The Image of the Author in the Romantic Literary Text (based on René-François de Chateaubriand’s “René or the Consequences of Passion”)

The article analyzes the influence of autobiographical elements on the author’s image in a literary text of the Romantic period on the example of the short novel “René or the Consequences of Passions”, written by Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand. The author shows how personal experience, for instance, strong religious convictions and contemporary political lines become the symbolic background of the text, creating a picture of a specific romantic character.R. Chateaubriand’s work is considered as the illustration of the pre-Romanticism in literature, so the article examines the Romantic basis of the treatise “The Genius of Christianity”. R. Chateaubriand’s idea of the unity of literature and religion takes a prominent place in many of his works, as well as in the short novel “Rene”. The author highlights the issue of the perception of beauty, both personal and universal, as well as the interconnection of melancholy and love in the context of the Christian paradigm.The article also illuminates the hidden integration of the so-called “illness of the times” or the romanticizing of mental disorders in literature. The short novel “René or the Consequences of Passions” is imbued with motives of depression or “melancholy”, therefore the article presents an analysis of the aestheticization of the reinterpretation of death. This text partially conveys the merging of the personality of the writer and the eponymous hero René, who feels not only deep loneliness, but also sense of despair and constantly returns to reflections about civilizational and philosophical questions.Thanks to the shortening of the distance between the reader and the writer, the portrait of the “split man” can be reinterpreted repeatedly. The text of the short novel “René” shows the continuity of rethinking both personal experience and the conceptualization of melancholy.