THE IMAGE OF ORPHEUS AS A MYTHOLOGICAL INTERTEXT IN THE WORKS OF URS WIDMER

Stikhina I. A., Lapina V. Yu.

The article discusses the prevalence of the mythological plot about Orpheus in world literature and literary interest in it. The high valency of the ancient myth and the various ways of its interpretation by authors of the past and present are noted. The purpose of the article is to examine the interpretation and metamorphoses of the plot in the works of the Swiss German-speaking author Urs Widmer. Comparative methods, methods of intertextual analysis, mythocriticism, and structural poetics are used as research methods. In addition to Widmer’s fictional texts, his literary analysis of the myth is also considered. Using the example of Widmer’s works, it is proved that the writer offers multidimensional interpretations, which trace both the tendency of demythologization and mythologization. The material was the stories of U. Widmer “Orpheus. The Second Descent", "The Blue Siphon", the novel "Mr. Adamson". Debunking a myth and its deconstruction include playing with motives – the image of Orpheus, for example, is projected onto other characters who find their way to and from the kingdom of the dead. At the same time, one of the leitmotifs becomes the search for lost harmony in the process of these travels and the impossibility of achieving it. The themes “failure of an artist” and “the incapability of the word magic” are being discussed as well. By playing with mythological motives, U. Widmer also creates projections of neomyths – about the unattainability of harmony in the human world, about the catastrophic development of human history. The myth of Orpheus, therefore, is a very productive plot with multidimensional potentials to be revealed in various contexts of the Swiss writer’s works.

Keywords:ancient myth, mythological plot, Orpheus, Urs Widmer, demythologization, mythologization.