THE USE OF THE SLAPSTICK EXPRESSIVENESS IN BULGAKOV’S PLAY «THE DAYS OF THE TURBINS»
DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2018-2-180-187
The play The Days of the Turbins is usually studied in view of author’s and his characters’ political standings in the situation of the extremely dramatic change of government in Russia. The article analyzes the poetical manner of the play and finds out that the author used a wide variety of the expressive means, not just comical, but even slapstick. These slapstick elements can be found on the different levels and stages of the action: the play starts with obviously comical Nikolka’s «cook song» and ends with exceedingly passionate and comical, yet somewhat lyrical speaches by Lariosik. There is a system in use of the slapstick expressive means in description of authorities running away: from the implicit ones (the discussion of tsar by the drunk friends, singing Pushkin’s poem The Song of the Wise Oleg, rumors from Shervinsky about tsar’s return) to the explicit climactic slapstick scene in hetman’s palace. In the system of characters with use of means of comic not only Lariosik and Shervinsky’s images, but also Talberg are allocated: this not comic character is presented in a farcical situation of delay, replacement with another, in dialogue with repetitions, in zoomorfny assessment. The comic travesty of serious things, slapstick and drama in different forms and scales are considered in this article on the poetic manner in the play The Days of the Turbins as coexisting, contrasting, outlining, rejecting each other. The authors of the article believe that system manifestation of the slapstick poetic manner by the author of The Days of the Turbins shows to M. Bulgakov’s participation in that direction of creative search of theatrical vanguard of the 1920th years which was expressed in Mayakovsky’s dramatic art, Erdman - authors by Vs. Meyerkhold.
Keywords: M. Bulgakov, The Days of the Turbins (Dni Turbinykh), action, poetic manner, expressive means, comical, travesty, explicit and implicit slapstick comedy means
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Issue: 2, 2018
Series of issue: Issue 2
Rubric: PROBLEMS AND POETICS OF THE RUSSIAN LITERATURE OF THE XIX-XX CENTURIES
Pages: 180 — 187
Downloads: 1620