Reception of the Apostolic Text in the Poem of V. A. Zhukovsky ‘Agasfer’

Abstract

The article analyzes the reception of the Apostolic text in V. A. Zhukovsky’s poem «Ahasuerus». The medieval legend of Ahasuerus is interpreted by Zhukovsky in a religious and philosophical aspect: as a plot about the fall and spiritual resurrection. The key moment in the plot of the spiritual rebirth of the hero is connected with the theme of repentance, which is understood in the context of sacred Tradition as an internal revolution, as a spiritual change. The theme of repentance in the poem allusively correlates with the image of the Apostle Paul and his Epistles. Restoration of value-semantic orientations of the hero is carried out in the context of the Revelation of John the theologian. The significance of the Apocalypse is revealed to the hero in a dream, indicating that along with spiritual healing, he also received a prophetic gift. The biblical text plays an important role in modeling the figurative system of the poem. One of its Central symbolic images - the image of doors, is formed at the intersection of Evangelical and Apostolic allusions. References to the Apostolic text allow to concretize the plot, motive, chronotopic organization of the poem. At the same time, the inclusion of the precedent text in the structure of the poem gives it an additional symbolic encoding. The semiosphere of the Apostolic text in the poem «Ahasuerus» is voluminous and plastic; it intersects with the Evangelical and old Testament context, includes not only the canonical books of the New Testament-the Acts of the Holy apostles, their Epistles and the Apocalypse, but also the writings of the Apostolic men, for example, the Epistle to the Romans of the Holy Martyr Ignatius of Antioch. The peculiarities of the functioning of the precedent text in the poem include, firstly, the recoding of someone else’s (Apostolic) word into the word of the hero: Apostolic quotes are introduced into the poem as the word of the hero, as fragments of his confession; secondly, the absence of boundaries between different books of Scripture (biblical books as inspired works complement each other, forming a single whole). Main research methods: intertextual, receptive, historical and literary.