Article

Name: On the Spatial Structure of Leo Tolstoy’s Children’s Stories

Authors: Zholkovsky A. K., Shcheglov Yu. K. (Los Angeles, CA, Madison, WI, USA)

Santa Monica, CA, and Madison, WI, USA

In the section Theory and Analysis of Plot

Abstract: The article showcases two sections (in Russia previously published only as part of the preprint (1978); in the West (1987)) of the co-authors’ monograph on the deep and surface invariant struc-ture of Leo Tolstoy’s short stories for children. That work applied to the study of the children’s stories the framework of the co-authors’ original «poetics of expressiveness,» their theory of liter-ary competence known also as the «Theme – Expressive Devices – Text» model (briefly outlined in the article). The sections included in the publication focus on the spatial aspect of the stories’ structure, which hinges on the opposition of «safe» and «unsafe» zones of action. The article first lays out the deep event structure (= the archiplot) and its spatial projection and then the system of surface event motifs and its spatial embodiment. The description is technical and is summed up in a diagram.

Keywords: invariant, structures, theme, device, expressiveness, deep, surface, event, archiplot, actant, spatial

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