ARCHETIPI LETTERARI

O literaturnych archetipach
Italian translation by Laura Sestri

The book consists of two parts. In the first, the author defines archetypes as the most ancient elements of the language of narration. As opposed to the psychoanalitic concept of archetype formulated by Carl Gustav Jung and linked to the sphere of collective unconscious, Meletinskij brings the archetype back to the social and cultural spheres. From an anthropological-literary perspective, social contexts take on great importance when they generate plots tied to rituals, such as initiation, the killing of the elders as generational succession, weddings and seasonal feast days linked to the awakening of nature. The author describes mythological and folkloric characters (the ancestor demiurge, the cultural hero, and the trickster) which represent the paradigms of heroes and antiheroes. Meletinskij also analyses the recurring models in stories concerning the acts of creation and defense of the Cosmos against Chaos, the fight against the dragon, difficult challenges, miraculous births, heroic childhood, the wedding of the hero with his princess (and vice versa), or the agony and resurrection of the god and the hero.
In the second part of the book, Meletinskij provides a new and original take on the transformation of the most significant archetypes in the history of literature on the basis of the great Russian classics from the period between the 19th and 20th centuries (Puškin, Gogol’, Dostoevskij, Belyj and Tolstoj)..