Psychological Mechanisms of the Expression of Absurd Meaning in the Plays of W. Shakespeare

Abstract

The article deals with the definitions of the term «absurd», the paradigm of
commedia dell’arte from a psychological point of view. It was shown that the
role of the absurd in Shakespeare’s plays was outlined. It was noted that the
term «absurd» came from the Latin: «absurdus» is «nonsignificance», «nonsense
». The absurdity, on the one hand, is connected with the «skepticism» of
Socrates (I know that I do not know anything), and, on the other hand, with
Socratic irony (do not isolate anything completed, finished, forever given and
unchanged). It was noted that already in the ancient art the absurd was used
to reach the understanding of unknown things and actions. In particular, in the
anthology, pantomime, the clown appears as moros or stupidus; his absurd
behavior is a result of his inability to understand the simplest logical connections
of things.
It was stressed that thanked to the absurdity, W. Shakespeare opened
new faces, new depths and, at the same time, the tragedy in Renaissance
dualism. It was noted that the official status of the Person W. Shakespeare
considered unreal, temporary; the negative characters in his drama were
people who seek to conquer or strengthen their official status. Such a life goal
is false, perverse, leads eventually to a vital defeat. In order to achieve their
deceptive purpose, such people often have drown in natural feelings or sacrifice
natural links, that is, in such a way, they are killing their natural essence.
Given the absurd frames, explicated in the plays of W. Shakespeare, the
article highlights the psychological mechanisms of the expression of the absurd
meaning by a writer. These are such mechanisms as: the explication of
absurd frames existing in the consciousness of the individual; the images of
absurd in terms of random details, archetypes, metaphorical contexts; the explication
of the absurdly hidden nature of causal relationships that appear to
be evident as a result of the usage of certain lexical units by the author, lexicalstylistic
means, etc.; the presentation of a play of an absurd tie by the author;
the presentation of the context of deciphering the play by the author with an
absurdly displaced center.
The article emphasized that it was necessary to pay attention, first of
all, to the fact that the understanding of the absurdity was arising as a result
of unexpected for the reader transforming the tense context of the play into
quite obvious semantic frames. According to such conditions, the witty absurdity
will include the fact that the reader first perceives a play for the truth
that misleads him, and then turns into persistent absurd frames that are fixed,
fixed in the consciousness of the individual. Such frames, in turn, can be understood
by the reader as containing nonsense, senselessness, can lead to the
creation of stable cliches (built on the principle of «game of ideas»), which, in
turn, become structural components of human consciousness.