Rationalistic Poetics: the Construction of Character in 18th Century Russian Satirical Magazines
The paper deals with one of the patterns of describing people in Enlight-enment literature. It is based on the rationalistic concept of personality as a combination of qualities. This model is realized in the literary genre of character, typical of eighteenth-century satirical magazines. The character as a genre shows a tendency towards static descriptions; plot dynamics is substituted by shifting the focus of the author’s attention. The idea of psychological diversity is manifested in the movement from quality to image and from a single image to a gallery of types.