SOURCE: Gilroy, Marie. “Understanding Irony.” In The Ironic Vision in Lermontov's A Hero of Our Time, pp. 1-12. Birmingham Slavonic Monographs, no. 19. Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 1989.

[In the following essay, Gilroy explains specific features of Romantic irony and discusses its use in A Hero of Our Time.]

A word has the meaning
someone has given to it.

—Ludwig Wittgenstein

In A Hero of Our Time, hints that the novel should be read ironically are given both in the narrator's ‘Foreword to Pechorin's Journal’ and in Lermontov's own provocative ‘Preface’ to the second edition.¹ Yet generations of readers have been reluctant to accept such insinuations, either dismissing them altogether or simply ignoring them. Even among those who accept the implication of irony it seems ‘there is no great consensus about precisely in what way it is ironical’, according to C. J. G. Turner, an observation which then permits him to deny any ironical intent in the novel.²

Irony in A Hero of Our Time has been missed or misinterpreted because it does not fit into traditional definitions of the term applied by many readers and critics. Irony in Lermontov's novel does not function as a rhetorical device—the practice of saying one thing and meaning another—otherwise once the ‘other meaning’ had been decoded everyone would be aware of the ironical intent. But so far this ‘other meaning’ has remained elusive. The reason for this is that Lermontov's irony represents something new, a way of coming to terms with a world which is fundamentally absurd, and as such it is ahead of its time.

In order to understand in what way Lermontov's irony represents a vision of the world it is necessary to consider the development of irony from its traditional, rhetorical function through Romantic irony to the more modern, metaphysical concept of irony as a mode of consciousness. Since Lermontov's irony presents a new way of seeing, it requires a corresponding shift in perspective on the part of the reader to be fully appreciated. In order to facilitate this shift in perspective, the following outline of the development of the concept of irony is given before going on to analyse A Hero of Our Time in the light of this new understanding of irony as a vision of the world.

THE EVOLUTION OF IRONY

The fundamental idea behind traditional definitions of irony seems to be the practice of ‘saying one thing and giving to understand the contrary’.³ It is mainly used as a rhetorical device and depends for its effect on the reader being aware of the reality from which the writer deviates. The reader is invited to recover the true meaning by rejecting the literal one as inappropriate, impossible within the context, or simply false. Traditional or classical irony makes quite clear the author's ironical stance. This type of stable irony leaves the reader in little doubt about the author's meaning and is often used for satirical or moral purposes.

A change in the understanding of irony was brought about by the German Romantic writers, especially Friedrich Schlegel, whose ideas and theories on Romantic irony were evolved in answer to the demands of the time, to a changing view of the world. If it can be said that the classical world view is based on a belief in absolute values, then Romanticism reflects a new awareness that values may be relative. This is illustrated by Schlegel's conception of reality which no longer represents ‘being’—an absolute and static condition—but ‘becoming’ which is relative and progressive and never perfected.⁴ This open-ended way of thinking transformed irony from a rhetorical device into a metaphysical concept, and the essence of philosophy for Schlegel. The classical world-view with a belief in ideals of coherence and harmony, favours unequivocal and unambiguous meaning, but Romantic irony with its awareness of chaos underlying order, allows for the possibility of literal and ironic meaning to exist simultaneously. Whereas classical irony points to the rejection of the literal meaning to grasp the ironic sense, Romantic irony holds the literal and ironic meaning in suspension. This difference can be seen in the authorial attitude. Using classical irony, the writer is in control and leads the reader unequivocally to his meaning, whereas the Romantic ironist stands beside his work, simultaneously creating and mocking in an attitude both serious and comic, illustrating Schlegel's statement that ‘Irony is the form of the paradox’.⁵

Reality as ‘becoming’ may have caused Romantic ironists to doubt the possibility of resolution and synthesis but as Romantics they tended to believe in the existence of an ideal world to which they could aspire. D. C. Muecke notes that Romantic irony arose out of ‘the basic metaphysically ironic situation of man that he is a finite being striving to comprehend an infinite, hence incomprehensible reality’.⁶ But by being aware of this paradox and acknowledging their limitations the practicants of Romantic irony, like Byron in Don Juan, could continue to create artistically and participate in the process of life in the midst of chaos. In other words, Romantic irony allows for a kind of safety net with a fundamental faith in the meaning and purpose of life, which, to some extent, prevents the artist from being defeated by it.

Problems arise when the safety net is taken away in a world without such a belief. Loss of faith in any ultimate meaning—the modernist and post-modernist condition—has required a reappraisal of irony, not as a means of coming to terms with nothingness, but rather as an expression of nothingness. In recent studies of literary theory, many critics reveal an awareness of gaps in meaning which the reader is required to complete. Modern and post-modern irony is a representation of such a gap, not only between word and meaning, but between man and the world. As some proposed definitions of the concept reveal, irony mirrors man's attempt to read meaning into an essentially meaningless world. For example Jonathan Culler borrows Keats's term ‘negative capability’ to describe irony, because it requires the active participation of the reader at the expense of the obliteration of the author.⁷ Paul de Man's description of irony as ‘the systematic undoing of understanding’⁸ is based on deconstructionist principles, as is Marike Finlay's observation that irony is ‘the différance in Derrida's sense of the word’.⁹ As an expression of the modern condition irony is intrinsic to modern literature. In his Theory of the Novel Georg Lukács indicates its importance when he writes: ‘The irony of the novel is the self-correction of the world's fragility’.¹⁰ It is significant, perhaps, that what is often regarded as the first Russian novel, A Hero of Our Time, is based on these modern interpretations of irony.

It can be seen that irony has developed beyond being a rhetorical device to a reflection of world-view but, despite the changing view of reality introduced by Romantic irony, Alan Wilde notes that most critics still tend to regard irony as ‘little more than a series of techniques and strategies’.¹¹ He does not deny this important aspect of irony but, in affirming its post-romantic significance as a mode of consciousness, he seeks to show that it can represent a vision of the world. He admits that he is not the first to treat irony in this way, since Soren Kierkegaard had already defined it as an all-encompassing vision of life in his thesis, The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates (presented significantly enough on 16 July 1841, considering that Lermontov died on 15 July 1841, ‘old style’). It would seem that critics have tended to ignore this changed perception and continued to interpret irony as a technique, a device with a specific purpose. As a result, they have been unable to come to terms with modern unstable irony.

The chronological limitation of Wilde's definition of modern irony as a vision of the world would not encompass Lermontov's novel published in the 1840s.¹² But the presence of this understanding of irony in A Hero of Our Time calls into question the validity of such chronological categorisation and proves the perhaps clichéd, but no less valid, claim that a writer's vision can transcend his own time. I would suggest that Lermontov's novel is ahead of its time mainly because of its ironic vision.

If it proves difficult to understand irony in our time then it is hardly surprising that A Hero of Our Time was generally misunderstood in Lermontov's own time and largely overlooked throughout the nineteenth century, when the new perspective was not fully perceived. This suggests that the novel represents something fundamentally different and original. The particular nature of Lermontov's irony distinguishes his work from the majority of nineteenth-century writers, not only in Russia but in Europe.

MISSING IRONY

Despite the fact that many readers miss, dismiss or misinterpret irony in A Hero of Our Time, paradoxically their mistakes reveal irony at work. An examination of their ‘misreadings’ gives valuable insights into how irony functions in the novel and how it generates contradictory responses and unsettles the reader.

Irony in the novel was lost on one of Lermontov's contemporaries, V. K. Kyukhel'beker, who considered it a pity that Lermontov ‘wasted his talent on representing such a creature as his nasty Pechorin’.¹³ Critical remarks elsewhere by Kyukhel'beker reveal that his interpretation may be a result of personal preference rather than objective literary analysis. He admits that he cannot ‘feel at home’ with the heroes of Byron and Pushkin—‘judges and satirists’—because ‘one cannot lose oneself in them’.¹⁴ He betrays a preference for identifying with the hero which Lermontov's ironic attitude does not allow. Instead it tends to generate a feeling of uncertainty about the author's intention, which can be an unsettling experience for readers who prefer a guiding hand. This unsettling of the reader, a form of demoralisation, is designed to disturb us, to make us more aware of the ironic nature of the world in general. A Hero of Our Time offers a different perspective, and expectations other than pleasure and satisfaction normally associated with reading. Irony in the modern sense and in the novel creates the feeling of discomfort and uneasiness.

It appears that Belinsky suffered these feelings on reading the novel. Although he denies any ‘wicked irony’ in A Hero of Our Time he admits the presence of ‘something unresolved, as if unsaid’ and seems affected by ‘a heaviness of impression’.¹⁵ Elsewhere he is struck by a feeling of ‘reading between the lines’¹⁶ but he does not analyse how this effect is achieved, only records his impressions. One of his most perceptive comments is the telling paradox that the novel represents ‘the cry of suffering but the cry which relieves suffering’.¹⁷ This insight is significant because it illustrates the kind of paradoxical statements the novel gives rise to—that a disadvantage can become an advantage. It seems that irony emerges despite Belinsky's protest to the contrary. Belinsky unconsciously indicates the nature of irony in an image similar to that used by Lidiya Ginzburg to describe Byron's ironical stance: that of ‘the pose of the man who laughs in order not to cry.’¹⁸ The feeling of something ‘unresolved’ noticed by Belinsky corresponds to the idea of irony as essentially unresolvable and the ‘heaviness’ he experiences suggests a tension and uneasiness similar to that produced by modern unstable irony.

More recently irony in A Hero of Our Time has been dismissed by C. J. G. Turner who, in his monograph Pechorin: An Essay on Lermontov's ‘A Hero of Our Time’, rejects the author's ‘piquant suggestion’ that the novel is to be understood as ironical and claims that ‘it is a suggestion that always has been rejected, and rightly so in view of the data of the text itself’. According to Turner, irony would be conveyed by ‘the establishment of a different (non-solipsistic) point of view’ personified in another character or ‘expressed by the implied author, with or without the aid of the novel’. He does not discern either of these two view-points, which is fortunate because an ironical reading

… would destroy the antinomy of the positive view of a negative hero that always has appealed to rebellious youth and that is vital for the continued interest and aesthetic value of the book.¹⁹

He seems to admit enjoyment for only one type of reader, the more naïve, uncritical and apparently youthful reader. His interpretation of the novel does not seem to allow for appreciation after a certain age or over a certain level of literary competence, yet Turner then admits that ‘the more sophisticated reader … will be predisposed to give an ironic reading to Pechorin's heroics’.²⁰ These comments illustrate the way Lermontov subtly manipulates contradictory opinions from the same reader. Not only can a negative character be read positively, the novel can also be read ironically, although not only under the circumstances Turner suggests, as a satiric travesty of a literary style.

Even so, Turner is still reluctant to admit any ironic intent when he says that:

… we cannot be sure that he (Lermontov) was conscious of the full significance of what he had written, or indeed, that his ‘Foreword’ was not just a ploy to placate censorious reviewers. The text itself supplies no positive grounds for such an ironic reading.²¹

The kind of textual evidence Turner demands seems to be the traditional ironic stance of the author/narrator that occurs in Gogol's Dead Souls. According to Turner, Gogol ‘has ample opportunity to make an ironic attitude towards the hero clear’ whereas Lermontov denied himself this chance ‘until he decided to add his own Foreword’.²² It can be seen that Turner restricts his view of irony to its traditional function as a rhetorical device which guides the reader's interpretation.

Yet in conclusion Turner shows that he is not completely unaware of the originality of the novel's design when he writes:

The absence of the author, in the sense of a guiding point of view, is a fundamental—and distinctly modern—feature of A Hero of Our Time. Instead, the values of the text are nicely balanced, leaving the reader free to be primarily repelled by the immorality of Pechorin, or fascinated by his personality, or bewildered by the gaps, both temporal and psychological, in this “story” of a soul that is not a “history”. …²³

Although he does not see that it is irony which produces this effect, his awareness of the ‘significance of the gaps’ unconsciously points to the intrinsic irony of the text. The gaps temptingly invite, but also infuriatingly defy, attempts to complete them and meaning remains unresolved, as Turner rightly suggests. These gaps play an integral part in producing that ambiguity and multivalence, which Turner also notices, and which in turn contribute to the intrinsic irony of the novel which he disregards. By pointing out the gaps, Turner unwittingly illustrates Kierkegaard's suggestion that, in an ironic discourse, the ‘what’ remains a nothingness,²⁴ a concept which is difficult to accept for many perhaps, and may explain why Lermontov's irony has been missed.

MISUNDERSTANDING IRONY

Irony in Lermontov's work has been virtually ignored by Soviet critics and indeed the recent Lermontov Encyclopaedia describes irony as a peripheral element in his work.²⁵ A reason for this neglect may be given by Abram Tertz's observation of irony as:

The faithful companion of unbelief and doubt which vanishes as soon as there appears a faith that does not tolerate sacrilege.²⁶

If socialist realism as a literary doctrine can be seen as a ‘faith’ it would not tolerate such a sacrilege nor such a fellow-traveller as irony, particularly Lermontov's brand of existential irony. Recently, however, the subject has been tackled by S. M. Skibin in his thesis ‘The Problem of Irony in the Poetics of M. Yu. Lermontov’, the methodological and theoretical basis of which he admits is founded on the classics of Marxism/Leninism, party documents, and decrees. These principles naturally influence his analysis and interpretation; for example when he is at pains to dissociate Lermontov's irony from the ‘extreme subjectivity’ of Romantic irony.²⁷ The development which he perceives in Lermontov's work is that from Romanticism to realism, with irony as a weapon in the struggle against the inherent deficiencies of Romanticism, or to use his image, ‘The child of Romanticism, irony became its gravedigger, destroying from inside the very Romantic system’.²⁸

Although Skibin acknowledges the evolution of irony from a literary device to a means of philosophical expression in modern literature, this gloomy image reveals a serious and pessimistic attitude to irony. Lermontov warns against this danger in his ‘Preface’ when he points out that the reading public ‘fails to see jokes, has no sense of irony’ (7). Skibin betrays a fear of sacrilege when he insists that Lermontov does not subject anything that is ‘sacred and dear’ to him to irony and that irony never becomes ‘a game or an amusement’ for him.²⁹ Yet Lermontov points up the ludic aspect of language in his ‘Preface’ when he compares the reader to a ‘country bumpkin’ (7) who, on overhearing a conversation between two diplomats, is convinced that each is betraying his government. Lermontov shows that language can be used not only as a means of communication but to distort and obstruct communication or, in George Steiner's words, for ‘misconstruction, illusion and play’.³⁰

Lermontov seems aware of the potential of language for expressing man's need for play and self-expression, not only in parody and satire but in puns and jokes. His work displays that teasing spirit of irony, its playfulness, the effect of which can be similar to that of ‘making strange’. Defamiliarisation as defined by Viktor Shklovsky tackles the problem of making something new out of something old in order to stimulate the reader's jaded response, anaesthetised by repetition of old forms.³¹ This method, like irony, seeks to alter perceptions and perspectives and makes us look anew at the world that has become familiar and stale.

The playful aspect of irony as ‘the human disposition to adopt a pose or put on a mask’,³² makes it unpalatable for those who prefer its more serious satirical function. Skibin's reaction shows that he regards irony as a mode of conduct rather than a mode of consciousness and consequently subject to a moral code.

Disapproval of irony may be traced back to Hegel's denunciation of Romantic irony as ‘Satanic impertinence’.³³ The reason for this condemnation may be that Schlegel's simple, but contradictory, statement that ‘Irony is the absolute synthesis of absolute synthesis’³⁴ clashes with, and even debunks, Hegel's famous dialectic. In his novel Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes describes irony as ‘The modern mode: either the devil's mark or the snorkel of sanity’,³⁵ indicating the opposite ways in which it can be interpreted. Those who see it as the ‘devil's mark’ fear the evil that this symbol implies whereas others can use it as a defence mechanism against the danger of despair.

The poet Blok points out the potential danger of irony when he writes:

Those who suffer from irony love to laugh. But no one believes them or stops believing them. A man says that he is dying, but they do not believe him. And then the laughing man dies alone. All right, perhaps it's for the best. A dog's death for a dog.³⁶

Although he does not refer directly to Lermontov here, Blok echoes Nicholas I who, on hearing of Lermontov's death, was reported to have made a similar remark, ‘A dog's death for a dog’.³⁷ Blok's observation reveals the tragic irony underlying the pose of ‘the man who laughs in order not to cry’, who indulges in a kind of ‘Satanic impertinence’ in order to control his life and work and overcome despair. But as Blok points out, there is the danger of not being taken seriously and being disbelieved. Too many ‘hot baths of sentiment followed by cold showers of irony’, Jean Paul Richter's famous description of Romantic irony, can result in saturation. This manifestation of Romantic irony tends to emphasise the comic effect achieved by putting everything down, especially one's own work. But Schlegel's idea of Romantic irony represents a balancing act between the comic and the serious, in which the artist is fully aware of the comic implication of his own seriousness. Schlegel tries to express it through his idea of ‘transcendental buffoonery’ which he explains as:

Internally: the mood that surveys everything and rises infinitely above all limitations, even above its own art, virtue or genius; externally, in its execution: the mimic style of an averagely gifted Italian buffo.³⁸

In attempting to interpret this idea, Raymond Immerwahr compares the transcendental state of ironic detachment and self-restraint to Divine conduct, and since his analogy is so appropriate to the discussion of irony as ‘conduct similar to God's’, I quote it here in full:

a relationship of the artist to his creation analogous to that of God to the universe; the completely objective work shows forth the individuality behind it but the creator takes no special pains to remind us of his presence back of the creation.³⁹

This idea of the ironic artist as a God of creation approaches more modern and post-modern literary ideals which leave the reader to reconstruct meaning without the help of the artist. Instead of ‘Satanic impertinence’, the ironist emulates ‘Divine indifference’ as a means of coming to terms with an ironic world. The development of Lermontov's irony can be seen in terms of a move from Satanic impertinence to Divine indifference which represents the characteristic mode of A Hero of Our Time.

LERMONTOV'S IRONY

However much others may have denied, ignored or misinterpreted the nature of irony in Lermontov's work, at least one major witness may be called in defence of the originality and modernity of his technique. In a letter to his brother, James Joyce refers to Lermontov's novel and points out similarities between it and the first draft of his novel A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, entitled Stephen Hero.

The only book I know like it (Stephen Hero) is Lermontoff's Hero of Our Days. Of course mine is much longer and Lermontoff's hero is an aristocrat and tired man and brave animal. But there is a likeness in the aim and in the title and at times in the acid treatment.⁴⁰

One of the main differences between Stephen Hero and A Portrait of the Artist is that in the former Joyce, the author, makes clear his ironic attitude towards his hero, whereas in the latter he withdraws, leaving his attitude ambiguous and open to controversy. Indeed, according to Wayne C. Booth, ironic readings of A Portrait of the Artist did not become popular until after the fragments of Stephen Hero were published in 1944.⁴¹ There is no such draft ‘key’ for Lermontov's novel and so it has taken longer for its ironic intent to be interpreted.

Although the technique in Joyce's draft and novel is different, his ironic intention is the same. It may be too much to suggest that Joyce learnt his withdrawal technique from Lermontov, but it is significant that Joyce recognises similarities in the aim and the treatment. In A Portrait of the Artist Joyce declares that one of the main aims of the artist is Divine Indifference in the well-known passage:

The artist, like the God of creation, remains within or behind or above his handiwork, invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.⁴²

This bears a strong resemblance to Schlegel's concept of the Romantic ironist as a God of creation, a similar attempt at Divine indifference. Although C. J. G. Turner may have noticed the absence of the author in A Hero of Our Time and even regards it as a ‘fundamental’ and ‘distinctly modern feature’ of the novel, he does not follow up the implications of his statement.⁴³ Joyce, on the other hand, appreciated it and perhaps even tried to imitate it.

READING IRONY

Ways of seeing irony have been offered by those who doubt the presence of irony in A Hero of Our Time. The anxiety of Kyukhel'beker and the uneasiness of Belinsky are characteristic of the type of response generated by an ironic text. The self-contradictory interpretation of Turner, who both dismisses and admits the possibility of irony, is a result of the ironic distancing of the author. Instead of stating the author's point of view, the narrative in the novel is presented through a system of multiple narrators who confuse and obstruct any single conclusion. Lermontov's irony undermines conventional literary response and assumptions, forcing the reader to realise that these are inappropriate to a text like A Hero of Our Time, which reflects an unstable world. As Cubism introduced a new perspective into painting in an attempt to represent the three-dimensionality of an object but in doing so distorts it, so irony tries to convey multi-dimensionality in language and similarly risks being misunderstood. Irony offers ‘an invitation to take a perspective’⁴⁴ and, so as not to remain blind to the ironic significance of the text, the reader has to take up this invitation, to learn the trick ‘not to see more deeply, but differently’.⁴⁵ At the same time the reader must be prepared to face the often uncomfortable experience of demoralisation, the ‘bitter truths and harsh medicines’ (8) of which Lermontov warns in his Preface.

This exercise, however, proves to be useful as it leads the reader towards an understanding of a more subtle, non-obtrusive irony distinct from the more direct traditional type. It becomes an enlightening process, a journey of self-consciousness, and leads the reader towards greater responsibility for making a personal interpretation rather than relying on being spoon-fed by the author and dependent on his judgement. The ironist no longer maintains the role of the authoritative subject in control of an object, his work, in which he has total belief; nor is he the serio-comic juggler, like the ‘agnostic’ Romantic ironic, but embodies the existential principles of atheistic modern man.

The reader's approach to A Hero of Our Time parallels Pechorin's search for meaning and purpose in life. As Pechorin is led to the abyss of nothingness and forced to come to terms with the absurdity of existence, so the reader is led to face the absence of any conclusive meaning in the text. It is not altogether pessimistic, however, because this experience can be worthwhile in itself if one takes an existential view of it. Jacques Derrida offers another perspective in his statement that ‘to risk meaning nothing is to start to play’.⁴⁶ In A Hero of Our Time play emerges as an important element in producing irony. It is as if Lermontov ‘teases the reader’ as I. Gurvich puts it.⁴⁷

Irony as play and language as a game together with the system of multiple narrators in place of the absent author offer possible answers to how and why irony functions in A Hero of Our Time. As well as these techniques, how irony affects the reader and why the writer chooses this particular mode need to be considered in an analysis of Lermontov's novel.

Notes

1. Geroi nashego vremeni, first published 1840, 2nd edition 1841. References to Lermontov's work will be taken from M. Yu. Lermontov: Sobranie sochinenii v 4 tt., ed. I. L. Andronikov, M., 1964-5 unless otherwise stated. References to A Hero of Our Time in vol.4 will be made by page. References to other works will give the volume number followed by page number, eg 2:132.

2. C. J. G. Turner, Pechorin: An Essay on Lermontov's ‘A Hero of Our Time’, Birmingham, 1978, 19.

3. D. C. Muecke, Irony and the Ironic, London and New York, 1982, 31.

4. Friedrich Schlegel's ‘Lucinde’ and the Fragments, tr. Peter Firchow, Minneapolis and London, 1971, 175. References to Schlegel's work will be taken from this edition unless otherwise stated.

5. Schlegel …, 149.

6. D. C. Muecke, Irony …, 23.

7. Jonathan Culler, Flaubert: The Uses of Uncertainty, Cornell and London, 1974, 190.

8. Paul de Man, ‘The Purloined Ribbon’, Glyph, 1, 1977, 46.

9. Marike Finlay, ‘An Ironic Twist of a Semiotics of Narrative’, Canadian Review of Comparative Literature, Special Issue, Dec. 1984, 565.

10. Georg Lukács, Theory of the Novel, tr. Anna Bostock, Cambridge, Mass., 1971, 84.

11. Alan Wilde, Horizons of Assent: Modernism, Post-Modernism and the Ironic Imagination, Baltimore and London, 1981, 2-3.

12. Wilde, 9-11.

13. V. K. Kyukhel'beker, Puteshestvie. Dnevnik. Stat'i, L., 1979, 395.

14. Dnevnik V. K. Kyukhel'bekera, Priboi, 129.

15. V. Belinskii, ‘Geroi nashego vremeni’, M. Yu. Lermontov v russkoi kritike, M., 1955, 107-13.

16. Belinskii, 200.

17. Belinskii, 113.

18. Lidiya Ginzburg, Tvorcheskii put' Lermontova, L., 1940, 130.

19. C. J. G. Turner, Pechorin. …, 72.

20. Turner, 78.

21. Turner, 78.

22. Turner, 80.

23. Turner, 81.

24. Soren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates, (1841), tr. Lee M. Capel, London, 1966, 32.

25. Lermontovskaya entsiklopediya, ed. V. A. Manuilov, M., 1981, 200.

26. Abram Tertz, On Socialist Realism, New York, 1960, 75.

27. S. M. Skibin, ‘Problema ironii v poetike M. Yu. Lermontova’, unpublished dissertation, Moskovskii ped. inst. im. V.I. Lenina, 1982, 15.

28. Skibin, 33.

29. Skibin, 192.

30. George Steiner, After Babel, London, 1977, 224.

31. Viktor Shklovskii, O teorii prozy, M., 1983, 15-16.

32. Geoffrey Leech, A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry, London, 1969, 171.

33. quoted in Victor Lange, ‘Friedrich Schlegel's Literary Criticism’, Comparative Literature, VII, Fall 1955, 294.

34. Friedrich Schlegel's. …, 176.

35. Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot, London, 1984, 155.

36. Aleksander Blok, ‘Ironiya’, Sobranie sochinenii v 8 tt., M., 1960-63, Vol.5, 345.

37. Nikolai I, M. Yu. Lermontov v vospominaniyakh sovremennikov, M., 1972, 523.

38. Friedrich Schlegel's. …, 148.

39. Raymond Immerwahr, ‘The Subjectivity or Objectivity of Friedrich Schlegel's Poetic Irony’, Germanic Review, 26, 1951, 190.

40. Letters of James Joyce, ed. Richard Ellman, London., 1966, Vol.2, 111.

41. Wayne C. Booth, The Rhetoric of Fiction, Chicago, 1961, 464.

42. James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, London, 1970, 215.

43. Turner, Pechorin. …, 80.

44. Peter Zeeman, ‘Irony in Mandel'stam's Later Poetry’, Russian Literature, XIX-IV, 15 May 1986, 411-12.

45. Wilde, Horizons. …, 108.

46. Jacques Derrida, Positions, tr. Alan Bass, London, 1981, 14.

47. I. Gurvich, ‘Zagadochen li Pechorin?’, Voprosy literatury, 2, 1983, 133.