Tragic fool of French literature as a topos of identity (from Victor Hugo and Paul Verlaine artistic experience)

Abstract

The symbol, as an archetype with inexhaustible meanings, remains a relevant object of scientific research. Especially when it comes to symbols used by different national cultures. One of such symbols, an image of the tragic fool, is quite favoured by the writers of romanticism and the turn of the twentieth century. A general interest in their artistic and aesthetic systems, the multiplicity of interpretations of archsymbols, and the specifics of their authorial and national manifestations in literature determine the relevance of this study. The subject of the study is the specifics of the image of the tragic fool in the works the French writers iconic for romanticism (Victor Hugo) and symbolism (Paul Verlaine). Historical and literary, comparative and typological, archetypal scientific methods are used in the work. Their potential made it possible to consider the functioning peculiarities of the image of a tragic fool through the prism of identity. The broad context of this problem made it possible to solve several objectives: to outline the origins of the image; determine the factors of its actualization in the romanticism and modernism works; and analyze the authors’ versions of interpretation. Herein is the novelty of the study. The results of the study are as follows: in French literature of romanticism and symbolism — given such a common ideological and artistic basis for their aesthetics as individualism — in Hugo’s romance the tragic fool is a grotesque mark of the era, a symbol of unresolved complex social problems. In contrast, the symbolist Verlaine perceives the tragic fool an alter ego of the contemporary artist in particular and a man of the era in general, giving preference to aesthetic and philosophical priorities over social. The high potential of the autobiographical content of the image of the tragic fool is a peculiar feature of the modernist interpretation. He functions both as a lyrical hero and a mask of an autolyrical character. In literary mystifications, it is a character under a double mask. In the artist’s chosen strategy of realization of the life scenario, this symbol is expressed in the form of feigned asociality, épater le bourgeois, primitivism as an imitation of creativity, self-parody. Further studies are promising; the image of the tragic fool in various national literatures is a common tool for writers to mockingly demonstrate the “interior” of the social and world order. At the same time, the tragic accent of this image lies in the tradition to perceive one’s work as a manifesto of “hateful love” for one’s time, homeland, and the world.