The Image of a Star in the Poetics of the Novel by I. S. Shmelev "Summer of the Lord"

The article examines the peculiarity of the functioning of the star image in the "Christmas" chapters in the first and second parts of the novel "The Summer of the Lord" by I. S. Shmelev. The relevance of the research is determined by the unrelenting interest of modern literary criticism in the study of the writer's creative work. The features of the artistic embodiment of the image of a star in the poetics of the novel "The Summer of the Lord" have not yet become the subject of a separate study. Star imagery in the textual space of the novel echoes the motifs of dynamics, movement, light, sacredness, deification, spiritualization and beauty of the world created by the Lord. The motif of the "playing creature," which resounds through the work, symbolizes the joy of the whole world experienced on the night of the birth of the Infant Christ. The motif of dynamic stars is emphasized by their anthropomorphic properties. Of particular importance in the "Christmas" chapters is the author's use of the color and sound characteristics of the star image associated with the theme of the deification of the world and the motif of beauty. The artistic device of an-tithesis is the basis of the chronotopic structure of the Christmas chapters of "The Summer of the Lord." The time preceding the main Christmas event is contrasted with the night of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Here, the image of the star performs an important symbolic function, separating the ordinary and sacred time. The appearance of the first star in the sky delimits ordinary reality from the deified, spiritualized existence of a person, when everyday life is replaced by being. The spiritual realism method in the Christmas chapters of "The Summer of the Lord" is based on the image of the gradually emerging spiritual principle in the earthly life of the characters. The star in the work of I. S. Shmelev symbolically reflects the idea of Christ the Star, which goes back to biblical imagery. The author's artistic concept presented in the work is aimed at designating the sacredness of the Christmas holiday and the image of the star, correlated with the inevitability of their salvatory repetition. The accentuation of the motif of the star's spirituality expresses the author's understanding of the Christocentricity of the world.