The clown procession and the concept of masquerade in the poetry of T. S. Eliot: de/construction of laughter and the comic in the identity of the individual and society – different models of text de/construction and interpretation

Апстракт

This paper introduces the presented conflicts and convergence of two poetics in the interpretation of T. S. Eliot’s poetry, which together constitute a dynamic poetic system. The poetics of detail-broader context, in relation to the deconstructionist poetics of trace-suggestion, intersect and mutually influence one another, leading to a transformation in the understanding of individual and collective identity within the urban setting. Ňhe main aim of this study is to research the urban environment, the concepts of laughter and the comic play a formative role in reshaping interpretations of identity – both personal and societal. Viewed through the lenses of the individual and the group, the notion of identity is repositioned, and its values are deconstructively shifted into a new hierarchical sequence of concepts. Within this sequence, the multiple refractions of image and reflection generate both personal and collective identity. Laughter articulates the formation of individual identity, while the comic points to the formation of both through poetics that engage with laughter and the comic simultaneously. Through metapoetic qualities and self-referential strategies, identity is linked to contemporary understandings of the self within the urban milieu. Interwoven methodologies of the deconstructionist model – disrupting binary oppositions of self and world and engaging cultural models – are presented alongside the detail-broader context poetics, which depict the city and its inhabitants through their behavior, thereby rendering both the city and the self in their search for identity – personal, civic, and social. From Eliot’s early poetry in the Notebook to the officially published poems from 1917 onward, a multitude of voices emerge, serving as carriers of metonymic details that contribute to a broader metaphorical image. The analysis revealed that within this interplay, both the voices and images are transformed, granting the reader a space for deconstructive writing and interpretation. Laughter, the comic, irony, and satire form a double foundation: through a dual deconstructive gesture, they refer not only to the depicted images and scenes but also to the speaking figures within the poems and, ultimately, to the author himself. These results suggests that through metaqualitative means, within a dynamic poetic system, the author reasserts his presence and reestablishes his role – not merely as intentional subject, but as a deconstructionist operation of suggestion and trace, encoded in verses, signs, and numerous lacunae of signification within a complex poetic framework.