RussianPoetic and ideological features of the novel about African American Othello (“New Boy” by Tracy Chevalier)
Liberal Arts in Russia. 2022. Vol. 11. No. 2. Pp. 93-102.
Get the full text (Russian) Email: galgrig7@list.ruAbstract
This article is the first in Russian philology study of the poetical and ideological features of the novel by T. Chevalier “New Boy” (2017). It also studies the specifics of the proposed reception of Shakespeare’s tragedy “Othello” which determines the scientific novelty and relevance of the work. The outlined historical and cultural context of interpretations of the character’s image (throughout the 17th-21st centuries) made it possible to conclude that at the turn of the 20th-21st centuries Shakespeare’s play gained new relevance and demonstrated its striking modernity, opening painful points of the “clash of civilizations” era. This determines the special topicality of the novel by T. Chevalier, a cover version of Shakespeare’s Othello, which takes place in one day at a school in the District of Columbia in the early 1970s. In the course of the research, the following results were obtained: 1) the Shakespearean code of the novel was analyzed, which is revealed at the level of the plot and the system of heroes; 2) the main ideological constant of the novel was highlighted - the history of the consciousness formation of a black youth in the racist world of white Americans; 3) the “black text” of the novel associated with the image of Ou Sisi’s older sister, with the story by S. Jackson “After you, my dear Alphonse” and with the intertext of the novel “Tamango” by P. Mérimée, as well as with the theme of Ou’s acquisition of his own identity was studied; 4) the form of the novel, built in accordance with almost all the rules of classicism, and its philosophical basis, which is in dialogical relations with the system of M. Buber, are considered.
Keywords
- • Shakespeare
- • Othello
- • Tracy Chevalier
- • New boy
- • interpretation
- • reception
- • poetics
References
- Beit D. Inostrannaya literatura. 2016. No. 5. Pp. 207-219.
- Buber M. Ya i Ty. Dva obraza very. Moscow: Respublika, 1995. Pp. 15-92.
- Prometei. 2021. 23 maya.
- Telegraph. 2021. 22 maya.
- Glyba K. Komsomol'skaya pravda. 2021. 26 maya.
- Kott J. Shekspir - nash sovremennik [Shakespeare, our contemporary]. Saint Petersburg: Baltiiskie sezony, 2011.
- Lotman Yu. M. Semiosfera. Saint Petersburg: Iskusstvo-Saint Petersburg, 2000. Pp. 41-62.
- Makarov V. S., Zakharov N. V., Gaidin B. N. Problemy filologii i iskusstvoznaniya. 2016. No. 4. Pp. 275-302.
- Sovina M. LENTA. RU. 2021. 22 maya.
- Smith E. I vse eto Shekspir [This is Shakespare]. Moscow: Mann, Ivanov i Ferber, 2020.
- Pushkin A. S. Table-Talk. Sobr. soch. v 10 t. Moscow: GIKhL, 1962. Vol. 7. Pp. 208.
- Rodionova A. LIFE. 2021. 22 maya.
- Huntington S. Stolknoveniya tsivilizatsii [The clash of civilizations]. Moscow: AST, 2016.
- Chevalier T. Noven'kii [New boy]. Moscow: "E", 2018.
- Shekspir v mezhdistsiplinarnykh gumanitarnykh issledovaniyakh. Comp. V. S. Makarov, N. V. Zakharov, B. N. Gaidin. Moscow: izd-vo Moskovskogo gumanitarnogo universiteta, 2015.
- Shakespeare W. Poln. sobr. soch. v 8 t. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1960. Vol. 6. Pp. 3-157.
- Shakespeare W. Otello. Poln. sobr. soch. v 8 t. Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1960. Vol. 6. Pp. 281-425.
- Shekspira obvinili v rasizme iz-za strok o zhenskoi krasote. Ren TV. 2021. 22 maya.
- U Shekspira nashli priznaki rasizma. Gazeta Ya. 2021. 6 iyunya.
- Uchenye razobrali Shekspira na ottenki, zapodozriv v rasizme. Tsar'grad. 2021. 23 maya.
- The Shakespeare Circle: An Alternative Biography. Ed. P. Edmondson, S. Wells. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015.
- Wells S. Great Shakespearean Actors: Burbage to Branagh. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.