HOFFMANN AND ODOYEVSKY

The subject ofthe analytical comparison is the four-volume book by Hoffmann "The Serapion Brothers" (1819-1821) entailing novellas and fairy-tales that are arranged within the frame construction and "Russian Nights" by Odoyevsky (1844) having an analogous structure. In Hoffmann's case, frame is an aesthetic commentary on the novellas and fairy-tales, hence it is secondary. In Odoyevsky's text, frame is the structural-semantic core, whereas novellas consti- tute arguments in the philosophical-aesthetic discussion. The structure of enframed novellas goes back to Boccaccio's "Decameron" that is the major turning point in the European prose in many aspects organized according to a poetic model. Cervantes' "Don Quixote" is genetically related to "Decameron", making a passage from the poetic structuring model to that kind of novel structure aimed at reconstructing of reality. "Decameron" and "Don Quixote" are two types of the European novel determining the peculiarities of the genre from the 17th to the 20th century. In this respect, "The Serapion Brothers" reaches back to the model of "Decameron", whereas "Russian Nights" - to the model of "Don Quixote".