Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties”
«Травести» считается одной из наиболее интеллектуальных пьес Стоппарда, персонажами которой являются реальные исторические личности, высказывающие различные противоречивые идеи и развлекают публику....
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Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України
2012
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| Назва видання: | Культура народов Причерноморья |
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| Цитувати: | Biography as fiction in tom stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” / L. Bondarenko // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2012. — № 224. — С. 63-64. — Бібліогр.: 5 назв. — англ. |
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irk-123456789-559002014-02-10T03:19:58Z Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” Bondarenko, L. Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение «Травести» считается одной из наиболее интеллектуальных пьес Стоппарда, персонажами которой являются реальные исторические личности, высказывающие различные противоречивые идеи и развлекают публику. 2012 Article Biography as fiction in tom stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” / L. Bondarenko // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2012. — № 224. — С. 63-64. — Бібліогр.: 5 назв. — англ. 1562-0808 http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/handle/123456789/55900 821.111(73) en Культура народов Причерноморья Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України |
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Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение |
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Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение Bondarenko, L. Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” Культура народов Причерноморья |
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«Травести» считается одной из наиболее интеллектуальных пьес Стоппарда, персонажами которой являются реальные исторические личности, высказывающие различные противоречивые идеи и развлекают публику. |
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Bondarenko, L. |
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Bondarenko, L. |
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Bondarenko, L. |
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Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” |
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Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” |
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Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” |
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Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” |
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Biography as fiction in Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” |
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biography as fiction in tom stoppard’s intellectual drama:”travesties” |
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Кримський науковий центр НАН України і МОН України |
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2012 |
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Литература народов мира. Крымскотатарское литературоведение |
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| citation_txt |
Biography as fiction in tom stoppard’s intellectual drama:”Travesties” / L. Bondarenko // Культура народов Причерноморья. — 2012. — № 224. — С. 63-64. — Бібліогр.: 5 назв. — англ. |
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Культура народов Причерноморья |
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ЛИТЕРАТУРА НАРОДОВ МИРА. КРЫМСКОТАТАРСКОЕ ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ
63
духу «восхваления» стоят их произведения, в одном ряду с произведениями их далёких предшественников.
Следует предположить, что жанр «восхвалений» один из самых удачных жанров из этого
многообразия, так как он встречается в поэзии современности, продолжает дальнейшее развитие и,
соответственно, найдёт своё место в будущих трудах поэтов нашего века.
Источники и литература:
1. Розен В. Р. Древнеарабская поэзия и её критика / В. Р. Розен. – М. : Иностранная литература, 1872. – 57
с.
2. Фильштинский И. М. Арабская поэзия средних веков / И. М. Фильштинский. – М. : Наука, 1975. – 217 с.
3. Фильштинский И. М. Арабская литература в средние века / И. М. Фильштинский. – М. : Наука, 1977. –
254 с.
4. Арабская средневековая культура и литература // Сборник статей зарубежных учёных / под ред.
Л. Ш. Ржанского. – М. : Мысль, 1978. – 64 с.
5. Арабская и мировая литература : сб. статей. – Каир : Альмадани, 1999. – 97 с.
6. Беляев В. И. Основные черты арабской поэзии в начале аббасидского периода : т. 2 / В. И. Беляев. –
М. : Наука, 1963. – 320 с.
7. Виппер Ю. Б. Поэзия плеяды. Становление литературной школы / Ю. Б. Виппер. – М. : Наука, 1976. –
431 с.
8. Гибб Х. А. Р. Арабская литература. Классический период / Х. А. Р. Гибб. – М. : Изд-во вост. лит., 1960. –
185 с.
9. Грюнебаум Г. Э. Основные черты арабо-мусульманской культуры : статьи разных лет / Г. Э. Грюнебаум.
– М. : Наука,1981. – 207 с.
10. Коцарев Н. К. Писатели Египта. XX век / Н. К. Коцарев. – М. : Наука, 1976. – 344 с.
Bondarenko L. УДК 821.111(73)
BIOGRAPHY AS FICTION IN TOM STOPPARD’S INTELLECTUAL
DRAMA:”TRAVESTIES”
БИОГРАФИЯ КАК ХУДОЖЕСТВЕННЫЙ ВЫМЫСЕЛ В ПЬЕСЕ ТОМА СТОППАРДА
«ТРАВЕСТИ»
«Травести» считается одной из наиболее интеллектуальных пьес Стоппарда, персонажами которой являются
реальные исторические личности, высказывающие различные противоречивые идеи и развлекают публику.
Tom Stoppard’s intellectual drama has been attracting attention of most prominent philologists and critics all
over the world since he started writing in the 1960s. Stoppard writes about different people and his plays have most
unusual settings and thematic content. Fictionalized biography is one of them. Stoppard is not the only modern
author however to exploit biographies of historical figures to make a fiction. Among those are Stephen Fry
“Making History”, Peter Ackroyd “Mao”, John Cotzee “Summertime”, and others. In his plays, such as “Invention
of Love”, “Utopia”, “Jumpers”, “Arcadia”, “The Indian Ink” Tom Stoppard refers to real historical personalities
making them characters of his plays, among which “Travesties” is the most interesting one in terms of fictionalized
biographies. Here we view we view the biographical aspect as a characteristic of Stoppard’s literary style.
“Travesties” exists in two published versions. The first text was published in the spring of 1975. When the
RSC revived the play in 1993, Stoppard made significant revisions that strengthen the play. As a philologist, critic
and the author of some novels, Jim Hunter says, “Though generally seen as one of Stoppard’s best plays, it does
present a basic difficulty: it assumes considerable advance knowledge in its audience. Whereas Rozencrantz may
work fairly well for someone who does not know Hamlet, Travesties depends heavily for its humour and irony on
prior knowledge of Oscar Wilde’s comedy The importance of being Earnest and ideally the spectator should also
know something of Ulysses, the Dada movement and twentieth-century Russian history. For once, therefore, it may
be better to start with background rather than with play itself [2, 105]”.
Stoppard’s Travesties is based on all kinds of play – intertextual, intellectual, play of history and biographies of
prominent historical figures. Switzerland remained neutral in the First World War, and thus attracted a number of
intellectuals from elsewhere in Europe. Three men living in Zurich were each ground-breaking leaders in their
different fields. They did not actually know each other, but Stoppard decided to bring them together in his play. Just
as it is in his style to produce rational explanations to apparently irrational, so he has been often mixing apparently
incompatible ingredients in his texts. In Travesties, the three thinkers – James Joyce, Tristan Tzara and Lenin – held
strong views that appear to be exclusive: each might have disdained the beliefs of the other two. J. Hunter points
out, that “the Stoppard’s formula ‘A minus A’ could have become triple – in fact multiple, when caricature
conservative voice of Carr is added [2, 106]. All the characters were in Zurich one time or the other, so why could
they not meet there, at least in a play.
James Joyce, born in Dublin in 1882, from the age of twenty lived largely in Continental Europe, variously in
Paris, Trieste and from 1915 to 1919, Zurich. He scraped a living by teaching, but was utterly dedicated to making
himself into a great writer. He published few books, but each had been crafted with immense care over a long
period. “Dubliners” (1914) is considered to be one of the best books of short stories in English and “A Portrait of
the Artist as a Young Man” (1916) to be the best autobiographical novel. In his masterpiece “Ulysses” (1922), that
Bondarenko L.
BIOGRAPHY AS FICTION IN TOM STOPPARD’S INTELLECTUAL DRAMA:”TRAVESTIES”
64
he wrote during the war, Joyce described one day in Dublin – the day of his first date with Nora Barnacle, his
mistress and eventful wife. Joyce died in Zurich in 1940.
In 1976 Stoppard admitted to Ronald Hayman, “I have a love-hate relationship with this mythical figure of the
dedicated writer… the artist who is very serious about himself and ploughs a lonely furrow and occasionally a few
pages are released to the millions … About 51 percent of me views this figure with utter contempt and about 49
percent with total admiration [1, 25]”. That is, as J. Hunter calls it, Tom Stoppard’s favorite formula – “A minus
A”, which is fully revealed in “Travesties”. However, on the last page of Act One, admiration takes over contempt,
as Joyce says: “I wrote Ulysses. What did you do? [3, 345]”
Every character in the play, except Lenin is a ‘travesty’, not an accurate biographical portrait, and Joyce’s
vague socialist and republican sympathies are quietly suppressed. But his case for the importance of art is
eloquently voiced in the climatic speech of the main character. And the ground for that has incidentally been
prepared – with marginal inconsistency – in the voice of Tzara [3, 40].
Tristan Tzara was a Romanian poet; born in 1896, he was just about twenty when he invented the name ‘Dada’
(the event is described in the play [3, 52]) for the new movement in art and literature founded in Zurich in 1916.
Parallel rebellions took place in New York and Paris, where in 1922 an international Dada exhibitioners mounted.
Gradually the movement developed into Surrealism, which has lasted better – but then Tzara might well have
claimed that Dada was never meant to last, not to take on the status of traditional ‘art’. The best remembered
Dadaist work is probably Varcel Duchamp’s mustached ‘Mona Lisa’ (1919).
In his speeches in the play Tzara summarizes Dadaist thinking and the history of Dada’s early days in Zurich,
which is elicited in the ‘catechism’ scene [3, 49-54]. The nonsenses here are genuinely those of Dada, not invented
by Stoppard. The basic idea was that the Western culture which had allowed the war to occur and was continuing to
fund it must be rotten even at its supposedly sensitive core – that is, its art, which therefore should not be respected
but abused. Dada similarly attacked all historical analysis in terms of ‘causality’ [3, 24]. And however angry Dada
movement claimed to be, it sounds as if it must also have been fun.
Stoppard’s version of Tzara shows how important it is to subvert everyone’s tendency to take themselves too
seriously. Because of this reason and because he at least understands the human significance of art, Tzara is the
right opponent for Joyce. He also brings about the deliberate craziness of Dada, which contributes its own laughter
to the play.
Another historical figure in “Travesties” is Lenin, whose real name was Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov. Born in
1870, he worked as a lawyer in St. Petersburg. He took part in the unsuccessful Russian Revolution of 1905, after
which he was forced to live in exile.
In February 1917, revolution broke out again in St. Petersburg and the news reaches Lenin at the beginning of
“Travesties”. In April the Germans smuggled Lenin by train back to St. Petersburg in the hope that as indeed
happened, he would gain power and withdraw Russia from the war, enabling Germany to concentrate on its
Western Front. For Lenin to travel to Russia was therefore against Allied interests. The West did eventually win the
war, but Lenin ruled the Soviet Union from 1917 until his death in 1924, creating a brutal totalitarism state which
would wield huge international influence on most of the twentieth century history. If the British Consul of the time
had genuinely managed to intercept Lenin’s journey, that could have altered the course of history.
Stoppard’s Lenin is the only character that is not funny and not designed as a travesty. The reason why he is
treated so differently from the other historical figures, and the question of how well he fits into the play at all, are
crucial and remain a mystery.
“Travesties” notionally takes place within the rambling memory and wishful thinking of its fourth leading male
character, Henry Carr, who was an actor in Joyce’s play, is the narrator in Tom Stoppard’s, and as some critics
think the protagonist. Being highly intellectual, “Travesty” is supplied with an understandably embarrassed but
gracious foreword in which the dramatist outlines not only Joyce’s dealings with the real Carr but facts contributed
by Carr’s widow after the first performance. This puts the history straight but for the play the author invented the
Carr that suited him – and also Carr’s fantasies, in which the name of the real Consul, Bennett is given to his
manservant. Old Cecily, another character of the play does point out this and other inaccuracies in the play’s
closing moments. Old Carr’s response and ironically this could be Tzara speaking – is “What of it?”
The play’s Carr has, like the real Carr, been invalided out of the trenches, and thus brings to the stage brief
glimpses of the carnage gripping most of Europe. Also as a conventional public school educated Englishman of the
period, he can give voice – just as confidently as Joyce and Tzara to their opinions – to conventional middle-class
male views of patriotism and art. He sees himself as a sane average man surrounded by near-lunatics; but as a
chorus – a link between the action and the audience – he is distinctly untrustworthy in his weakening faculties and
his keenness to present the best image of himself rather than to tell the truth. His most distinctive character trait is
lifted deftly by Stoppard from a historical hint. If the real Carr spent so much on his stage costume, he could be
developed as a man obsessed with his attire, so that not only the events of “The Importance of Being Earnest “ but
also the horrors of the trenches are summed up in terms of wardrobe [3, 25].
Stoppard came across Carr when researching Joyce. His other discovery was that while in Zurich Joyce had
staged a production of “Earnest”. The play was a huge success in February1895, and a few months later, Wilde was
in prison after being publicly accused by Douglas’s father. In hindsight, the play seems to have been simultaneously
harmless and outrageous – pushing its author’s luck.
“Travesties”, however, does not exploit this particular excitement. Stoppard uses Wilde’s play rather the other
way: as a stable and innocent outline, a structure of classical English decorum, which can itself been travestied as
much as historical figures such as Joyce.
In early drafts Stoppard’s play was called “Prism” after Cecily’s governess, whose name suggests both
primness and toughness. A prism shows light at different angles and from different sides: and that is the kind of
ЛИТЕРАТУРА НАРОДОВ МИРА. КРЫМСКОТАТАРСКОЕ ЛИТЕРАТУРОВЕДЕНИЕ
65
multiple vision offered by the crazy arguments in Act One of “Travesties”, and also more uneasily by the excerpts
from Lenin in Act Two.
Stoppard’s play “break its head to be entertaining” and is quite capable of “ambushing” the audience even in
the play’s opening moments, having led them unsuspecting into the theatre [2, 130]. Those plays are “Arcadia”,
“Jumpers” and “Travesties”, which begin with baffling mixtures of language. It is some relief to arrive at the
comprehensible narrative of Old Carr, but then that route soon starts to feel insecure as his mind and language
wander. When Bennett enters there is hope of a story, a play developing. But it seems ambushed by a time-slip –
Bennett and Carr repeating lines from a page earlier – and in the next few pages by several more. The entrance of
Tzara, Gwen and Joyce seems to signal the travesty of “Earnest” hinted at by earlier echoes: ‘eight bottles of
champagne are entered…’[3, 55]; but it instantly then crashes, Tzara appearing as a ludicrous foreigner and the
dialogue locked into idiot limericks; hopes of Wildean elegance are dashed almost as soon as raised. But then
suddenly the whole Tzara entrance is re-staged and the speeches become Wildean prose after all. It is entirely
characteristic of Stoppard to present the more ridiculous version first. Even Beethoven himself and his music are
suddenly ambushed by 1920s song-and-dance routine. The last words of the play are its final ambush: ‘I learned
three things… I forget the third thing [3, 67]”.
With the exception of the final quotation from Lenin himself, psychological realism is not attempted in
“Travesties”. Carr’s recollections are the nearest we get to it. But his obsession with fine tailoring is taken to
cartoon extremes – which entirely fits the general tone of the play. Lenin is seen mostly externally and allowed to
speak for himself. Stoppard chose not to ‘write’ him. The rest of the characters are farce stereotypes, not even close
copies of Wilde’s characters, and are expected to perform at different times in quite different modes – limerick
backchat, impassioned speech, song-and-dance: they are basically the leads in a musical revue. Their claims on our
more serious attention rest in the unfarcial beliefs some of them defend – which is why Gwen, who is given no
intellectual stance, gets somewhat ‘squeezed out.
Collectively the characters in “Travesties” are strikingly different from those in most other Stoppard play.
Unlike other personages, characters in “Travesties” radiate a staggering, sometimes alarming self-confidence. They
have arrived at their beliefs and don’t propose to be budged from them. This does not include Nadya, and Gwen
remains a bit marginal, and Old Carr’s erratic memories carry hints of pathetic self-doubt; but young Carr, Tzara,
Joyce, Cecily and Lenin are all given speeches of ranting ideological certainty. And even Bennett as a secret
doctrinaire socialist, who on his final appearance looks at his employer ‘implacably’, prides himself on his
knowingness: he is sure, like the others, that he has it right. Their dialogue, modeled as it is on Wilde, is
superficially dandyish and cynical; but when provoked these characters turn out not to be cynics at all but more like
fanatics.
Stoppard wants them to be heard and wants us to care – not for them as characters, but for the ideas they
declaim: about the horror of the trenches, about the commercial and political amoralities that led to that horror,
about whether there is a ‘natural right of the people to the common ownership of their country and its resources [3,
34]’, about the ‘false premise … that people are sensational kind of material object’ about the absurdity and
gratuitousness of art, and about its necessity and immorality.
References:
1. Hayman R. Tom Stoppard / R. Hayman. – L. : F&F, 1982. – 250 p.
2. Hunter J. Tom Stoppard / J. Hunter. – L. : F&F, 2000. – 240 p.
3. Stoppard T. Tom Stoppard: Plays / T. Stoppard. – L. : F&F, 2005. – 600 p.
4. Wilde O. The Importance of Being Earnest / O. Wilde. – L. : F&F, 2001. – 45 p.
Сулейманова Д.Н. УДК 821.512.143.09
СТИЛИСТИЧЕСКИЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ КОРОТКИХ ПРОЗАИЧЕСКИХ
ПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЙ ХИКЯЕДЖИ СОХТА (СУЛЕЙМАНА ГЪАЗЫ)
Постановка проблемы. Творчество Хикяеджи Сохта представляет собой интересный ряд
прозаических произведений, художественный текст которых эксплицирует разнообразную функционально-
стилевую принадлежность. Поэтому будет правомерным, на наш взгляд, определить стилистику
произведений как авторскую прозу и провести исследования над стилистическими приемами присущими
перу писателя.
Цель исследования состоит в определении стилистических особенностей прозы Хикяеджи Сохта и
возможного влияния его индивидуальной художественной речи на развитие крымскотатарского
литературного языка рубежа ХIХ-ХХ веков.
В работе в качестве ведущего метода был избран функционально-стилистический метод.
Для истории крымскотатарского литературного языка рубеж ХIХ-ХХ веков – это период, в который
произошли существенные изменения в строе и функционировании литературного языка, определившие
дальнейший ход его развития в послеоктябрьскую эпоху. Хронологические рамки этого этапа в истории
крымскотатарского литературного языка, можно определить в настоящее время как конец XIX века, точнее
80-годы XIX века и до 1924 года (первая языковая конференция), примеры использования литературного
языка в произведениях И. Гаспринского «Дар-ур рахат мусульманлары» (1887г.), А.С. Айвазов «Эсарет
къурбанлары» (1907г.), О. Акъчокъракълы «Хикяети Ненкеджан ханым дюрбеси» (1899г.), переводы басен
Крылова (1901г.), «Ислям ака» Дж. Сейдамета (1922г.) и др.
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