The author's meta-reflection in the novel by Matvey Komarov "Vanka Cain"

Deikun Il'ya Dmitrievich ORCID: 0009-0002-9809-1010 Independent researcher Office 405, Miusskaya pl., 6, Moscow, 125047, Russia iliariy@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The problem of author's metareflexion in foreign and domestic studies is traditionally considered based on the works of the twentieth century. Often in the framework of the study of metaprose, prose about prose, in which metareflexion is realized as an author's reflection on the process of creating a work. However, such pioneers of the diachronic study of metaprose as Patricia Waugh (1984), Linda Hutchen (1984), and Inger Christensen (1981) have already discovered that manifestations of metareflexion can be seen throughout the history of literature, starting with L. Stern's Tristram Shandy and M. de Cervantes' Don Quixote. At the same time, in modern literary criticism, in particular by representatives of postclassical narratology V. Wolf (1993), M. Fludernik (2004), A. Nyunning (2005), a classification of the components of the author's metareflexive discourse was carried out. It highlighted metanarrative and metafictional commentary. The first one analyzes the structure of narration, comprehends the system of speech techniques with which the narrator tells the story, and the second one is devoted to the referential relationship between narrative and the real world ^{[1, p. 28]}. This allows us to move away from the focus of metareflexion research on meta-analysis. First, special diachronic studies of the poetics of individual metareflexive tropes have become possible, in particular, the study of the metallepsis of V. Zuseva-Ozkan (2021) and the work in the work of L. Muravyeva (2020). Secondly, a new characterization of old literary concepts, such as the author's commentary, has become possible. The author's commentary is the most important component of the author's discourse. Historically, its meaning has fluctuated between narrow, when it is understood only as notes outside the main text ^[2], and broad, when any author's explanation in the text, including dialogue remarks, is understood as a comment. However, after Y. Chumakov, who largely relied on the analysis of the subject structure of the narrative, it became possible to speak about the unity of the complex of notes and internal author's explanations ^{[3, p. 29]}. The relevance of this study is based on this crosshair. First, the concept of author's commentary is being modernized and a genre analysis of the author's metareflexive discourse is carried out. Secondly, from a substantive point of view, the value of the research is determined by the introduction, both into the study of metareflexion and into the study of the author's commentary, of new historical and literary material, namely, a sample of popular prose from the last third of the XVIII century, M. Komarov's novel "Vanka Cain" (1779). The novel of the XVIII century received a systematic literary description relatively recently, therefore it did not serve as an object of special research of a particular theoretical and literary nature, such as the study of metareflexion. Meanwhile, "high" and "low", in the terms of O. Kalashnikova ^{[4, p. 11]}, the novels of the XVIII century are of great interest in this regard. The high novel is characterized by the development of non-literary written genres accompanied by metareflexion, for example, tractate forms, aphorisms and maxims, epistolary forms. A striking example here is the adventurous fantasy novel by F. Emin's "Fickle Fortune or the Adventures of Miramond" (1767). The grassroots novel is characterized by the mastery of game authorial intrusions, document, and parody writing strategies. A striking example here is the aforementioned novel by M. Komarov, as well as "The Pretty Cook" (1770), "Mockingbird" (1789) by M. Chulkov. However, the novel "Vanka Cain" differs from the latter in the absence of an ironic and comic setting. His comedy is smoothed out by documentaries, while maintaining an active author's meta-reflection. As a result, in the novel, it mainly has the function of verifying the authenticity of what is being told, and its key themes are historical authenticity, the plausibility of the artistic world, and the extent to which the genre of the novel can provide them.

Research methods

The object of this research is M. Komarov's work "A detailed description of the life, good and evil deeds of the glorious Russian swindler Vanka Cain" or, in short, "Vanka Cain". The subject of the research is the author's metareflexion, expressed in a complex of discursive statements of the author. Since this study belongs to a special field of theoretical and literary studies that is far from being fully conceptually mastered, its methodology consists of combining several approaches. First of all, we define "metareflexion" according to the distinction made by V. Zuseva-Ozkan. She distinguished between metareflexion, meta-narrative, and meta-prose. She defined metareflexion as the author's general expression of his awareness of the creative principles of his work. Meta–narrative is a reflexive mode of narration, constantly accompanied by the author's metareflexion, the meta–novel is a separate metareflexive genre of the novel, with the theme of writing the novel ^{[5, p. 7]}. There is no meta-narrative in the novel "Vanka Cain", the author's metareflexion in the text appears only in nodal moments and occupies a marginal position, so this study is only about about metareflexion.

For the historical and literary characterization of the material, we used Russian studies of literary fiction and the novel of the XVIII century. To analyze the connection between the novel and its sources reflected in the author's meta-reflection, as well as the correlation of literary texts of the epoch reflected in the work, we followed the teachings of J. Genetta on translitual connections, hypertext, intertext, paratext and metatext ^{[6, pp. 1-3]}. Where hypertext is the connection of poetic continuity of literary texts. Intertext is the presence of one text in another, for example, through allusion or quotation. Paratext is the ratio of the headline-final complex and the main text. Metatext is the relationship between critical discourse and the criticized, conceptualized text. To analyze the author's discourse, we resorted to the methodology of Russian historical narratology and historical poetics, in particular, to characterize the "emblematic type of narrative", which is characterized by value and semantic solidity ^{[7, 19]}, focusing on the register of ready-made cultural meanings ^{[8, p. 72]}We consider this type of narrative in connection with a common era artistic thinking, to which it is peculiar, is the era of reflective traditionalism, that is, the stage of the literary process, which is characterized by a rhetorical awareness of the structure of poetic creativity ^{[9, p. 108]}. Our methodology is complemented by the teaching of the Stavropol philological school about the presence in every artistic system of a metapoetic component, expressed as text within text, in the form of a separate journalistic auto-criticism of their works, in the form of notes, marginalia, in the form of correspondence and in other personal documents ^{[10, p. 10]}.

Results and discussion

In this study, we analyzed the author's metareflexion in Matvey Komarov's novel "Vanka Cain", during which it was revealed that it is clearly divided into two complexes, metanarrative and metafictional. Each of them reflects a separate group of values and implements the key points of the author's meta-ethics. Therefore, in our research, firstly, we characterized the specifics of the author's metapoetics of the novel "Vanka Cain" in the context of the general artistic consciousness of the era. Secondly, the functional hierarchy of the formal elements of the author's discourse in the novel was identified, the compositional levels at which the author's discourse is realized were identified, and the author's voices were differentiated according to these levels. Thirdly, we conducted a genre analysis of the author's reflection, identified the compositional centers of the metanarrative and metafictional complexes of the author's discourse.

1. The author's metapoetics of "Vanka Cain" is a pronounced self–awareness of the author, belonging to the era of reflective traditionalism. In the novel "Vanka Cain" these aspects are concretized by the qualities of the emblematic mode of narrative, that is, the author is focused on ready-made meanings and established values, his manner does not find its own individual style, but has a compilative nature of combining ready-made speech topics. This point is complicated by the hypertextual and intertextual relationship of the novel "Vanka Cain". Firstly, the specifics of the biographical material based on the plot have an impact on the architectonics of the novel. Because of this, at the narrative level in the novel, there is an unresolved conflict of values noted by researchers when characterizing the hero, which is why Vanka Cain is at the same time a merciless villain, a generous and just thief, a rapist and a repentant sinner ^{[11, pp. 138-139]}. Secondly, eclecticism, both in terms of characterization and discourse, is no less related to the emerging character of the genre of the Russian novel in the last third of the XVIII century. The genre consciousness of the author of "Vanka Cain" is mobile. It is characterized by awareness of "private oppositions" ^{[12, p. 25]}, that is, definitions of one's own artistic strategy through opposition to "neighboring" genres. It understands genre as a communicative convention in the spirit of the XVIII century. In its constant active identification of the audience and in its attention to the reader, it shares the features of the reception orientation characteristic of fiction ^{[13, p. 26]}. Here, a striking example is the reference in the "Forewarning" to the intended audience: "not only noble, but middle and low-class people, and especially the merchant class..." ^{[14, p. 7]}, can read this book. This is the first opposition. "The second opposition is manifested in the nature of the notes, from which we see that the events and turns of speech associated with the world of narration are unfamiliar to his audience. For this purpose, in separate glosses, the author stipulates that "in our country, vile people usually write and pronounce foreign names unfairly" ^{[14, p. 18]}. The audience of Matvey Komarov's first novel, Vanka Cain, is the merchants, middle–class people, and fairly educated townspeople who "read Aristotle" ^{[14, p. 7]}. This is how this novel differs from M. Komarov's next work, the adventurous fantasy novel "My Lord George", which gained much wider popularity and withstood many reprints ^{[15, p. 5]}, and even gained him national fame.

Another characteristic feature of the author's genre consciousness is the awareness of the hierarchy of high and low. This hierarchy is associated with the codifying effect of normative rhetoric and poetics ^{[16, p. 16]}, characteristic of this literary era. In accordance with the rhetorical tradition of the era, M. Komarov perceives poetry as literature par excellence. This is what happens, for example, in a poetic quotation from M. Kheraskov, which is preceded by the special commendable designation "Russian writer" ^{[14, p. 47]}, which is emphatically respectful in contrast to the earlier naming of poets and playwrights as "poets" and "comedy writers" ^{[14, p. 8]}. On the other hand, the author clearly places the novel as a genre above artless written literature. The author always shows the compositional superiority of his work over the works of scribes, who "made great mistakes, because one matter is so mixed with another that it is barely possible to make out" ^{[14, p. 9]}. Finally, in order to confirm the author's consciousness of the work as a novel, the "Forewarning" partially implements the formula of "enlightenment and entertainment": "reading books that enlighten the human mind has come into use among us" ^{[14, p. 7]}. The author emphasizes the awesomeness and strangeness of the hero, whose story should captivate: "There have been wonderful phenomena in our fatherland" ^{[14, p. 8]}. That is, two of the three components of the famous definition of a novel given by Yue in the 17th century are directly quoted: "A novel is a fiction about adventures written in prose for the entertainment and instruction of readers" ^{[17, p. 23]}, without "fiction", which the author, as we will see below, denies. This indicates the author's awareness that he is writing a novel, is a writer, and is aware of himself being included in the large literary context of the era. At the same time, two lines of the author's positioning are clearly distinguished: hypertextual and intertextual. Hypertext is manifested in the fact that the author, firstly, starts from a living biography, which is why the plot has a touch of improvisation. Secondly, the author shows his work on the source, for example, on the documents of the scribes. The intertext manifests itself in referring to explicit, quoted and implicit quotations, to the presence of high novel cliches in the text, in the author's formulas, in his didactic digressions. These two connections become the translitual foundations of the author's metareflexion, however, it is necessary to clarify how the metareflexion reflects the author's awareness of the structure of his own work as such.

2. Metareflexion is included in the composition of a work as a "system of discourses" ^{[18, p. 48]}, refers to its subject structure. The subject of metareflexion in a text is never a specific biographical author, but it is also not an abstract author as the subject-stylistic center of the work ^{[19, p. 48]}, it is a number of specific subjective instances into which it is divided. It can be a narrator who is an image of the author ^[20], that is, who resembles a biographical author, or an explicit author, that is, declaring that he is the author of the work that we are reading ^{[21, p. 362]}. At the same time, in a work of fiction as in the field of "total significance" ^{[22, p. 24]}, metareflexion is not just distributed as a series of pointers and direct appeals to the reader, but forms a system of text fragments that have a hierarchical relationship with each other. The main modeling role in the work is played by the "title-final complex" ^{[23, p. 175]}, in the novel "Vanka Cain", consisting of a title and a "Warning". For example, the title specifies a task for a "detailed and accurate description" of "life" and "strange adventures" ^{[14, p. 5]}. The title is considered the only direct word of the biographical author ^{[24, p. 73]}. The next in terms of the degree of influence on the reader is the preface, in the novel "Vanka Cain – "Forewarning", in it the task of the title is expanded into a program that should be subjectively and thematically perceived along with the paratext. The paratext in the novel has the form of sub-page notes. Notes are a "privileged place of commentary" ^{[6, p. 2]}. Thus, the autobiographical emphasis in the Forewarning is very strong, concentrating on the hypertextual axis of the work: "For this reason, back in 1773, I decided to make a description of the cases of the famous fraudster Cain, which I myself heard from him in 1755 for some case in the Detective Order" ^{[14, p. 8]}. The footnotes contain the same line: "some say that Cain stabbed this doctor and his wife to death, but none of the lists I have are about it" ^{[14, p. 19]}. The abundance of personal pronouns creates the false impression that we are talking about a biographical author. However, although the writer Matvey Komarov could, indeed, have attended the Detective Order in 1755, firstly, no direct evidence has yet been found for this ^{[25, pp. 352-353]}. Secondly, the paratext does not give the completeness of the historical personality, but its condensed hypostasis, which we could conditionally call the "documentary author". The latter is a kind of explicit author in the novel "Vanka Cain", which has the features of the author's image. This voice is constantly making clarifications. For example, he explains individual words: "The fireman is called by the robbers the one who carries tinder, flint and flints" ^{[14, p. 36]}.

Or a real comment: "China is that part of the city of Moscow in which Gostiny, Mytny and Embassy yards are located ... ^{[14, p. 15]}. He also resorts to one of the most common types of commentary, namely, a commentary containing an anecdote, a story of a real case, it has the function of expanding the context of the work, placing it in a number of similar life situations, that is, it also serves to enhance the effect of the authenticity of the story. For example, in the scene when Cain, who came to pawn the thieves, is pushed out of the court of justice, the author provides a corresponding anecdote in a note, as the wife of an impoverished nobleman was also pushed out ^{[14, p. 44]}. One of the most important lines of the notes is an appeal to the personal experience of the author. One of the most characteristic examples here is a note to the name of a minor character, Monk Zephyr, where the author writes: "Whether this name or nickname is true, I cannot confirm that, and that an unknown writer of the Cain story calls this Greek a monk, it is very unfair, because Cain himself did not call him a monk, and In all the lists I have received from different sources, none of them refers to him as a monk, but simply as a Greek" ^{[14, p. 33]}. Here we can see how the autobiographical moment is connected with the author's reflection on the hypertextual connection between the novel and its written sources. To the point that the commentary continues with a polemic with the author of the "hypothetical" (source text), expressed in the form of a real comment: "It is clear that this author is unaware that many cells in a Greek monastery are rented and inhabited by Greek merchants" ^{[14, p. 33]}. This example shows that the subjectivity of this author is centered on the origin of the text. The context that is revealed in his discourse serves as the history of the text, the history of its improvement and refinement.

Thus, the documentary filmmaker defines the categories of authenticity and authenticity in the work.

Another, largely opposite voice is present at the next, less influential, level of meta-reflection. At the level of graphically highlighted elements in the text, such as parantheses, and compositionally highlighted fragments of the narrative, such as conclusions and beginnings, intra-textual digressions and generalizations. Thus, one of the first parantheses in the text is placed in a scene describing the life of Cain at the merchant Peter Filatiev. The narrator says that while working for the merchant, Cain "out of habit (as he later told himself) often made small deposits both in his master's house and in the nearest neighbors" ^{[14, p. 11]}. At first glance, this paranthesis is functionally similar to the notes, belongs to the same documentary filmmaker, and appeals to the life experience of meeting the hero, but in the text it also serves the function of anticipating Cain's future repentance. After all, the adverb "after" refers to the time of Cain's work in the Detective Order, which forms the finale of his biographical plot. Here, the function of linking the story into a whole and directing the reader's attention is performed. It belongs to another voice, which sounds more clearly in the following paranthesis, placed in the scene of the robbery of the merchant Filatiev. Cain leaves the house in a gentleman's dress so that he and his accomplices "could not be considered suspicious people (which they really meant) and taken under guard" ^{[14, p. 13]}. The paranthesis here belongs to the narrator of the story, it has an evaluative function, it indicates the moral status of the character in the story, and not its authenticity, historicity. Translation parantheses perform a similar function: "and when Cain had drunk, one of them hit him on the shoulder and said: "It is clear, brother, that you are our cloth of cloth" (this meant that you are the same kind of person)" ^{[14, p. 14]}, and ironic parantheses like "(what can you not do for money?)" ^{[14, p. 35]}, emphasizing its reprehensible character in the bribery scene, and "(A fisherman sees a fisherman far away in the reach.)" ^{[14, p. 36]}, in the scene of the robbers' conspiracy. All of them are a direct reaction of the narrator to the world of narration, they serve as additional value clarity, on which the effect of the work depends. The voice that expresses them, we could designate as belonging to the author-novelist. Another group of the author's intra-textual intrusions are appeals to the reader or "metalepsis". Metallepsis – according to J. Genette is an intrusion of the author's voice that violates the logic of narrative levels ^{[26, p. 244]}. It in itself undermines the illusion of the story, that is, it is metafictional ^{[27, p. 24]}. Metalepsis is a distinctive feature of the "auctorial narrative", characteristic of the narrative style of the grassroots novel of the XVIII century ^{[28, p. 25]}. It is not surprising that skepticism in the novel "Vanka Cain" is the prerogative of that subjective authority, which we have designated as the author-novelist. Metalepsis have the function of reception control, and also carry a gaming function, while reflecting the author's reflection on his own creative possibilities and the possibilities of the genre. This is how it happens in metallepsis, which concludes the intriguing scene of the dragoons chasing Cain: "however, don't you think, dear reader, that the end of Cain's thievish deeds is already approaching here? no, if you don't get bored reading this book to the last page, you will see that his subsequent deeds are much more excellent than the first ones" ^{[14, p. 29]}. This skepticism marks the end of the episode, determines its position in the overall composition of the work, thereby orienting the reader, as well as the first paranthesis discussed above. Meaningfully, it reflects the author's compositional metareflexion, but again it does not pose the problem of authenticity and general reference of the work. Thus, it refers to metanarrative reflection. If all the metalepsis in the work indicate and emphasize the frame of the text, the boundaries of the episodes, then only half of them are meaningfully metanarrative. And if there is skepticism, flowing into generalization, such as: "Here, dear reader, is how fickle human fortune is..." ^{[14, p. 57]}, refers to the author's explanation of the plot event through the traditional novel top of fortune, and belong to the author's genre consciousness. That is, gaming skepticism, which appeals simultaneously to the author's experience and to the reader's imagination, is a rare case of the value intersection of two authorial voices in the text. In it, the author says: "having lived in the world for more than forty years, I have not only not seen such a wedding, but I have not even heard of it, and I think that you, dear reader, cannot find an example of this" ^{[14, p. 53]}. He is included in the zone of the author's special discursive presence, located in the part "The Cainov cases committed during his time as a detective" in the only one of the 35 chapters of this part that has a title. The title of this 16th chapter, "Description of the Cain Wedding," belongs to the biographical author. The chapter itself is a separate story and is preceded by a large author's discussion about the passion of love. This reasoning is based on Enlightenment cliches and is didactic in nature. Metallepsis crowns this argument and this time serves as the boundary between didactic discourse and narration.

What is common and intersecting for these two authorial voices that we have identified is the consciousness of the reader, concern for the fidelity of his perception to the author's intention. The documentary filmmaker also addresses the reader. For example, in the following sub-page note: "That Cain was famous for his deeds in his time, as evidence of this, there are two songs in which his name is mentioned, which I share with other songs at the end of this story for curious readers ^{[14, p. 12]}. But although there is a compositional meta-reflection in this appeal, it is not about the composition of the narrative, but about the composition of the work to which the non-author text is attached. The function of this note is to provide proof of authenticity. Another unifying point is the concern for authenticity, to which the notes are mostly devoted, but, as we have seen, there are also skepticism. However, we are not even talking about two different types of authenticity, but about documentary and historical authenticity and poetic verisimilitude.

Thus, a number of intermediate conclusions can be drawn. Firstly, several levels are clearly distinguished in the author's meta-reflection, with a different hypostasis of the author's subject dominating each of them: The title belongs to the biographical author Matvey Komarov. "Forewarning" and notes to the prevailing voice of the author, the documentary filmmaker. Parantheses and addresses – to the author-novelist. Secondly, these voices verbalize different groups of values. A biographical author and a documentary filmmaker obviously focus on historical authenticity, whereas a novelist focuses on narrative structure and artistic verisimilitude.

3. As we have seen, there is definitely a difference between metanarrative and metafictional reflection. However, this difference is most strikingly evident in the genre aspect of the novel "Vanka Cain". Let's conduct a genre analysis of the author's meta-reflection. It is divided into a program presentation by the author, a set of generalizations, maxims and clarifications, and a set of notes and comments. All these three groups differ in the field of reference. The author's program in the novel "Vanka Cain" is expressed within the framework of the genre of the preface, it forms the meta-poetic part of the "Foreword". It refers to literature in general, as in the already mentioned formula of the novel, and characterizes the author's work as part of literature. It indicates the author's awareness of the hypertextual and intertextual connection of his work.

The author's generalizations in the novel take the form of a) philosophical reflections of a didactic nature, based on genre models of maxims and gnomes, and b) proverbs. An example of the first is the numerous reflections on the abrupt change of fate, in particular the above-mentioned fragment about fortune. Proverbs are also found in parantheses, like the aforementioned proverb about fishermen. Both of these genres are actively used by the author-novelist, which emphasizes his own, value-eclectic character, he is the author of a literary work, but is also close to grassroots literature. The maxim and the proverb refer to facts based on the common sense of the Enlightenment people, that is, public opinion opposed to prejudice ^{[29, p. 288]}, and popular common sense, respectively.

Regarding the genre of commentary, it is extremely diverse in "Vanka Cain". As mentioned above, this is a real, historical, anecdotal comment, gloss comment, and social commentary. They refer to a part of the text, but consider it in the light of attitudes towards social, historical, substantive, reality, respectively. They actualize the connection between the author's narrative and the reader's world, as well as the metatextual connection between criticism and the text.

Considering this set of genres in the light of the program stated in the title and the "Foreword", we see that they reflect the author's metareflexion and constitute its metanarrative and metafictional complexes. However, this is not their primary function. At the same time, there are fragments in the work where the author's commentary directly thematizes fiction or poetic creativity.

There is a metafictional commentary in the novel, which differs from the aforementioned skepticism about the reader's fantasy precisely in that it is a commentary and it has a part of the text as a referent. I must say that due to genre features, namely retrospectivity, "lemmatization" ^{[30, p. 26]}, metafictional and metanarrative comments are the main indicator of the author's metareflexion.

In the text, a striking example of a metafictional commentary is provided by a footnote to the translation of the bandit's fen in the first part of the novel in the scene of a visit to the imprisoned Cain by his accomplice Kamchatka. The author writes: "Cain's beloved comrade Kamchatka [...], handing the kolodniks each a roll, gave Cain two [...] said: "Treka ate a roll, stramyk drilled, straktirila" ^{[14, p. 27]}. A sub-page comment is given to these words: "To many, I think, these words will seem like an empty, vile invention, but anyone who has dealt with horse dealers [...] knows that they use such words" ^{[14, p. 27]}. Further examples of thieves' jargon are provided in the same note. In our opinion, this is one of the central discursive poles of protecting the authenticity of a work by a documentary filmmaker. In terms of content, the metafictional commentary here is lemmatized by labeling a text fragment as "empty, vile fiction," which is refuted. The documentary filmmaker resists the genre requirement for fiction, so the note goes next to the translation paranthesis. The fact is that the translation of exotic speech is a common place in an adventurous fantasy novel. For the same purpose, alternative examples of fiction are given in the note, that is, the content of artistic speech is put in a series of alternatives, the paradigmatic nature of fiction is indicated, because it could be any other jargon, for example, horse dealers, who "call ruble – exchange, half a quarter – sekana, sekis, hryvnia – zhirmakha ^{[14, p. 27]} . At the same time, the compositional significance of this fragment is emphasized by the density of the author's discursive intervention: paranthesis and note. Since we have seen that there is a certain discursive opposition between the two authorial voices, it is not surprising that there is a mirror image in the novel. It's about the novelist's appeal to the reader at a crucial moment in the story, when, according to the plot, Cain turns in his accomplices and becomes a Moscow detective in the service of the Governing Senate. At the end of the narrative fragment, the author adds a rhetorical reflection on the vicissitudes of fate, which serves as the motivation for a direct appeal to the reader.: "Do not be surprised at this, dear reader, this is an ordinary matter, because if we carefully consider all human actions, we will see countless examples of thieves, swindlers, and evil covetous people ... enjoying luxury and prosperity" ^{[14, p. 47]}. In terms of content, this appeal refers to the author's metafictional reflection: the improbability of such a radical change in the hero's role is removed by pointing out that it is commonplace for everyday life. This argument, expressed by the novelist, fits perfectly into the typical line of defense of the verisimilitude of the story for a documentary author, except that it is a novel cliche in form. All the more striking is the difference between the following purely literary argument. The author resorts to quoting from M. Kheraskov's epigram, designating the poet through the respectful antonomasia "Russian writer" already mentioned by us. "For this reason, one Russian writer says: Three things in the world are very wonderful to me: / A good-for-nothing who is rich, and honest people are poor; / That those who are reckless are considered smart" ^{[14, p. 47]}. This argument justifies the hero's change of position not by the verisimilitude of life, but by the elaboration of the theme in literature, in its highest standards. This is reflected in the hierarchical thinking of the novelist author, it is not enough for him to refer to novel cliches, since they are read by the reader and perceived by the author only as commonplaces, he actualizes the intertextual connection of his text with modern poetic literature. A poetic quotation placed in a prosaic context acquires additional significance as a sign of artistic literary skill. It and the discourse surrounding it become the realization of that line of the author's self-representation in the text, which originates in the "Forewarning" with the mention of Aristotle's poetics. At the same time, the accusatory pathos of the lyrical hero in this quote performs the function of an additional moral adjustment of the reader's perception peculiar to the novelist. As can be seen, this intertextual fragment is organic to his discourse and is part of his value system. Thus, at this point, we can draw an intermediate conclusion that two clearly defined discursive complexes of author's reflection, metafictional and metanarrative, have the two most striking genre manifestations. The metafictional discourse is crystallized by M. Komarov into the author's metafictional commentary, which is placed in a footnote and directly refers to the place of the text as a literary replica, but authentic, taken from life. On the contrary, metanarrative discourse crystallizes around a literary quotation, which is a natural consequence of the author's reflection on the structure of a literary text and a novel as prose.

Conclusion

The results of this study are, firstly, an introduction to the study of the author's metareflexion of the text of M. Komarov's novel "Vanka Cain", an indication of the specifics of the author's consciousness in it, his thinking by genre oppositions and hierarchies, an indication of the emblematic nature of his discourse, focused on combining ready-made meanings. As well as the author's reflection on the literary context of his work through intertextual and hypertextual connections. Secondly, we have identified the specifics of the author's metareflexive discourse in the work, its distribution into two value systems linked around the categories of historical authenticity and artistic verisimilitude. We have demonstrated the presence in the text of metanarrative and metafictional discursive complexes corresponding to these systems. It is shown that each of them tends to a certain level of narration and is implemented in a certain genre system. Thus, metafictional discourse is concentrated at the level of title, preface, and paratext, whereas metanarrative discourse belongs to the level of narration and is framed in the form of authorial intrusions. Finally, we have discovered the conceptual data centers of discursive complexes, which most clearly show the genre specificity and compositional role of the metafictional and metanarrative lines of the author's metareflexion. It is also worth noting that the composition of our article reflects a possible algorithm for analyzing the author's metareflexion from contextualization of metapoetics to a fragmented analysis of the author's discourse. However, our research is of a special and specific-subject nature, and there is every reason to believe that a comparative analysis of the author's meta-reflection on the material of 18th-century prose will be of great value.