GENRE CONVERGENCE AS A SIGN OF TEXT CREATION OF THE PLAY «GOD OF CARNAGE» BY YASMINA REZA

Abstract

Postmodernism as a characteristic feature of the literary process of the second half of the 20th century is a good basis for author’s experiments both at the level of form and content of an artistic work. Yasmina Reza, as one of the leading French playwrights of the period, resorts to an experiment at the level of language and genre in her play “The God of Massacre”. The evaluation of the play by critics is ambiguous, in turn, the text of the play is analyzed in the article from the point of view of implementing the conditions of the boulevard theater and the “theatre of possibilities”, because the technique of presenting the text is important here. It is proven that the experimental nature of the play by the French playwright Yasmina Reza “The God of Massacre” is realized through spectacularity and theatricality, which are distinguished as essential features of modern French drama. A domestic plot, the presence of intrigue, good literary language, irony and humor used to describe the characters - all these are signs of a “quality-made play” from the repertoire of the commercial theater and are evidence of the play’s belonging to the boulevard theater. We define the mixing of literary genres and types that characterizes a postmodern text as genre convergence and genre diffusion. The concepts of convergence and diffusion are not synonymous. By genre convergence, we understand the interpenetration of differently oriented impulses, which leads to the emergence of hybrid, centauric forms. The melodramatic component in the text has its role and function and retains its influence on the text and its genre nature, the comedic and dramatic respectively perform their own functions. But with the interaction of the melodramatic, dramatic, comedic, absurdist genre of the play as a whole, it becomes mosaic, multi-colored, stereoscopic, polyphonic. Diffusion is distinguished by the blurring of the boundaries of generic and species forms, the interpenetration of one species into another. The epic elements present in the text are a manifestation of diffusion. Genre polyphony, language play and irony, sometimes sarcasm give full right to consider the play as an example of high literature.