Bodrova V. A.

Comparative analysis of the images of the countryside and the city in Georges Perec’s essay Species of Spaces P. 141 -152.

UDC 821.133.1-4.09«19»

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2024.82.1.014

Abstract. The relevance of the study is associated with the growing interest in the work of the French writer Georges Perec (1936–1982), evidenced by publications of works about the author abroad and the active work of L’Association Georges Perec, a French organization engaged in the study of the writer’s numerous works and preservation of his cultural heritage. The purpose of the paper is a comparative analysis of the images of the countryside and the city in Georges Perec’s essay Species of Spaces (Espèces d’espaces, 1974). The subject of the study is the images of the countryside and the city in this essay. The author gives a detailed description of these images, focusing on the urban space, due to lacking evidence of village life, interest in the city as a complex multi-level structure, and orientation towards 20^th century readers, more likely to live in cities. G. Perec characterized the countryside as an uncommon locus for modern people, in whose minds its image is formed by fiction of the past centuries, books that contain descriptions of rural life, as well as their personal impressions from brief trips outside of town; in other words, this image is not quite reliable. The city, on the contrary, nowadays appears to be a familiar locus for people, although it is a difficult object to study, due to the complexity of its structure. It should be added that the Paris that is analyzed by Perec can be read as a text replete with signs pointing to a particular period of the writer’s life. Talking about the city as a type of space, Georges Perec arrived at the conclusion that getting to know any city means comprehending the urban space, immersing in its atmosphere and consequently enriching the individual in the intellectual and spiritual senses. The results of the study can be used in preparing lecture and workshop courses in history of foreign literature of the 20^th century, as well as in developing special courses on Georges Perec’s works.

Keywords: Georges Perec, large spaces, 20^th-c. literature, image of the city, image of the countryside, image of Paris, Species of Spaces, urban space, French literature, artistic space.

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