Kabbalistic myth and its interpretation in A. Kuprin’s story “Sulamith”

Doklady Bashkirskogo Universiteta. 2017. Volume 2. No. 2. pp. 287-292.

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The paper discusses main mythopoetic constants of the artistic system of A. Kuprin’s story Sulamith. In the pieces of writing of the 20th century, the transformative author’s element holds the foremost position, and the mythopoetic and psychological core of one or another archetype undergo more and more conceptual “tension” of the entire artistic system of reference. Under the influence of historical and social changes, the literary archetype more and more often shows actual sense which is “built into” the artistic conception and implemented in the piece of writing. The author notes that dialogic interreflections of several archetypal plots are found as biblical erotological myth in the Song of Songs, Kabbalistic myth, Egyptian myth of Isis, narrative motives of Sophian myth, ancient erotological myth and ancient tragedy. This paper analyses two storylines, dominant in the associative and symbolic contexts of the works: the plot of the myth of Isis and Osiris and the Kabbalistic myth of Shekinah. Both mythologems became artistically actualized in King Solomon and Sulamith’s love story, reproducing in result a kind of universal neomyth, integrating invariant archetypal images and motives which can be regarded as a basis for the origins of the European culture.