Poetics of Fear in Leonid Andreev's Oeuvre

The topic of fear is one of the most significant elements in works of L. Andreyev. Andreyev’s oeuvre is characterized by the image of “frightening” aspects of life and death. The definition of “frightening world” as a concept has recently established (in the early 20th century). However, fear of everyday life appears in oeuvre of many Russian writers: N. Gogol, L. Tolstoy, I. Turgenev, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin and others. The topic “The poetics of fear in Leonid Andreyev’s oeuvre” is of growing research interest. The concept of “fear” becomes important for literature of the 20th century. The chronological aspect of the study demonstrates this fact. Overall, the research indicated that an interaction of fear in Andreyev’s oeuvre had significantly increased by the period between 1900 and 1902. In addition to the issue, in the study some classifications of fear can be analyzed. “Frightening” images and situations are divided into different categories: image of a coffin, snow, a ghost, boundaries of space change, the Sun, laugh and natural elements in the depictions of fear (for example, an appearance of the Fire Horse in the sky in the story “Fire” shows that people are afraid of nature’s force); a situation of pursuit, somebody in the situation of hero’s alienation from the world \ hero’s involvement in the world. There is another classification of fear: the reason which causes fear (the fear of life and the fear of death) and an unreasonableness of fear, a power of fear that can be weakness or unconquerable and a false victory over fear. One more type of classification exists: fear can permeate a whole story (or a play) or it can appear occasionally.