LOVE MOTIVE IN TRANSFORMATION AND DISCLOSURE OF THE MAIN HERO IMAGE IN THE WORKS OF ARTURO PÉREZ-REVERTE (ON EXAMPLE OF HIS NOVEL “THE OLD GUARD´S TANGO”)

Abstract

The article analyses one of the functional features of the love motive in the works of Arturo Pérez-Reverte on the basis of his novel “The Old Guard´s Tango”. The plot and stylistic analysis of the text within the framework of the system-functional approach allows us to go deeper into the image of the protagonist via the author’s use of a love motive. Pérez-Reverte’s works are difficult to refer to any particular literary school, as his novels paradoxically but organically combine the features of postmodern literary aesthetics (hyperreflexion, intertextuality, load of allusions) and those of classical literature focused on narrative and reflection in the context of eternal values. Due to this genre polyphonic nature with expressed moral and ethical content and exciting plots, Reverte’s works cannot be fully attributed to “post-post-modernism” (the term used by N.V. Gladilin). The latter is characterized by the absence of moral and ethical problematic and plot clichés. In addition, all motives in Reverte´s works, including that of love, develop in a reliable historical context, elevating the images to the rank of deep human transformations. As the analysis demonstrates, the full-fledged development of the protagonist image is impossible without story’s recurrent love theme that develops like a spiral – each new story twist reveals the image in a new way based on the previous life experience.