Aesthetics and Metaphysics of Celestial Bodies in V. A. Zhukovsky’s Pavlovsky Poems

The purpose of the article was to identify the features of V. A. Zhukovsky’s poetic cosmology, presented in all its diversity in the cycle of Pavlovsky Poems (1819). The article reconstructs the romantic understanding of the structure of the universe established in Zhukovsky’s poetry and its new poetic comprehension. It examines the poetics, aesthetics, and ontology of the image of the moon as a poetic constant of Zhukovsky’s meditative lyrics. In comparison with the judgments of the holy fathers, the article reveals the symbolic fullness of the images of heavenly bodies in Zhukovsky’s Pavlovsky Poems, associated with the glorification of the divine presence, the visible embodiment of paradise, and the expression of memory. The article argues that the metaphorical meaning of the moon in Zhukovsky’s artistic system is associated with the disclosure of the longing for the human soul and its transformation when encountering eternity. The scientific novelty of this study is determined by the identification of the semantic fullness of the image of the moon and stars in the Pavlovsky Poems of the poet’s poems aimed at understanding Zhukovsky’s worldview.