Theatricality as the Organizing Principle of the Narrative in Gilbert K. Chesterton's Novels

The article is devoted to the analysis of the theatricality of Gilbert K. Chesterton's novel-istic narrative. The material of The Napoleon of Notting Hill, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, Manalive and The Ball and the Cross shows that the creative space of the novels is organized as a theatrical performance. Chesterton does not just analyze the philosophical, ethical and aesthetic ideas and concepts characteristic for the Western European culture of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, but “plays” them, “represents” their possibilities and consequences, so that the creative world of the novels is organized as a stage on which opposing characters are materialized and personalized ideas. Using various forms of creative convention, the writer tries to destroy the stereotypes of the social and spiritual reality deeply rooted in his contemporaries. As a result of the analysis of Chesterton's Autobiography, essays and articles on the theater, the article shows that the use of theatrical aesthetics in Chesterton's works is determined by his personal interest to the theater and his special vision of the theater as a model of the world. To analyze the specificity of theatricality of Chesterton's novelistic narrative, the author uses conclusions of Yu.M. Lotman about the nature of semiotic mechanisms of theatrical art. The characters are like marionettes of a puppet theater, the dialogues are dynamic and paradoxical, the background is described as a scene, which allows speaking about the theatricality of the creative world of Chesterton's novels. Using the compositional technique of “the theater in the theater”, Chesterton includes a theatrical performance or a play in the theater. The underlined conventionality of Chesterton's characters as well as their portraits of his characters makes them look like masks in a folk or puppet theater. The puppet character has a diverse content: it can represent both the features of psychological or sociopolitical relations between people, as well as embody abstract concepts and ideas. In his novels, Chesterton actively destroys the illusion of the life-like artistic world, exposing its conventionality, theatricality, constructiveness. Chesterton's text does not reflect reality, but creates a new one, simulates it in accordance with certain goals and philosophical and ethical ideals of the author. The article concludes that the aesthetics of the puppet theater in Chesterton's works acquires a philosophical and symbolic content. The theatricality of the narrative allowed the English writer to produce an original creative language to embody his moral and aesthetic system of values, the “philosophy of joy”.

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