The Archetypal Model in Benjamin Constant's Novel “Adolphe”

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Elena N. Kornilova

Doctor in Philology, Professor at the Chair of Foreign Journalism and Literature, Faculty of Journalism, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia

e-mail: ekornilova@mail.ru

Section: History of Journalism

Novels of the Romantic period commonly contain some mythological or archetypal elements. Even in “Adolphe”, a psychological novel by B. Constant (which, at first blush, seemed to unfold in everyday life scenes) one could discern the pattern of the German medieval novelistic plot about Tannh user, the knight, who found himself in the grotto of Venus. The imminent dramatic denouement is predetermined not only by the reflecting and egocentric nature of the main character and hypocritical social attitudes but also by the subconscious mythological parallels in the entire concept of the novel.

Keywords: romanticism, B. Constant, “Adolphe”, historical poetics, archetype, German mythology, analytical psychologism
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