Персонажи-литераторы и их "тексты в тексте"

Abstract

This paper deals with “character-writers”, i.e. fictional characters acting as “secondary authors” who create their own texts within the main text of a literary work. The meaning of “texts within the text” written by Chekhov’s characters from “The Seagull” – writer Trigorin and playwright Treplev, as well as their literary predecessor, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is discussed. The paper focuses on written “texts within the text” that have a prophetic meaning, foreshadowing the fate of their authors. Ham-let appears to be the first hero in European literature who writes dramatic “texts within the text” that contain a foreshadowing of his own death. It is shown that “The Mousetrap”, the play within the play (equivalent of “the text within the text”) in which the murderer (“a certain Lucianus, the king’s nephew”) poisons his victim, not only imitates the homicidal poisoning of Hamlet’s father by Claudius in the past, but prefigures the future murder of king Claudius by his real nephew Hamlet. It is noteworthy to mention that Hamlet kills Claudius also with the help of poison: first, stabbing him with an “envenomed” dagger, and then forcing him to drink off his “potion”. The author argues that the motif of murder by poisoning in “The Mousetrap” is also a foreshadowing of homicidal poisoning of another king – Hamlet himself. Indeed, after prince Hamlet kills Claudius, he, according to the rules of succession, becomes the rightful king of Denmark. Hamlet is wounded by Laertes, using the poisoned weapon, and dies. The poison is tempered by Claudius. Thus, the play within the play about homicidal poisoning that Hamlet composed about Claudius turns out to be a foreshadowing of Ham-let’s own death from poison prepared by Claudius. In a symbolic sense, Hamlet falls into his own “Mousetrap”.