative space in the lives of the main characters; notably, only Hester Prynne successfully undergoes the “forest initiation.” This observation allows us to draw conclusions about the author’s true sentiment regarding the legend of the Black Man in the forest. The relevance of this research stems from the importance of engaging with classical texts and addressing existing gaps in scholarship, particularly the exploration of spatial poet­ics in Hawthorne’s work.

The article explores the artistic embodiment of the four types of love that C. S. Lewis dis­cusses in detail in his treatise The Four Loves and in his mythological novel “Till We Have Faces”. Given the centrality of the theme of love in the novel, it is reasonable to assume that in this 1956 work, the author was already artistically reflecting on the ethical and psychological concepts he would later elaborate in the treatise, which was based on a series of radio talks broadcast by Lewis on American radio in 1958. The book “The Four Loves” was published two years later, in 1960. At the same time, the conceptualization of love as a complex and multifaceted phenomenon is already present in the artistic philosophy of the novel under study. This article traces the main features of the literary representation of the notions of friendship, charity, erotic love, and familial love in “Till We Have Faces”. All four forms of love are analyzed at the levels of plot development, the construction of the main female charac­ters (Psyche and Orual), and the philosophical dimension of the mythological novel in the context of the ancient Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, which serves as the narrative founda­tion of the work.

The canonical title of the song “Prervannyi polet” (“Interrupted Flight”) is not clearly established in Vysotsky’s handwritten or audio archives. This raises the question of the exist­ence of alternative titles in the song’s textual history, their origins and textual status, the source of the title “Prervannyi polet”, and the reasons for its eventual textual consolidation. The creative history of the text is traced based on surviving manuscripts, authorized type­scripts, and materials from audio archives. The study reveals that at different stages in the song’s history, the author used various titles for it; a number of non-authorial titles are also documented, including translated titles in French. Some of these externally assigned titles were supported by Vysotsky himself, who used them to refer to the song during public per­formances. However, he did not fix any of the authorial or non-authorial titles as the main one, instead preferring to refer to the song by its opening line: “Kto-to vysmotrel plod” (“Someone spotted the fruit”). The title “Prervannyi polet” gained popularity and was canon­ized only after the poet’s death.

Buddhist ideas, motifs, and imagery are present throughout the works of Viktor Pelevin, from his earliest writings to his most recent novellas and novels. His 1991 novel “Omon Ra”, alongside its diverse philosophical, cultural, and literary allusions, draws upon the Buddhist philosophical concept of “consciousness-only,” which posits that only consciousness truly exists, while the external world is ultimately unreal. The image of the “Soviet Cosmos” in Pelevin’s novel combines at least two meanings — the near-Earth or near-lunar fragment of the universe and the Soviet world order — and also serves as a metaphor for the psychic world within which every person exists and which each individual generates. The protagonist of Omon Ra is portrayed less as a cosmonaut than as a psychonaut, discovering a psychic cos­mos with a simulacral nature. The world depicted in Pelevin’s narrative is richly illusory: it resembles a child’s drawing or a theatrical stage and may be characterized as oneiric, māyā-like (from the Sanskrit māyā), or samsaric. Through intertextual references, allusions to my­thology, cinema, and literature, Pelevin emphasizes the illusory nature of his characters. In “Omon Ra”, the chronotope is also depicted as conditional, existing outside of conventional systems of temporal and spatial coordinates. The reality portrayed in the novel is, in the Bud­dhist sense, empty — that is, subjectively motivated. The mirror-like and simultaneously cir­cu­lar composition captures the protagonist’s endless journey within the cyclical movement of the illusory world of saṃsāra, while the open ending suggests the possibility of the hero’s lib­eration.