THE SYMBOLISM OF THE STAGE SPACE IN ANDREY BELY’S EARLY PLAYS
https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-1-247-269
Abstract
In his comparison of the notes for the unfinished mystery play Antichrist (both those published and those archived at the manuscripts department of the Russian State Library) with dramatic sketches He Who Has Come [Prishedshiy] and The Night’s Jaws [Past’ nochi], the author discusses the peculiarities of Bely’s arrangement of the acting space. The problem of dramatic convention is examined through text analysis and with a direct reference to the mystery play: a genre that experienced revival in the period between the 19th and 20th centuries. The symbolism of the stage space in Bely’s shelved project Antichrist is in many ways determined by the very nature of the genre: many writers of the time were drawn to its paradigm, the universal model, realized in various forms. Notably, Bely’s early plays feature the metaphorical leaning towards unitotality, typical of mystery plays in general and eagerly embraced by the Russian symbolists.
About the Author
A. Kholikov
МГУ им. Ломоносова
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Aleksey Aleksandrovich Kholikov, literary historian, Doctor of Philology. Academic interests include history of Russian literature of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, life and works of D. Merezhkovsky, theory of literature.
Author of textbooks Russian Academic Studies of Literature: History and Method (1900-1960s) [Russkoe akademicheskoe literaturovedenie: istoriya i metodologiya (1900-1960-e gody)] (2015; et al.). Author of the monographs Complete Works of Dmitry Merezhkovsky Published in His Lifetime: Textology, History of Literature, Poetics [Prizhiznennoe polnoe sobranie sochineniy Dmitriya Merezhkovskogo: Tekstologiya, istoriya literatury, poetika] (2014), The History of Russian Silver Age Literature (1890s - early 1920s) [Istoriya russkoy literatury Serebryanogo veka (1890-e - nachalo 1920-kh godov)] (2017) and multiple works on the aforementioned topics.
Email: aakholikov@gmail.com.
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Review
For citations:
Kholikov A. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE STAGE SPACE IN ANDREY BELY’S EARLY PLAYS. Voprosy literatury. 2018;(1):247-269. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.31425/0042-8795-2018-1-247-269
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