The newest comedy (the genre specifics)

The article examines the genre specifics of the newest comedy (based on Russian comedy). Though the newest drama is the object of increasing attention of the searchers, the newest comedy has not yet been thoroughly studied. The definition of its genre specifics is hampered by too wide application of the term comedy both by the searchers and dramatists. A multitude of texts is labeled by their authors as comedies are dramas. In order to make the genre specifics of the newest comedy more precise, we compare it to the classical comedy on the basis of N.D. Tamarchenko's conception of classical drama. Classical comedy represents the background for the differences of the newest genre. The author comes to the conclusion that the newest drama as a whole possesses the features which are typical of the newest comedy as compared to the classical one: the presence of self-identifying characters; the possibility of the dialogues and cues bearing no relation to the action; epicalization represented by the abundance of stage directions; the possibility of heteroglossia; the tendency to employ “minor forms”. At the same time, dialogues with interruption, comments, mocking, lampooning, comic misunderstanding, marriage at closing curtain, and restoring the norm through benevolent trickery - all these features show that the newest comedy retains the eternal kernel of the classical comedy in its structure whose heiress it is. This combination of the eternal kernel and the features of the newest drama as a whole comprises the specifics of the newest comedy