Sil’fida [The Sylph, 1837), one of V.F. Odoevsky’s Gothic-experimental tales of the late 1830s (a particularly productive period for him), while not receiving as much critical attention as Kosmorama [The Cosmorama, 1839] and Salamandra [The Salamander, 1841], has been read by Claire Whitehead in terms of the Todorovian fantastic. Neil Cornwell has, among other things, described it as “broach[ing] the dislocation between time and space” and as displaying the “occasional modernistic quirk” – this latter comment referring in particular to the strange epigraph of the tale, which ends with the quotation “!?!?”, attributed to “the 19th century” (The Salamander, 40). The tale is, overall, a hybrid of epistolary form, diary excerpt, and real-time events (the commentary of the “publisher”) that seem to weave in and out of the more literary devices which appear dominant. Narrative...
1970 words
Citation: Sucur, Slobodan. "Sil'fida". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 February 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16240, accessed 09 June 2026.]
