Reflection and duality as leitmotifs of art nouveau style in the novel Dead Bruges (Bruges-la-Morte) by J. Rodenbach (1892)

<jats:p>The aim of the article is to analyze a number of indicative and interrelated examples of the reflection and duality motifs used in the novel Dead Bruges (Bruges-la-Morte) by the Belgian symbolist J. Rodenbach. The author offers a few different interpretations of these examples connecting them with the artistic and ideological horizon of art nouveau style, with its various genre manifestations, as well as in terms of the realization of its characteristic themes – femininity, death and the afterlife, water, and the urban theme. Special attention is paid to references to the traditions of Gothic in literature, to the image of the “dark double”, to the technique of “duplicating events” and creating the aesthetics of a frightening inversion. The author also offers an analysis of the technique of an unreleased double interpretation of the plot, characteristic of both romantic and symbolist fiction, and puts forward a hypothesis about implicit irony, deconstructing the traditional narrative of ideal love. It is not by chance that the image of the doppelganger as a trickster (a “negative” or “low” version of the hero / heroine) is associated with theater, disguises, masquerade and the element of blasphemous ridicule, travesty. An interpretation of the novel’s text as a naturalistic explanation of the hero’s motivations for his illness and psychopathological conditions (the hero’s obsession with mystical analogies) is also suggested. The author also partially touches upon references to the Catholic text and the context of Belgian symbolism, in particular, to the connection of the image of Madonna with two heroines of the novel. Besides, the author touches upon the motif of being statuary, of immobility, which is opposed by the motifs of dance, movement, and physical impulse. The article considers the motif of mirroring as one of the important elements for the presentation of the theme of death, which removes illusory differences and exposes hidden mechanisms of fate.</jats:p>