GROTESQUE IMAGERY OF NOVEL BY R. MERLE “WEEKEND AT DUNKIRK” IN ASPECT OF POETICS OF TITLE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the novel by the French writer R. Merle “Weekend at Dunkirk” (“Week-end à Zuydcootе”), 1949. This work follows the national tradition of understanding the First and Second World Wars in the form of an artistic transformation of the fact, however, it has a problematic and poetological specificity, associated with the author’s perception of war as a manifestation of existential absurdity. This gives rise to numerous manifestations of grotesque poetics, embedded as a certain prognostic code, in the novel’s title. The actuality of the topic is determined by the need to explore the artistic experience of developing the theme of war in world literature of the 20th century in the context of modern attempts of artistic reflection of the tragic events of the Russian-Ukrainian war.The purpose of the article is to identify the potential for the development of grotesque (problem-conceptual and poetological) aspects of this work, which are inherent in the title of the novel “Weekend at Dunkirk”. The theoretical foundations of the study are formed by the works of G. Genette, V. Mukan, T. Samoylenko, L. Yuldasheva, etc. The literary analysis takes into account the scientific research of E. B. Boyd, L. Rasson, etc.The starting point of the study is the idea of the title of a work of art as a kind of code of the text and a key to understanding its meaning. It is the paratextual dialogue between the title of the novel by R. Merle “Weekend at Dunkirk” and the tragic content of the work that reveals the nature of the author’s perception of war, artistically realized by means of contrast and grotesque. Each component of the associative series inspired by the image of a “weekend on the south shore” (rest – relaxation, carefreeness, entertainment – sea – sun (burns) – sky – sand (beach) – flowering plants – warm starry nights), each time being actualized, is filled with the opposite meaning.Grotesqueness appears in the illogicality and absurdity of novel situations, where life always borders on death; in the duality of metaphysical time (peaceful/war) and the contrasting characteristics of the novel space (resort/theater of military operations), in “Rabelesian” reductions and grotesque metamorphoses, condensed zoomorphic imagery (grotesque combination of human/ animal) as a metaphor for “bestiality” in war, in the dominance of irony and sarcasm in the palette of novel pathos. The predominant codes of grotesque imagery in the novel are also the coherence of the human/animal/object worlds, the blurring of the boundary between the living/dead, the combination of the funny and the scary as a means of overcoming the fear of war and death. Thus, grotesqueness permeates all levels of the novel “Weekend at Dunkirk” – problematic and thematic, chronotopic, compositional, linguistic, and as a means of artistic generalization, it reveals the absurdity of the war, embodies existential positions.