Issues of authorial dramatization of short prose in 20th-century literature: a comparative approach

Abstract

This article explores and describes common strategies used by authors when translating their own epic texts (short stories and novellas) into dramatic versions (plays) and the ways in which they are interpreted. While in a grand epic adaptation (for example, the adaptation of D.S. Merezhkovsky's novel "The Antichrist: Peter and Alexei" into the tragedy "Tsarevich Alexei"), the author primarily concentrates the plot and restructures the imagery, focusing the main action around a more or less local event, an author's adaptation of a previously written short story or novella takes a different approach.

Comparing thematically disparate stories "Calchas" by A.P. Chekhov, "The Man Who Wasn't There" by S.D. Dovlatov, as well as "The Reason" by L. Frank and "The Iron Cross" by H. Müller, the authors of this article explore the authors' common strategies for staging the text. Key analytical questions include reinterpreting the central character to narrow down their traits and characteristics, enhancing the role of the antagonist, resorting to poetic form (or fragments), and diminishing the parable-like nature of the original text.

The assessment of the role and function of the used techniques and methods of self-dramatization based on a comparative approach is perceived as a strategy for understanding the ideological development of the original plot within the framework of the author’s system of values.