Teffi's stories in the mirror of aesthetics of ugliness

The term “aesthetics of ugliness” was introduced in Chinese literary studies owing to Liu Dong’s monograph “The Western Aesthetics of Ugliness” The author reinterpreted the Western aesthetical tradition and disclosed the peculiarities of expressing ugliness in literature based on the whole variety of on the basis of various realizations of sensitivity. After thirty years of its development in China, the concept “aesthetics of ugliness” has ultimately been defined. The creation and development of this theory renewed the dimension of aesthetics, as it has enriched scientific research in traditional aesthetics, as well as formed a new research model. Attention to ugliness became the main feature of the ideological tendencies of modernist literature. Teffi’s humorous short stories belong to an independent school in Russian literature, and various scenes described there produce a panorama of human nature. In this article the author considers Teffi’s short stories from the perspective of “ugliness”. It is observed that Teffi is capable of discerning such “ugly” aspects of human nature as greed, hypocrisy, jealousy, laziness and etc. Teffi, as if she were a professional psychologist, exquisitely explores the ugly, weird, and pathological human psychology. Meanwhile, as an acute critic, Teffi ingeniously satirizes the comic and absurd social phenomena. The author managed to clarify the paradigm of “ugliness” in Teffi’s short stories and interpreted the value and significance of Teffi’s legacy in the aspect of the aesthetics of ugliness.