Organization of action in the play “Telemachus” by V. Mass and N. Erdman

The relevance of the study is due to the need to study the creative heritage of N. Erdman, a world-famous playwright, in full. The article examines for the first time the unpublished text of the “representation in one act” “Telemachus”, created with the participation of N. Erdman. The purpose of this work is to identify the features of the organization of the action of the play, the expressive possibilities of the comic, actualizing the problems of Soviet society at the turn of the 1920s-30s. The text of the play “Telemachus” by V. Mass and N. Erdman as a research material was studied based on the works of V. Ya. Propp, V. M. Zhirmunsky. General scientific methods of analysis, synthesis, generalization were used, as well as such specifically literary criticism methods as typological, phenomenological, historical-functional methods and the method of descriptive poetics. The analysis of the play “Telemachus” in the context of the review of “The Odyssey” by the same authors reveals the authors’ travesty development of not only a fragment of Homer’s story, as indicated by the title, but also the story of the choice of the groom in the version of Gogol’s “Marriage” as well-known cultural models. The characters of V. Massa and N. Erdman with ancient names in Telemachus speak in hexameter, the sharper and more obvious in the actions of the protagonist, in the speech formulation of his requirements, in the means of achieving the goal, the manifestation of domestic socio-political reality at the turn of the 1920s and 30s. The travesty of fragments of the Homeric poem makes it possible to actualize the processes taking place both in the individual consciousness and in modern society. The dramatic action of the play of 1930 reveals the unrestrained desire of the main character to command, to subjugate others to direct events in a direction favorable to himself. As a result, the private is transformed into the state, the personal into the ideological, the foundations for creating a family and the normal existence of people are being destroyed. An analysis of the behavior of the characters and events of the play “Telemachus” reveals the logic of the changing and accepted by others demands of the main character to the mother and her suitors as a process of unstoppable assertion of an authoritarian ruler. Consistent development, transformation-travesty of a well-known plot - fragments of the Homeric poem in “The Odyssey”, “Telemachus” and other works by V. Mass and N. Erdman of the late 1920s – early 1930s. allows us to see these authors among the first creators of the epic drama of a conventionally metaphorical direction.

N. Erdman, V. Mass, “Telemachus”, N. Gogol, “Marriage”, Homer, “The Odyssey”, action, travestying, famous plot, conventionality, comicality, epic, non-classical drama