Piękno i brzydota w opowiadaniach Aleksandra Kuprina

Abstract

Aleksandr Kuprin eagerly refers to widely understood motives of beauty and ugliness, which belong to basic aesthetic categories. Both terms are ambiguous and it is characteristic of them to have diverse and rich forms, entering ethics sometimes. In Kuprin’s works the notions quite often occur simultaneously, attempting to present the truth about the man and his world. With the use of beauty and ugliness the writer describes, among other things, the internal life of his characters, the condition of their feelings, their appearance, their relations with other people and surrounding reality (natural phenomena, everyday items, buildings). Apart from that, Kuprin also deals with the question of the relation between physical and moral beauty and ugliness, underlining their relative nature.