Borderline states in fictional narrative

Abstract

The article considers cases of narrative using of the so-called borderline states of consciousness, bifurcated between the orientation toward the external and internal reality in Russian classics (Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Chekhov). If in psychiatry this type of splitting in psychiatry can be considered as a symptom of insanity, then in classical literary discourse it is used as a narrative modification that performs a certain artistic function. In the examples considered, the borderline states narrative represents the culture of the “secluded” self-consciousness formed by romanticism in its crisis manifestations. The origin of the absurd narrative inPetersburg’s novels by Gogol that was widely spread in the literature of the twentieth century is revealed in the article.