Principles of Impressionistic Literary Criticism in J. Lemaitre’s Book “Les Contemporains”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the French literary critic Jules Lemaitre (1853-1914) and his multivolume collection of impressionistic literary portraits “Les Contemporains” (1886-1889). The author considers the specificity of the impressionistic literary portrait as a genre and reveals significant changes in its structure and poetics. The principles of impressionistic criticism and their realization in the genre of the impressionistic literary portrait are reconstructed by the material of the book. The paper describes the poetics of the genre in Lemaitre’s work and reveals its specificity. Connection between Lemaitre’s literary portrait and the tradition of the genre established by Charles Augustin de Sainte-Beuve is indicated. Lemaitre’s works are presented as a new stage of the genre development.