William Godwin's novels ‘Italian letters’ and 'St. Leon’ viewed in the context of the author's creative development

The article deals with the study of the ideas, themes, plot and style of the novels Italian Letters and St. Leon by English writer, journalist, and political philosopher William Godwin. It contains a comparative analysis of the aforementioned works conducted with the aim of defining the main ways of the author’s worldview and style development and deeper study of little-known early novels by W. Godwin. The author comes to a conclusion that the two novels possess a considerable likeness, which proves the succession of ideas present in early and later works of the writer. At the same time, the differences in genre, diverse approaches to character development, changes in the author’s position on the main sources of human motivation indicate a progressive and consistent development of philosophical and socio-political views of the author. The research appears to be topical as there is a clear need for deeper investigation into Godwin’s work and determining the role and place of his novels in the world literary process from Enlightenment to Romanticism. The novelty and originality of the research consist not only in studying little-known early works by Godwin but also in using complex analytical method to investigate various theoretical, historical, and literary aspect of his works. This allows broadening the field of study of the 18th century British literature. The practical value of the research is that its results can be used in courses on international literature and theory of translation. The article makes use of the works devoted to William Godwin’s works, including the articles by M. Alekseev, A. Bondarev, V. Reshetov, B. S. Allen, P. Clemit, E. O’Brien, H. Stark, B. Turner, M. Hindle, M. Philp.