ПІДХОДИ ДО ВИВЧЕННЯ АНГЛІЙСЬКОЇ РЕСТАВРАЦІЇ

This study applied cognitive-pragmatic, literary criticism and theory of theatre approaches to summarize findings on the dramatic discourse of English Restoration. In this article, I set out the main points of Stuart Restoration ideology, sum-marize findings on the predominant concepts of that time, substantiate that the institution of theatre became a leading ide-ological instrument during the English Restoration, and single out its two main functions: entertainment and dissemination of absolutist ideology. In this paper, the subject matter and dramatis personae of Restoration drama have been character-ized. The paper focuses on generalizing the research results of comparative studies of Restoration and Elizabethan drama which concern their scope, genres, and morality. The conclusions reached in the studies that reported on borrowings in repertoire from native, French and Spanish sources at the beginning of Restoration and the influence of English and con-tinental writers have been synthesized. Further investigation of English Restoration drama revealed an unprecedented genre variety and combination which demonstrated signs of development in different directions during the 1660s. In this article, I state that the existing studies have reported on active behaviour of Restoration audiences during the perfor-mances, describe usual patterns of their behavior, and make conclusions as to the direct influence of such behavior on the processes of drama production and perception. The existing research has demonstrated weak points in some key areas, such as Restoration audiences’ composition. Despite the fact that scholars point to various sources of information as to the theatre-goers’ personalities in the seventeenth century, there is still no consensus of opinions on this issue. Although Restoration drama research demonstrably improved over the 20th and 21st centuries, further research on Elizabethan and Restoration drama cognitive construals of the world, comparative analysis of original plays and adaptations, literary genres origin and development, interactional patterns of viewers and characters of Restoration drama is recommended.Key words: English Restoration theatre, dramatic discourse, play, ideology. У статті наведено узагальнення результатів наукових досліджень, присвячених дискурсу часів англійської Реставрації, з позицій когнітивно-прагматичного, літературного й театрального підходів. У дослідженні окреслено основні положення ідеології Реставрації Стюартів, узагальнено знахідки наукових досліджень, присвячених вивченню основних концептів того часу, обґрунтовано, що інститут театру став провідним ідеологічним інструментом за часів англійської Реставрації, та виділено дві основні його функції: розваги й розповсюдження ідеології абсолютизму. У роботі описано тематику й схарактеризовано персонажів драматичних творів часів англійської Реставрації. Наукова розвідка фокусується на узагальненні результатів наукових досліджень, присвячених порівнянню масштабів охоплення тематики, жанрів і моралі драматичних творів часів англійської Реставрації та драматургії часів королеви Єлизавети Тюдор. У дослідженні також синтезуються знахідки наукових розвідок, присвячених запозиченням у репертуарі з англійських, французьких та іспанських джерел на початку епохи англійської Реставрації, а також впливу власне англійських та європейських авторів. Подальше вивчення драматургії часів англійської Реставрації демонструє безпрецедентне розмаїття та поєднання жанрів, що демонструють ознаки розвитку в різних напрямах у 1660 роки. У статті стверджується, що наукові дослідження повідомляють про активну поведінку глядачів на виставах часів англійської Реставрації та робиться висновок про те, що така поведінка безпосередньо вплинула на процеси створення та сприйняття драматичних творів. Наявні дослідження демонструють прогалини в основних сферах, таких як контингент глядацької аудиторії вистав часів англійської Реставрації. Не зважаючи на той факт, що вчені вказують на різні джерела інформації щодо складу театральної глядацької аудиторії в сімнадцятому столітті, досі не існує єдності поглядів на це питання. Хоча дослідження драматургії часів англійської Реставрації значно покращилися у XX і XXI століттях, рекомендовано вивчення концептуальної картини світу в драматичних творах часів англійської Реставрації та королеви Єлизавети, порівняльний аналіз оригінальних п’єс та адаптацій, виникнення та розвитку літературних жанрів, моделі взаємодії глядачів і персонажів у п’єсах часів англійської Реставрації.Ключові слова: театр часів англійської Реставрації, драматичний дискурс, п’єса, ідеологія.

Diffraction Patterns of Homoeroticism and Mimesis between Twelfth Night and She's the Man

Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (1602) is well-known for its homoeroticism, whereas the critical consensus concerning She’s the Man (dir. Andy Fickman), a 2006 film based on Twelfth Night, seems to be that it dampens the play’s homoerotic strategies and meanings in the translation to film. This paper argues that while specific elements are indeed dampened, homoeroticism is still firmly present in the movie, and the perceived curtailing of much of the play’s subversive energy does not explain the film’s queer legacy. Because of the different codes surrounding homoeroticism for Elizabethan drama and Hollywood cinema, the different contours of homosocial space within the two societies, and the Western invention of the homosexual as a distinct category in the time between the two eras, the queer potential of She’s the Man resides in different moments of the story, and is filtered through capitalist strategies of queerbaiting. Therefore, I aim to show the diffraction patterns of queer and trans desire between the two works. Specifically, the different approaches to mimesis shape this intra-action, including the place of women in mimetics; the specters of realism and psychoanalysis; shifting notions of gender and sexuality; and changes in audience tastes regarding bodily spectacle in cross-dressing stories.

The Evolution of Man: Studying Sri Aurobindo's Dramatic Ouevre

Sri Aurobindo wrote around eleven verse plays, much in the tradition of the Elizabethan poetic plays. Many similarities and equally numbered distinctions may be traced midst the dramatic output of William Shakespeare and Sri Aurobindo. However, of the eleven plays only five plays are complete, in that they have a five act structure, namely- Viziers of Bassora, Eric, Rodogune, Perseus: The Deliverer and Vasavadutta. The genealogy of all these plays may be traced to the legends or myths, of the various ancient cultures which populated the world and shaped its history. Irrespective of their different myths of origin, Sri Aurobindo, much like Shakespeare employs these stories only as the raw clay, while he mould the statue out of it, according to his own vision, that is the Evolution of Man. An analysis of Sri Aurobindo’s plays elucidates the unparalleled range and vision to which his plays bear testimony. The notable feature of Sri Aurobindo’s plays is that they portray diverse cultures and nations in different aeons, populated with an array of characters, moods and sentiments. Sri Aurobindo spent almost all his growing years in England, studying English and other classical literatures and the impact of this reading is discernible in his plays. He seems to be particularly impressed by the Elizabethan drama and employs its technique in matters of plot construction and characterisation. He is said to have perfected the English blank verse which he deftly displays in the dialogues of his characters. His plays can thus be said to be a unique blend of the Sanskrit and Western philosophical and aesthetic theories as the plot, the climax, the progression and the theme is unmistakably Indian. He seems to have been influenced by the Sanskrit playwrights like Bhasa, Kalidas and Bhavabhuti and all five plays are imbued with the poetry and romance which is similar in spirit and flavour of the distinctive dramatic type which was the signature style of Bhasa, Kalidas and Bhavabhuti, and simultaneously preserve the Aurobindonian undertones. The paper attempts to elucidate the ‘Evolution of Man’ which Sri Aurobindo mounts through his plays.

The Progressive Era’s New Optimists

New scholarship in the literature and print culture of the Progressive Era emphasizes the socially and politically transformative power of aesthetic experience. Through their attention to the physical as well as ideological spaces in which the dual projects of political reform and cultural formation via textual production and consumption were carried out, these scholars offer an account of Progressive-Era aesthetic products ranging from fiction to journalism to comics to productions of Elizabethan drama as democratic sites of social good. While previous criticism of the era’s literature aligned its ideological orientation with the regressive politics of nativism and rising class divisions, these scholars, through both recovery and rereading, take a more optimistic approach that emphasizes the reciprocal nature of the textual engagement undertaken by immigrants and the working class.

Curating the Protestant Imagination

Even before a full translation existed, there were diverse English responses to Du Bartas’ insistence that divine verse should peg human creativity to the mind of the Creator. William Scott’s Model of Poesy sets this pessimistic view against more positive, socially engaged arguments closer to Sir Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesy. Scott and Sidney both translated Du Bartas, as did Robert Barret, whose verse chronicle The Sacred Warr is an early poem that faithfully follows Du Bartas’ ‘paterne’. Despite Edmund Spenser’s reported interest in Du Bartas, his poems (especially The Faerie Queene) suggest that human ignorance requires poets to write about non-fictional truths using allegorical structures. Those who did not read French might have encountered Du Bartas in Elizabethan drama, as a character in Christopher Marlowe’s Massacre at Paris, or in paraphrased extracts in George Peele’s David and Bethsabe and the anonymous Taming of a Shrew.

THE CONCEPT OF SHAKESPEARE’S PERSONALITY AND CREATIVITY IN THE LITERARY-CRITICAL WORKS

Purpose: The article analyzes the literature-critical publications of Aksenov of the late 1920s and the first half of the 1930s with the aim of examining the personality and creativity of Shakespeare via socio-cultural, comparative-historical, historical-genetic, socio-cultural and biographical methods. Methodology: In accordance with the subject of study, comparative-historical, cultural-historical and historical-typological methods, methods of problem and comparative analysis were used. Main Findings: As a result, Aksenov systematically destroyed the widespread misconception of the epoch that Shakespeare was almost the only pillar of Elizabethan drama. In conclusion, Aksenov considered literary flair a special merit of Shakespeare, with which he was editing the material, without hiding the merits of his predecessors and without correcting or giving realistic contours to mysterious characters. Applications: This research can be used by literary students, from universities and other literary centers. Novelty/Originality: In this research, Shakespeare’s personality and creativity were studied from his literary-critical works.

Tyranny and Usurpation

This book examines the fraught relationship between the sixteenth-century formulations of the theories of sovereign violence, tyranny and usurpation and the manifestations of these ideas on the contemporary English stage. It will attempt to trace an evolution of the poetics of English and Scottish political drama through the early, middle, and late decades of the sixteenth-century in conjunction with developments in the political thought of the century, linking theatre and politics through the representations of the problematic figure of the usurper or, in Machiavellian terms, the ‘New Prince’. While the early Tudor morality plays are concerned with the legitimate monarch who becomes a tyrant, the later historical and tragic drama of the century foregrounds the figure of the illegitimate monarch who is a tyrant by default. On the one hand the sudden proliferation of usurpation plots in Elizabethan drama and the transition from the legitimate tyrant to the usurper tyrant is linked to the dramaturgical shift from the allegorical morality play tradition to later history plays and tragedies, and on the other it is reflective of a poetic turn in political thought which impelled political writers to conceive of the state and sovereignty as a product of human ‘poiesis’, independent of transcendental legitimization. The poetics of political drama and the emergence of the idea of ‘poiesis’ in the political context merge in the figure of the nuove principe: the prince without dynastic claims who creates his sovereignty by dint of his own ‘virtu’ and through an act of law-making violence.