literary play

The article researches the problems and the poetics of the play by V. Katayev «A Million Pangs»: devices of creating satirical images are regarded; the problem of a literary dialogue of the author with his contemporaries (M. Bulgakov, N. Erdman, I. Ilf and E. Petrov) is revealed; the peculiarity of Katayev’s satire on pre-revolutionary intelligentsia is identified.

The article researches the play poetics of the theatre piece «Lickspittle» by I. Ilf, E. Petrov, M. Volpin on the level of the plot, characters, literary reminiscences, language humor. Functions of the co-authors’ play strategy are identified, such as achieving the synthesis of satire and vaudeville principles and the techniques of text structure. The link between «Lickspittle» and the novel by I. Ilf and E. Petrov «The Golden Calf» is revealed.

The article studies one of the leading stylistic key notes of I. Ilf and E. Petrov’s oeuvre – playing with ‘other’ texts. In the course of analyzing the vaudeville A Strong Feeling a system of allusions to A. P. Chekhov’s play The Wedding is identified (the plot, genre, system of characters, etc.). The study of the ‘quote element’ in the play A Strong Feeling helps to draw the conclusion on the stylistic unity of the co-authors’ creative manner.