The motif of a photographer’s power: variations of the plot (based on English-language prose of the second half of the 19th century)

Abstract

The research aims to identify how the motif of the power of a photographer character, which determines the plot variations in English-language prose of the second half of the 19th century, is realized. The paper provides a socio-cultural digression that allows us to identify the prerequisites for creating images of the first photographers possessing power over people. The research is original in that it is the first one in Russian literary studies to examine the motif of the photographer’s power and the influence of the cultural and aesthetic paradigm on the formation of its representative features. For example, in N. Hawthorne’s novel “The House of the Seven Gables” (1851), thanks to the daguerreotypist, the descendants of the two clans are freed from the burden of the past that has been weighing on them for several centuries. In the story of an unknown author, “The Magnetic Daguerreotypes”, the power of a photographer who possesses copies of photo portraits of lovers hinders their happiness. E. D. Fenton, in the story “The Lovers and the Photographer” (1872), creates an image of a photographer who has the power to create copies of photographs without the knowledge of the referent. The results showed that the ambivalent perception of photographers, as well as their influence on those photographed in the second half of the 19th century, caused the variability of plot collisions.

Research materials

1. Готорн Н. Дом о семи фронтонах / пер. с англ. Г. Шмакова. СПб.: Азбука; М.: Азбука-Аттикус, 2015.
2. Силантьев И. В. Мотив // Поэтика: словарь актуальных терминов и понятий / гл. науч. ред. Н. Д. Тамарченко. М.: Изд-во Кулагиной; Intrada, 2008.
3. Arthur T. S. American Characteristics; No. V – The Daguerreotypist // Godey’s Lady’s Book. 1849. Vol. 38.
4. Fenton E. D. The Lovers and the Photographer // Sorties from “Gib, in Quest of Sensation and Sentiment”. L.: Tinsley Brothers Publ., 1872.
5. A Strolling Artist. The Magnetic Daguerreotypes // Photographic Art Journal. 1852. No. 3.

References

1. Васильева Е. 36 эссе о фотографах. СПб. – М.: RUGRAM_Пальмира, 2022.
2. Зенкин С. Н. Imago in fabula: интрадиегетический образ в литературе и кино. М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2023.
3. Полуэктова Т. А. По другую сторону объектива: границы и последствия (“A Spoilt Negative” Э. У. Хорнунга и «Маленький фотограф» Д. дю Морье) // Вестник Нижегородского государственного лингвистического университета им. Н. А. Добролюбова. 2025. Вып. 2 (70).
4. Савчук В. В. Философия фотографии. Изд-е 2-е, испр. и доп. СПб.: Академия исследований культуры, 2015.
5. Шатин Ю. В. Мотив и контекст // Роль традиции в литературной жизни эпохи: сюжеты и мотивы: сборник научных трудов. Новосибирск: Институт филологии Сибирского отделения Российской академии наук, 1995.
6. Юргенева А. Человек как социальное тело: европейская фотография второй половины XIX века. М.: Новое литературное обозрение, 2024.
7. Cohen L. L. What’s Wrong with This Picture?: Daguerreotypy and Magic in “The House of the Seven Gables” // Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory. 2004. Vol. 60. No. 1.
8. Cook S. E. Victorian Negatives. Literary Culture and the Dark Side of Photography in the Nineteenth Century. N. Y.: Suny Press, 2019.
9. Ennis E. Writing, Authorship and Photography in British Literary Culture, 1880-1920: Capturing the Image. L.: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2022.
10. Frank М. С. Photographing Ghosts: Ancestral Reproduction and Daguerreotypiс Mimesis in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of the Seven Gables” // Litteraria Pragensia: Studies in Literature and Culture. 2007. Vol. 17. Iss. 34.
11. Green-Lewis J. Framing the Victorians: Photography and the Culture of Realism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996.
12. Madloch J. Remarks on the Literary Portrait of the Photographer and Death // Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. 2016. Vol. 18. No. 3.
13. Ortoleva P. In the Time of Balzac: The Daguerreotype and the Discovery. Invention of Society // Ortoleva P. Photography and Other Media in the Nineteenth Century / eds. N. Leonardi, S. Natale. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2018.
14. Shelangoskie S. Domesticity in the Darkroom: Photographic Process and Victorian Romantic Narratives // LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory. 2013. Vol. 24. Iss. 2.
15. Stewart G. Reading Figures. The Legible Image of Victorian Textual Victorian Literature and the Victorian Imagination / ed. by C. T. Christ, J. O. Jordan. Berkeley – Los Angeles – L.: University of California Press, 1995.
16. Trachtenberg A. Seeing and Believing: Hawthorne’s Reflections on the Daguerreotype in “The House of the Seven Gables” // American Literary History. 1997. Vol. 9. No. 3.
17. Williams M. R. Daguerreotype Images of a Disposable Past in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The House of the Seven Gables” // Williams M. R. Through the Negative: The Photographic Image and the Written Word in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. N. Y.: Routledge, 2003.

Author information

About this article

Publication history

• Received: July 31, 2025.
• Published: August 22, 2025.

Keywords

• фотограф-любитель
• фотограф-профессионал
• мотив власти
• Н. Готорн
• Э. Д. Фентон
• amateur photographer
• professional photographer
• motif of power
• N. Hawthorne
• E. D. Fenton

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)
© 2025 Gramota Publishing, LLC

User license

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)