P. A. GRINTSER, N. I. NIKULIN, Moscow: Gorky Institute of Physics and Technology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 2004, 462 p.

Carefully and respectfully identifying universal principles and national identity in Eastern cultures, Russian Oriental studies have always promoted mutual understanding between the West and the East. The peer-reviewed work of nine scientists with excellent knowledge of Eastern languages, as well as the history, philosophy, religion and culture of the East, continues this scientific tradition. The results of their research are already of considerable scientific value in themselves, but, in addition, they introduce the literary and aesthetic views of Eastern authors into the circle of global scientific concepts.

Four articles of the collection are devoted to the aesthetic features of poetry, because in Asian countries for many centuries it was the highest form of figurative art, and also acted as a carrier of philosophical and religious wisdom, historical and geographical knowledge, and ethical norms. A. B. Kudelin, a researcher of Arabic poetics, in his article "The concept of' the pillar of poetry ' in medieval Arabic criticism (al-Marzuqi's commentary on Abu Tammam's Divan of Valor) "(pp. 128-164) comes to the important conclusion that " ignoring the opinions of direct witnesses of the medieval literary process leads modern scholars to fundamentally different conclusions." different from medieval interpretations of the most important questions of the history and theory of Arabic literature, to a lack of understanding of the specifically complex problems of the Arabic classics " (p. 128). Medieval philologists and critics unanimously praised the merits of Abu Tammam in compiling the famous poetry anthology " Diwan al-Hamasa "("Diwan of Valor"), noting his ability to critically select poems and objectively judge other people's works. Out of more than 30 comments on the "Divan of Valor", the author of the article chose the most significant one - "Introduction" by al-Marzuki (IX-X centuries), known in Western languages only in fragments, and gave its full translation and historical and philological notes to it.

For the first time in Russian Oriental studies, the concept of "the pillar of poetry" ('amud ash-shi'r), which emerged in Arabic poetology, is considered in detail and analyzed. It evolved over time from vague critical judgments to a final, fairly systematized doctrine at the beginning of the tenth century. Drawing the attention of Orientalists and literary theorists to the "pillar of poetry" category, A. B. Kudelin's article opens up the possibility of revealing more fully the features of the complex state of Arabic classical poetry in the second half of the VIII-IX centuries. The advantage of this research is the understanding of each aesthetic and poetological category in the system of spiritual representations and values of society, their subordination to the laws of normative poetics. Almost 25 years ago, the scholar came to the important conclusion that the canon in traditional Arabic aesthetics and poetics designated and fixed the direction of the literary process in the past, explained the artistic phenomena of previous centuries, but was not able to fully subordinate the contemporary creative life to its requirements. Therefore, the establishment of the category "pillar of poetry" as a norm did not lead to its mandatory and widespread application in practice in the future.

The authors of the collection take into account the results of scientific activity of their colleagues and sometimes enter into a dialogue with them. Thus, A. B. Kudelin, when analyzing the artistic means of Arabic poetry, takes into account the considerations of N. Y. Chalisova, who made an article in the collection

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"Persian classical poetics on conventions for describing beauty phenomena. The treatise "The Interlocutor of lovers' Sharaf ad-Din Rami "(p. 165-249). The researcher admits that at a superficial glance, the treatise of the outstanding expert on scientific information and poetry Sharaf Rami (XIV century), containing lists of metaphorical names used to poetically describe each part of the face and body, resembles a dictionary rather than a philological study. However, she comes to the conclusion that "in the Persian poetological tradition, the monument is interesting not as a lexicographic manual... but as a written document that gives an idea of the 'rules' for understanding allegories " (p. 168). Sharaf Rami collected common explanations of complex images among poets and critics and recommended ways to understand the aesthetic merits of poetic works. "Both in spirit and in the principles of presentation of the material, his work is certainly a poetological one" (p. 167).

This postulate is realized by the researcher in the partial reconstruction of the traditional algorithm of image interpretation based on conventional allegories. N. Y. Chalisova reveals the mechanism of establishing a true understanding of the nature of poetic images in the past centuries - the practice of joint discussion by poets and connoisseurs of the word of the meaning of this or that aspect of poetic creativity, the development of coordinated interpretations of individual words that are included in artificial speech, used by poets. This was how the canon was established, for which one of the main features was to a great extent the conventionality of motives and figurative words.

In the educated environment of the Iranian world of those centuries, Persian and Arabic languages were equally used, so the researcher has to resort to compositions in these two languages to recreate the procedure for understanding the aesthetic and artistic essence of poetry, which she perfectly copes with, revealing the dependence of unique concepts of poetic speech on worldviews. Very useful is her reference to the opinions of the famous Arab historian, a contemporary of Sharaf Rami, Ibn Khaldun, who described the course of a person's thoughts when thinking about a phenomenon or a text that reproduces it. N. Y. Chalisov convincingly shows that for the Persians and Arabs, allegorical speech was aesthetically important, and not direct expression of thoughts.

Since ancient times, the intuitive desire for wordplay inherent in people in the aesthetics of the Middle East has become a "poetic game"; the more difficult it was for the reader to search for etymology when getting acquainted with the verse, the more joy he experienced after realizing the meaning of what he read and approaching the spiritual level of the creator of beautiful lines.the author of" The Lover's Companion "shows by the very course of the presentation that for a proper understanding of poetry, the listener must not only translate conventional names into true ones, but also consider on what basis - also included in the convention-this or that likeness arises" (p.177). The article shows how poets widely use Quranic legends, names of flowers and plants, household items and ornaments, terms of chess, backgammon, etc. to create second, hidden meanings of words in couplets (bayts). " Reading Persian poetry sometimes leads to the question: what exactly are we studying-her or her own fantasies?.. It was the feeling of inadequacy of my own perception and translation that prompted me to search for additional sources containing information about the construction and interpretation of poetic images, " writes N. Yu. Chalisova (p. 208).

M. L. Reisner's article " Motives of the author's self-consciousness in the Persian Ghazal of the XI-beginning of the XVIII century "(pp. 250-334) convincingly shows how important and promising it is to study the opinions of poets themselves about literature, especially since "the judgments of poets contained in works, as a rule, relate to subjects that are least developed in theoretical poetics" (p. 250). The problem of author's self-awareness in the written monuments of the Middle East is extremely interesting, since even in prose works on various branches of scientific knowledge, it was an immutable rule - the author gives information about the reasons that made him take up writing an essay. This practice was usually followed so strictly that in the absence of a real reason, it was simply invented.

M. L. Reisner writes that the author's self-consciousness and thoughts about the rules of poetry-making found their manifestation in lyrical poetry, initially in Kasyd, where the motives of self-praise "organically included judgments about the properties of ideal poetry, since the author needed to justify the compliance of his creation with the norms of an exemplary composition"

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(p. 251). Then there was a transfer of the motif of self-praise to the widespread, mostly love and delighting genre of lyrical poetry-the gazelle. At the same time, the poets tried to turn their work into one of the ways to achieve hidden knowledge, introducing into practice numerous borrowings from the Koran and traditions. The role of poetic inspiration began to be played by a mystical insight sent down from above. The article says that in the XIII century, when the poetic canon was maturing, there was a certain convergence of two traditions - secular and religious-mystical, and they were often embodied in the works of one author.

An analysis of the history of the ghazal genre and the aesthetic preferences of poets and readers of past centuries prompted M. L. Reisner to put forward her own concept of the stylistic evolution of Persian poetry, which clarifies the scheme adopted by leading European Iranists, demonstrating the change of three styles - Khorasan, Iranian and Indian. "The first two styles, despite certain differences, form an unquestionable unity based on common criteria for evaluating perfect poetic speech, and together make up the "sweet" style, which we named after the participants in the literary process themselves. This style can also be called "nightingale "" (p. 259).

The beginning of the 15th century was marked by the establishment of a different style of poetry, "colorful", to which the epithet "peacock" can also be applied, since the verse values not so much the sonority of the nightingale's trill as the brightness of the peacock's plumage. In the picture of the formation of "great styles" in world literature proposed by Russian literary critics (see the works of D. S. Likhachev), according to M. L. Reisner, "sweet" and "colorful" styles show signs of "primary" and "secondary", respectively. The author of the article confirms his theoretical considerations with poetic material, which presents "almost all the outstanding masters of classical ghazals who interpreted the motifs of the poet and poetry" (p. 260). M. L. Reisner collected "poems about poems" by more than 20 poets who worked for eight centuries. These are the famous Saadi, Hafiz, Jalal al-Din Rumi, Abd ar-Rahman Jami, Amir Khosrow Dehlavi, Mirza Bedil, Sanai, Hakani, Abdallah Ansari, Saeb Tabrizi and others.

In general, it can be said that the essays of A. B. Kudelin, N. Y. Chalisova and M. L. Reisner undoubtedly contribute to a more accurate understanding of the role and place of poetry in Middle Eastern society, as well as awareness of the proximity of cultures, which is largely due to the broad philosophical concept of" unity of the world " (Wahda al-wujud). which originated in the Middle East in the Middle Ages.

Many works are devoted to the poetics of classical Japanese poetry, which is typologically close to the Tang poetry of medieval China (VII-IX centuries) and classical Arab-Spanish poetry (late X - mid XII centuries), but Russian researchers (N. I. Konrad, A. E. Gluskina) were able to avoid over-detailing the traditional description of techniques and methods of writing. to acquaint the Russian public with the most important aesthetic principles and artistic means of Japanese poetry.

I. A. Voronina's article "The history of the development of literary and aesthetic thought in Japan in ancient times and in the Middle Ages" is devoted to this topic in the reviewed collection (pp. 12-69). The author writes that the aesthetic consciousness of the Japanese people was born in the depths of centuries and to a noticeable extent made itself felt in songwriting. The poetry anthologies " Manyoshu "(759) and the official" Kokinshu "(905) testified to the great artistic merits of waka poetry (Japanese song), which corresponded to their poetic and aesthetic ideal, denoted by the word makoto-" true "and went back to the Shinto belief in the"soul of the word". "The makoto principle presupposed the identity of poetry with the truth of life, the truthfulness of the embodiment of life in art" (p. 14). I. A. Voronina is characterized by the ability to see the complex structure of phenomena and concepts, the diversity of their semantic content and functions, which is also evident in the analysis of the Makoto principle, which includes the "moral aspect - "sincerity". The beauty of nature, which the poets admired, they depicted with sincere admiration.

The researcher always draws attention to the connection of aesthetic principles and their implementation in a poetic text with the worldview and worldview of Japanese people in different eras. She points out that as Buddhism became more and more deeply understood, especially with the advent of Zen Buddhism in Japan, the importance of emotional overtones increased, which began to be considered as a way to introduce deep content into the verse. "Zen postulate" truth -

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outside of words, "yojo was increasingly emphasized using the associative subtext" (p. 16). The Buddhist idea of the unknowable "innermost essence of things" is associated with a new aesthetic ideal formed on the basis of avare - yugen - hidden beauty, not fully revealed. However, serious historical upheavals and changes in the way of life and attitude of educated Japanese people caused the expansion of the concept of yugen, which led to an enrichment of the lyrics.

The formation of literary theory in Japan was largely determined by familiarity with Chinese works on the theory of poetry, but the peculiarities of the national character, language and accumulated artistic experience made it possible to assimilate only a part of Chinese aesthetic attitudes. For educated people in Japan, knowledge of the famous anthology "Wen Xuan" by Xiao Tong (501-531) and poetic treatises became mandatory for several centuries, which was a powerful impulse to self-knowledge of literature, and above all poetry. I. A. Voronina characterizes the role in the history of literary theory of two" Prefaces "to" Kokinshu", written in At the beginning of the tenth century, Ki-no Tsurayuki and Ki-no Yoshimochi, whose views on the nature of creativity and on the nature of the genre of non-rhymed tanka pentastitches entered the consciousness of many writers and readers. Mibu no Tadamine started from these ideas when he wrote his treatise in 945 and reflected on the varieties of songs.

An urgent task for the authors of poetic treatises of that time was to determine the point of view on the past of poetry. The emperor-poet Gotoba no in (1180 - 1239) taught poets: "Turn to the past, but know the present" (p.42) - and attached great importance to "insight", inspiration. The researcher draws a conclusion from her meticulous analysis: "The main directions of development of literary and aesthetic thought in Japan in ancient and Middle Ages were the classification of songs, the development of the theory of harmony of form and content and in connection with it the categories of aesthetic ideal and styles, literary criticism, and (especially in the period of the late XII-first half of affirmation of the poetics of turning to the past, to the origins of classical poetry " (p. 43).

To give an idea of the beginning and end of the history of poetics at that time, I. A. Voronina gives translations of the Preface by Ki no Yoshimochi and the Preface by Gotoba no ina. Carefully written comments show the translator's erudition, which makes it possible to decipher stingy words about historical facts or poetic works, give texts of poems, and reveal allusions to quotations from Chinese monuments. Unfortunately, there are some rough edges in the work. Thus, the phrase "In China during the reign of Kai Yuan (713-741), Emperor of the Tang Dynasty" (p. 52) needs to be clarified that it refers to the motto of the reign of Kai-Yuan of Emperor Xuanzong, who was on the throne in the years 712-756; on p. 69 instead of Zhong Rong "Shi pin "is given to Zhong Yun" Shilin Zhu " and there are no publishing data.

P. A. Grinzer's work " The theory of the dramatic plot in Sanskrit Poetics. "Dasharupa Dhananjai "(pp. 70-127) is a continuation of the fruitful research of ancient Indian literary and aesthetic theory, which the author has constantly addressed in his works for several decades.

The author of the article compares two oldest theaters in the world - Indian and ancient. Just as the ancient theater largely determined the subsequent history of dramatic art in Europe, so the Indian theater influenced the development of most theatrical forms in East Asia and to some extent in China and Japan. The similarity is also found in the fact that the ancient drama allowed Aristotle to formulate the general laws of poetry, and treatises on Sanskrit dramatic art marked the beginning of the history of Indian poetics. P. A. Grinzer chose to translate and interpret the first chapter of the late tenth-century treatise "Dasharupa", to which scholars paid relatively little attention. However, without a thorough study of this monument, it is impossible to gain a more complete understanding of the theory of dramatic art in India in its most diverse aspects. In the introduction to the translation of the first chapter of Dasharupa, devoted to the components of the plot and how it is presented, the author describes both the source itself and indological works on Indian poetics and classical drama theory. (However, the list of references includes an article by V. G. Erman published in 1987, but his work in 1979 is not mentioned. "On the meaning of certain terms in the Sanskrit theory of drama", which, in particular, uses materials from the treatise "Dasharupa" and the commentary to it by Dhaniki.)

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Thanks to his truly encyclopedic knowledge of Sanskrit literature, drama, and classical poetics, P. A. Grinzer successfully coped with the difficulties of translating the Indian monument into Russian due to the dry, concise language and extremely complex terminological system of the treatise. When explaining the terms, he consistently took into account the Indian tradition. The author considers it important to link the need to address the problem of plot and the rules of its composition with the Indian theory of arousal of aesthetic emotion-race.

A block of articles devoted to the poetics of narrative prose can be started with the article by N. I. Nikulin "Musical culture, epigraphy and folklore of Vietnam from medieval sources "(pp. 383-414), which sheds light on the problem of the transition period between the folklore stage of verbal art and literature itself, which develops according to the laws of the artistic genre,which is poorly studied in literary studies. which was named "the state of pre-reflective traditionalism"in the works of S. S. Averintsev. Typological features, as well as individual phenomena in the verbal art of this period, the individual phenomena that make up it in the verbal art were largely studied on the extensive material of Western culture. For Eastern cultures, the task of such research is complicated by the scarcity of sources, and it is still difficult for us to compare the rates of development of various trends and genres in Eastern literatures with European patterns. However, at present, orientalists have already gained sufficient experience to successfully solve these problems.

Most of N. I. Nikulin's article is devoted to beautifully executed and thoroughly commented translations of excerpts from various monuments of Vietnamese literature covering the period from the beginning of the XIII century to the XIX century, and the review of sources, in particular on the song and musical culture of the Vietnamese, contains material dating back to the X century. The author arranges these heterogeneous materials in a regular sequence as milestones in the process of transition from the folklore stage through the "pre-reflective" period to the beginning of self-consciousness of literature and the formation of its aesthetic canon. Translations of Lee Tae Hsuyen's 14th-century preface to the "Collection of Wonders and Mysteries of Viet Nam", Wu Quin's 15th-century preface to the "Wonderful Narratives of Linnam Land", and interpretations of texts from Nguyen Zy's collection "Extensive Records of Stories about the Amazing" show how educated people of the Vietnamese Middle Ages treated folklore and how artistic art was formed. imagination.

According to the author, verbal and ritual forms - music accompanied by chants, ritual epigraphy, folk fairy - tale narratives "about miracles"-were filled with new political or religious-didactic content for a long time. It was the extra-literary nature of the impact on literature that served as a criterion for determining the compositional techniques and stylistics of early medieval monuments. N. I. Nikulin traces the origin of the reflexive-critical attitude to verbal creativity mainly to the Confucian tradition of creating didactic texts. The idea of the possibility and necessity of using oral folklore works for religious instruction, having subjected them to appropriate editing and interpretation, finally matured among Vietnamese Confucian scholars by the 15th century. N. I. Nikulin characterizes this trend as a phenomenon "in the purely Confucian spirit: it was necessary to take advantage of the popularity of various oral narratives among the people for didactic purposes" (p. 400).

The work of N. I. Nikulin makes it possible to get a very clear idea of the process of forming the features of the genre originality of the national novel that are specific to Vietnamese literature and to outline the path for further research. At the same time, it can lead a researcher of the ancient Indian tradition to think about the role that the Buddhist experience of critical processing of folk narratives could have played in the formation of literary reflection in the process of forming the Sanskrit theory of artistic aesthetics. Such a study can be fruitful in terms of identifying the origins of the ancient Indian poetic tradition.

Almost half a century of research by corresponding Member B. L. Riftin in such a complex field of Chinese literature as narrative prose has led to a high level of his new work " Theory of the Chinese Novel. "Rules of Reading" of Mao Tsung-gan's " Three Kingdoms "(pp. 335-382), which for the first time in Russian Sinology provides a translation and analysis of the most important poetological monument of the mid-17th century. Although the West has published three articles about it

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In this treatise, B. L. Riftin, as always, found his own angle of view: he turned to the aesthetic attitudes of the Chinese connoisseur of novels and focused on his analysis of the artistic merits of the text of the Three Kingdoms. The specificity of traditional Chinese ideas about literature, in particular, was that educated connoisseurs of the word did not want to recognize the artistic value of novels. Meanwhile, novels have gained huge popularity in society: literate people read them, and commoners all over the country fell in love with them performed by oral storytellers. Such a fact could no longer be ignored and the key to the secret of the impact of these works on the public had to be sought.

B. L. Riftin's brief notes on the era of the Three Kingdoms (220-265) and on Luo Guan-zhong's novel "The Three Kingdoms" have the character of succinct scientific references, since they contain independent characteristics of a long-standing study of this material. The scientist points out the proximity of the political situation in China in the mid-17th century to the events of the Three Kingdoms period, in which the problems of the legality of power and the legitimacy of the imperial rule of the new dynasty became particularly relevant. As a true Confucian, Mao Tsung-gan emphasized the didactic nature of the novel "The Three Kingdoms" and clearly divided the characters into absolutely positive and negative. He did not stay in the sphere of these arguments and was able to justify his belief that the epic "The Three Kingdoms" is the greatest artistic creation, its author "actually the first in the history of literary thought in China to create a theory of composition of a narrative work" (p.341).

B. L. Riftin sees the manifestation of Taoist ideas in the main aesthetic principle of Mao Tsung-gan "naturalness" (Tianran) , which, most likely, led to the comparison of individual artistic techniques of composition with natural phenomena. B. L. Riftin considers the origins of the aesthetic attitudes of the Chinese theorist to be cosmological ideas about the interrelated binaric principles of yin and yang. In the system of views of Mao Tsung-gan, a significant role is played by thoughts about the pairing (juxtaposition) of episodes, images, and situations. B. L. Riftin's reflections on the paired concepts of bin-zhu ("guest-host") that have existed in China since ancient times are informative and interesting, which Mao Tsung-gan extends "both to actions, and on the ground, and to individual objects (details). In everything, he sees a complex subordination of the described characters and collisions, things " (p. 354). To understand the evolution of the novel's plot, it is necessary to be aware of the presence in the text of hints about future events and the fate of the characters, expressed directly, but most often in a complex veiled form. For a skilful organization of artistic narration, you should keep an indissoluble connection of events, but you should not be afraid to interrupt the story with insert episodes. The Chinese theorist formulated twelve propositions, twelve "charms" (miao) of the text of the Three Kingdoms, and illustrated each of them with examples from the novel.

The translation of the "Rules of Reading" is perfectly executed, it accurately conveys aesthetic concepts that have a figurative form traditionally inherent in Chinese monuments of literary thought. The notes decipher hints about historical events and episodes of the novel, describe statesmen and cultural figures, mythological plots and the rules of conduct of the emperor. B. L. Riftin's article not only writes a new page in the history of Chinese literary theory, but also allows the Russian reader to better understand the artistic merits of the classic novel "The Three Kingdoms", presented in Russian translations by several editions.

In the 50s - 70s of the XX century, the question of the sources of the formation of new national literatures in the countries of the East was sharply discussed, mainly the thesis about the borrowed nature of literary, mainly prose, genres and trends that have been developed in a number of Asian countries since the middle of the XIX century. Currently, the problem is interpreted as involving the East in the orbit of world literary relations. The process of" penetration " of European literatures and the specific forms of such penetration, the transformations that this kind of cultural influence underwent during its adaptation to the national soil of developing Oriental literatures, were identified and characterized in the works of Academician N. I. Konrad and in the works of many Russian Orientalists.

N. E. Geronina's article "Periodicals and the emergence of new Vietnamese Prose" (pp. 415-438) serves as a useful supplement to these studies. Journalism and journalism began to develop in Vietnam in the second half of the 19th century under the auspices of the colonial authorities, who sought to make the press a means of spreading their political influence.

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influences. However, the intensive process of penetration of Western thought took on an unexpected character and became a means of creative re-equipment of national literature and expanding the horizons and interests of its readers. "The Vietnamese, when they got involved in French literature, and through it - in the world, not only did not abandon their native literature, but also consciously set the task of developing their native literature in new conditions" (p.420). The article notes that the Vietnamese literary tradition associated with Confucianism and religious teachings has been influenced by literatures that have already been finally formed as secular. Using the example of the history of the formation and development of the first print media in Vietnam, in particular the Nam Faung magazine, N. E. Geronina shows the differences in the views of their publishers, writers and publicists, but at the same time emphasizes the continuity and general educational orientation of new periodicals. In this regard, it has to engage in polemics even with modern Vietnamese researchers, who highlight the contradictory nature of the positions of the first print media and often underestimate their role in the formation of new literature in Vietnam. In our opinion, the author's conclusion that enlightenment-minded writers of that time, regardless of ideological differences, "more or less aspired to the Western-Eastern cultural synthesis and worked for it" is fair (p. 421).

The author of the article connects this program of creating a periodical press with the task of forming the literary Vietnamese language and spreading the Vietnamese Latin alphabet (kuokng). The importance of the first press organs for the development of national literary languages in many Asian countries can indeed be called paramount. A vivid example of this is, in particular, India, where the current state language of Hindi actually received a regulatory form only from the middle of the XIX century. The commonality of the processes of creating new national literatures of the East can serve as a good confirmation of the idea expressed in the article by N. E. Geronina about the positive role of early periodicals in the formation of new prose in Vietnam. Unfortunately, the author does not say much about the ideology of the Vietnamese enlightenment, although in some cases such explanations would not be superfluous.

In the article by A. R. Sadokova "At the origins of Japanese realism: "The general theory of the novel" Ftabateya Shimei " (pp. 439-462), it is noted that soon after the revolutionary transformations of Meiji (1868), the Japanese began to master modern technology and achievements of world culture. Hundreds of magazines and newspapers appeared in the country, which published literary translations and articles that affirm the ideals of the Enlightenment. The Japanese public understood that there was a lot of work to be done to introduce a new conceptual framework, since traditional categories did not correspond to the phenomena and processes of foreign literature. The political and moral issues of the times of change were expected to be reflected in large forms of narrative literature, especially since acquaintance with European novels convinced of the potential of this genre for transforming the life of the country. A. R. Sadokova writes that the answer to the urgent need to understand what is happening in culture was Tsubouchi See's article " The Essence of the Novel "(1885), which became a manifesto of new Japanese literature and caused a wide response in creative circles. Sadokova points out that the disadvantage of Tsubouchi See's "theory of copying" was the underestimation of the author's fiction and the generalizing power of realistic art. It is no accident that Tsubouchi See's novel "Morals of Students of Our Time", designed to implement his theoretical principles, was unsuccessful. Since biographical information about this writer is scarce in Russian Japanese studies, the article provides detailed information about him.

A. R. Sadokova proposed a translation of the famous polemical article "The General Theory of the Novel" by Fukatei Shimei (1886), which brought the literary and aesthetic theory of Japan to a new level. Summing up the assessments of Japanese scientists N. I. Konrad, K. Ryoho, T. P. Grigorieva, R. G. Karlin, the author of the article characterizes the main provisions of this work. The success of his aesthetic program and creative efforts was largely determined by his excellent knowledge of the Russian language, constant reference to the artistic values of Russian classics and the views of Belinsky, Dobrolyubov, Chernyshevsky and Herzen. The article "General Theory of the Novel" is made in the best traditions of Japanese poetological treatises - it is distinguished by a beautiful style of presentation, imagery and emotionality. "Today, when almost one hundred and twenty years have passed since the writing of Ftabatei's article, many of her statements are not true.

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they are perceived as revelations - their validity is obvious, but at the end of the XIX century, everything written by Ftabatei was perceived as innovative and bold " (pp. 450-451).

P. A. Grintser concluded the preface to the collection with the words: "The authors of the book hope that the articles and publications presented in it will complement and enrich the picture of the history of aesthetic thought of the East in the era of traditionalist literature and in the transition to Modern literature" (p. 11). Of course, these hopes were fully realized. Familiarization with the collection once again convinces us that the history of literary thought should be an organic part of the scientific histories of Oriental literature created, because only then the artistic process, the nature of genres and the imaginative nature of works receive proper coverage.

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