Article

Name: “The Pretty Cook” and Others: A Novel Plot in the Memoirs by Anne de Palmier

Authors: Oksana A. Farafonova

Novosibirsk State Pedagogical University, Novosibirsk, Russia

In the section Literary Life of the Plot

Abstract:

The article examines a memoir text from the late 18th – early 19th centuries that has not previously come to the attention of researchers in the context of the novelization of documentary narration. Particular attention is paid to identifying the elements of the literary code of the memoirs and determining the function of each element in the composition of A. de Palmier’s memoirs. The pretext of Palmier’s notes includes M. D. Chulkov’s novel “The Pretty Cook, or the Adventures of a Dissolute Woman”, A. P. Sumarokov’s tragedies, and G. R. Derzhavin’s odes. The article describes in detail the influence of Chulkov’s novel on the narrative structure of A. de Palmier’s memoirs and its role in creating the image of the autobiographical heroine and identifies signs of the literary orientation of the author of “A Short Extract from the History of My Life from 1794 to 1808”: epigraph, preface, and plot echoes. Based on the analysis of the memoir text, a conclusion is made about the contamination of the enlightenment-classicist, sentimental and romantic attitudes in Palmier’s notes, which corresponds to the main trends in the development of culture in the late 18th – early 19th centuries and determines the specificity of Palmier’s memoirs and their relationship to the literary tradition. References to books of different themes, belonging to past eras or contemporary to the author, describing different spheres of human existence, create the necessary background for Palmier’s narration. The echoes of literary (and not only) works found in Palmier’s memoirs support the opposition of “virtuous heroine” vs “vicious world” that is central to the memoirist.

Keywords: memoirs, novel, plot, narrative structure

Bibliography:

Bezrukova M. V. K voprosu o khudozhestvennom svoeobrazii “Prigozhei povarikhi” M. D. Chulkova na fone evropeiskoi romannoi traditsii XVIII veka [On the question of the artistic originality of the “Pretty Cook” by M. D. Chulkov against the background of the European novel tradition of the 18th century]. Baltic Humanitarian Journal, 2018, vol. 7, no. 1 (22), pp. 22–26. (in Russ.)

Bilinkis M. Ya. Russkaya proza XVIII veka: Dokumental’nye zhanry. Povest’. Roman [Russian prose of the 18th century: Documentary genres. The story. Novel]. St. Petersburg, SPbSU Press, 1995, 104 p. (in Russ.)

Chulkov M. D. Peresmeshnik. Prigozhaya povarikha [The mockingbird. The pretty cook]. Moscow, Sovetskaya Rossiya Publ., 1988, 286 p. (in Russ.)

Danilov M. Memuary sekretnoi agentki rossiiskikh imperatorov [Memoirs of a secret agent of the Russian emperors]. In: The Russian Archive: The History of the Fatherland in certificates and documents of the 18th – 20th centuries. Almanac. Moscow, Studiya TRITE, Rossiiskii Arkhiv, 1994, pp. 13–14. (in Russ.)

Derzhavin G. R. Stikhotvoreniya. Biblioteka poeta. Bol’shaya seriya [Poems. The poet’s library. A big series]. Moscow, Sovetskii pisatel’ Publ., 1957, 561 p. (in Russ.)

Palmier A. de. Sokrashchennaya vypiska iz tainoi zapiski moei zhizni s 1794 po 1808 god [An abridged extract from the secret note of my life from 1794 to 1808]. In: The Russian Archive: The History of the Fatherland in certificates and documents of the 18th – 20th centuries. Almanac. Moscow, Studiya TRITE, Rossiiskii Arkhiv, 1994, pp. 14–23. (in Russ.)

Savkina I. Razgovory s zerkalom i zazerkal’em: avtodokumental’nye zhenskie teksty v russkoi literature pervoi poloviny XIX veka [Conversations with a Mirror and through the Looking Glass: Women’s Auto-documentary Texts in Russian Literature of the first Half of the 19th Century]. Moscow, NLO, 2007, 416 p. (in Russ.)