Шекспиросфера и неоднородность культурного пространства

Abstract

Found in the works of Plato, Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa and others, the concept of a “sphere” is one of the oldest models of the world’s perfection. The concept of the sphere allowed describing both the movement of the Universe, human intellect, and God’s all-encompassing gaze, which includes the large and the small, the dominant and the periphery, the phenomenon and its variants, opposite principles, order and chaos, the moving and the static. Attempting to outline non-linear and non-structurable semiotic processes, Yuri Lotman has introduced the concept of the “semiosphere” as related to the cultural codes. The same features can apply to the Shakespearean sphere. In modern culture it moves towards endless expansion by means of interpretation, reactualization and reconstruction, at the same time preserving Shakespeare and his works at its very core. Lotman’s understanding of the “semiosphere” relies on the idea of infinite motion where the relations between the tradition and cultural heritage. In our study, Shakespeare and his texts act as this point of tradition. On the one hand, they are the productive (primary) discourse, which allows us to use the thesaurus approach. On the other, Shakespeare’s texts are far more than a playground for presentism and modernization in line with the current political, social and ethical problem. They also become a field of new types of art, novel scholarly research methods and theories; they engage the context of the historical period and mark it as “Shakespeare’s England”. Hence, the modern interpretation of the concept of the sphere strives to combine the systemic and the structural with the force that dissolves them. A single point of reference helps to imagine the sphere as a whole. The Shakespearean sphere is a convincing proof of this combination.