Authors

Discussion

The paper proposes to compare novels of two contemporaries - Gu Taiqing  (1799-1877) and Eudoxie Rostopchina (1811-1858). Despite the lack of direct interaction, there is unexpectedly much in common between them: in addition to similarity of biographies and literary careers, both writers also demonstrate similarities in their creative method.
Gu Taiqing was the first Chinese woman to venture into prose, and in this respect her "Shadows of Dreams in the Red Chamber" has a particular remarkability in the history of Chinese women's literature. One of the key methods of creating this work is a dialogue with both Cao Xueqin’s  text and with Gu Taiqing’s own previous texts.
Eudoxie Rostopchina is one of the most prominent Russian writers of the mid-19th century. Dialogue with precedent texts is a characteristic feature of Rostopchina's creative manner, which in a curious way coincided with the leading method of the late XX - early XXI centuries - postmodernism. Developing from replicas to the poems of Pushkin, Lermontov (1830s), towards the end of her career this method led Rostopchina to creating sequels of precedent cultural texts - "Wit Wakes Woe" by Aleksander  Griboyedov and "House of Madmen" by Aleksander Voeikov.