THE IMAGE OF CAIN IN THE CREATIVE RECEPTION OF J. BYRON AND I. FRANKO: TYPOLOGICAL DISCOURSE

Abstract

The article investigates the historical-typological discourse of Ivan Franko's philosophical poem «The Death of Cain» through the J. Byron's mystery «Cain». It has been studied the author's reception of motives, images and ideological and artistic filling of the content of the works, which uniquely highlight the biblical legend of Cain and Abel. There are taken into account numerous folklore and literary interpretations of Cain's «eternal image». A typological analysis of the philosophical poem «The Death of Cain» by I. Franko has been carried out from the point of view of the artist's traditions and innovations. In view of numerous literary and critical reviews of Franko's works in the field of philosophical poems, it is appropriate to expand the perception of Frankiana in the context of world literary and folklore traditions, taking into account the original interpretation of the image of Cain in the work of J. Byron. A significant place in the article is devoted to the creative reinterpretation of the world image by Ivan Franko at the ideological and artistic level, also in the system of poetic means. Typological features of Byron's and Franko's works are their philosophical basis and ideological and artistic content. Landscape and characters' speech are typical means of character-building poetics inherent in Byron's and Franko's creative manners. In the poem «The Death of Cain» by I. Franko, landscape sketches create a certain emotional atmosphere and they are a kind of links that organically connect different episodes of the poem. The dialoguemonological speech of the characters, in particular the internal monologues, also has a psychological function in the poem. The logical conclusion is the perception of the biblical image of Cain in the interpretation of George Byron and Ivan Franko as literary innovators. «Eternal image» acquires new national features both from the point of view of worldview and artistic discourse. Based on Byron's «Cain», in I. Franko's own interpretation it acquires a deep philosophical meaning: life and death, good and evil, freedom of the human spirit.