CIRCUS IMAGERY IN THE CREATIVE WORKS OF VLADIMIR NABOKOV AND MARK ALDANOV
The article compares and contrasts circus imagery in works by Nabokov and Aldanov: (1) Nabokov’s novel, “Look at the Harlequins”, and his stories, “The Potato Elf,” and “Spring in Fialta”; (2) Aldanov’s novel, Sources. Images of clowns, harlequins, and the circus in Nabokov’s works, and images of circus performers in Aldanov’s Sources are of primary interest. The symbolic importance of artists of “the triple salto mortale” in that same novel [the salto mortale is an aerial somersault performed on a tightrope]. Emphasis is placed on a variety of circumstances surrounding the original use of circus imagery in each author; reasons for the use of such imagery are elucidated. Among factors defining the specificity of circus images selected, several are pointed out: the peculiarities of authorial creativeness, artistic conceptions, and the context of a particular reading public.