Ekphrasis in V. Shukshin’s story Pedestal

Abstract

An attempt is made to analyze the ekphrasis of Shukshin's story Pedestal. Intertextual, compositional, plot-forming techniques in the construction of ekphrasis are revealed, its poetic and semiotic functions are determined. Ekphrasis is a phenomenon is not that typical of Shukshin's prose, but at the same time has a definite specificity. In Shukshin's literary paradigm, ekphrasis-symbol prevails. Shukshin's literary intentions are always a synergetic means to intensify the narration, which, with the help of the visualization effect, can be included into other, not textual discourses. The double mimesis thus contributes to the compactness of the form and the content expansion of the writer's works. At the same time, it is important that Shukshin's ekphrasis is mainly dialogical (constructed with a change of viewer positions – author, critic, observer, etc.) and non-mimetic – it does not contain references to the real author or work, but is created directly in the text. In the Pedestal ekphrasis acts not only as a philosophical generalization of the problems of creativity, the artistic experience of the author himself, but also represents a complex of immanent allusions that overcomes the boundaries of a literary work up to the extensive field of culture.