“ROMANTIC” ABSURD: “THE INVASION” BY ARTHUR ADAMOV AND “CHATTERTON” BY ALFRED DE VIGNY
Abstract
DOI 10.18522/1995-0640-2021-4-137-150
The article contains an intertextual analysis of the play “The Invasion” (1949) by Arthur Adamov, one of the classical examples of the drama of the absurd. In his dramaturgical experience of 1949, Arthur Adamov demonstrates the acceptance of the XIX century French literature romantic tradition and significant refraction of this tradition in the coordinate system of the poetics of the absurd. Being open about his main source — the play “Chatterton” (1834) by Alfred de Vigny — Adamov intentionally strengthens and sharpens the theme of the tragic forlornness of a great artist who lost faith in himself in the face of a crisis of faith in the world mind. Adamov’s principal character is a filiation of the image of the romantic poetmessiah. The principal character of de Vigny and the principal character of Adamov have in common a vocation associated with the sacred power of the Word (the Poet and the Keeper of the Message), and fervor in following this high vocation; opposition to the world of ordinary people; loyalty to the individual life code. In the context of the mid-twentieth century philosophical views system, based on the idea of the absurd, Adamov revises the rules by which the artistic world is constructed, and transforms some romantic motives and characteristics. Love and creativity no longer perform a saving function; escape becomes the movement of an individual into the space of the inner prison. The fate of Adamov’s principal character cannot be shared by anyone else. The principal character is devoid of a demiurgical quality; he is doomed to plumb the depths of the concept of comprehensive futility and observe the loss of meanings at all levels of human existence. The analysis of the figurative system of “The Invasion” proves the romantic genesis of the absurdism of the twentieth century, confirming the theoretical concept of romanticism as a stable paradigm of artistic consciousness, which has retained its relevance in the modern era.
Key words: Absurd drama, filiation, metareflection, poetical image, Romantic movement
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