The article deals with the evolution of the system of actants in Molière’s comedy. The author of the article shows that throughout the entire body of Molière’s work, the diversity of plots arises due to the fact that the playwright combines elements of various types of comedy in each play, primarily elements of Italian comedy (both sophisticated and commedia dell’arte) and French farce. At the same time, the characters not only realize the functions of the actants described by V. Propp and A.Zh. Greimas for fairy-tale and more broadly – narrative plots, but they are also endowed with features of the farcical types of “rogue” or “simpleton”. Playing with the plot scheme of the farce and the Italian comedy, Molière freely combines the functions of various actors in the main characters of each play, either actualizing the well-known plot schemes or destroying them. Moliere’s favorite element of the plot scheme remains the denouement, which arises due to a happy accident, since its other types, in his opinion, are unable to lead to a happy ending.
actants; farce; commedia dell’arte; fabula; plot.
For citation: Ermolenko, G.N. “The Evolution of the System of Actants in Molière’s Comedy”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 2(56), 2022, pp. 9–29. DOI: 10.31249/litzhur/2022.56.01
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