Epistle to a friend in 1810s: literary examples and sources

The article focuses on the West European literary sources of the Russian epistle to a friend in the 1810s. The author analyses poetic patterns and thematic correspondence between the epistle «My Penates» by K.N.Batyushkov together with similar texts by Russian poets and «La Chartreuse» by J.-B.-L.Gresset, «A mes Pénates» by Jean-François Ducis, « Epître VI. A Lamoignon» by Nicolas Boileau, as well as Horatian and Anacreontic traditions. The literary sources became an object of more close attention than ever before. Comparative analysis of poetic patterns made it possible to specify the genesis of certain poetic formulae as well as to accentuate the semantic changes which happened during their transition to the Russian literature and to trace the transformation of the adopted patterns within the Russian tradition.