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Theatre concept in the semantic space of W.S.Maugham’s Theatre (стр. 3 из 4)

In this case the events represented by the author introduce the mentioned concept: “She felt like a high-born damsel, with all the tradition of a great and ancient family to keep up; her purity was a pearl of great price; she also felt that she was making a wonderfully good impression: of course he was I a great gentleman, and “damn it all” it behaved her to be a great lady. She was so pleased with her performance that when she had got into her room and somewhat noisily locked the door, she paraded up and down bowing right and left graciously to her obsequious retainers. She stretched out her lily white hand for the trembling old steward to kiss (as a baby he had often dandled her on his knee, and when he pressed it with his pallid lips she felt something fall upon it” [27; 60].

The literary character’s retorts also represent the THEATRE concept: “In this business you have to take the rough with the smooth. You’re the best actress in England” [27; 79].

From this fragment we can make conclusion that the author considered that an actress must be integral personality, and it is not enough to have good career only: “With him she sought to be neither gay nor brilliant, she was tender and wistful. Her heart ached, notwithstanding the scintillating performance she had given during the day; arid ‘it was with almost complete sincerity that with sighs, sad looks and broken sentences, she made him understand that her life was hollow and despite the long continued success of her career she could not but feel that she had missed something. Sometimes she thought of the villa at Sorrento on the bay of Naples” [27; 141]. In this case the real theatre is represented by the author.

Besides, the THEATRE concept is represented with the help of the introduction of the literary character’s activities:

1) “Men were creatures of habit; that gave women such a hold on them. She did not feel a day older than he, and she was convinced that the disparity in their ages had never occurred to him” [27; 163]

2) “She could go and act in America for a year till the scandal had died down and then go into management with somebody else. But it would be a bore” [27; 172]

The THEATRE concept is also represented in the description of the events of the novel: “The play went well from the beginning; the audience, notwithstanding the season, a fashionable one, were pleased after the holidays to find themselves once more in a playhouse, and were ready to be amused” [27; 273].

So the THEATRE concept is very wide-spread in the novel “Theatre” by W.S. Maugham.

2.2 Theatre as people for W.S.Maugham’s

We have made some analysis of the fragments of the novel and can make conclusions that W.S. Maugham did not considered theatre as we used to. In the novel he showed us another side of theatre – theatre as people, actors; theatre as business, as money.

Theatre as people is mainly represented by W.S.Maugham with the help of the concept “actor”. The mentioned concept is mainly represented with the help of Julia’s image. So the author underlines the peculiarities of the actor’s activity in the following context: “She did it, if not mechanically, from an instinctive desire to please” [27; 18].

Besides, the concept “actor” is introduced with the help of the literary character’s retorts. For instance, this phenomenon is typical for Michael’s opinion: “Don’t be natural <…> The stage isn’t the place for that. The stage is make-believe. But seem natural” [27; 20].

The use of the elements of Julia’s biography also represents the concept “actor”: “Her own career had been singularly lacking in hardship <…> She learnt to speak French like a Frenchwoman. She was a born actress and it was an understood thing for as long as she could remember that she was to go on the stage <…> When Julia was a child of twelve this actress was a boisterous, fat old woman of more than sixty, but of great vitality, who loved food more than anything else in the world. She had a great, ringing laugh, like a man’s, and she talked in a deep, loud voice. It was she who gave Julia her first lessons. She taught her all the arts that she had herself learnt at the Conservatoire and she talked to her of Reichenberg who had played ingenues20 till she was seventy, of Sarah Bernhardt and her golden voice, of Mounet-Sully and his majesty, and of Coquelin the greatest actor of them all. She recited to her the great tirades of Corneille and Racine as she had learnt to say them at the Francaise and taught her to say them in the same way. It was charming to hear Julia in her childish voice recite those languorous, passionate speeches of Phedre, emphasizing the beat of the Alexandrines and mouthing her words in that manner which is so artificial and yet so wonderfully dramatic. Jane Taitbout must always have been a very stagy actress, but she taught Julia to articulate with extreme distinctness, she taught her how to walk and how to hold herself, she taught her not to be afraid of her own voice, and she made deliberate that wonderful sense of timing which Julia had by instinct and which afterwards was one of her greatest gifts.

When Julia was sixteen and went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in Gower Street she knew already much that they could teach her there. She had to get rid of a certain number of tricks that were out of date and she had to acquire a mere conversational style. But she won every prize that was open to her, and when she was finished with the school her good French got her almost immediately a small part in London as a French maid. It looked for a while as though her knowledge of French would specialize her in parts needing a foreign accent, for after this she was engaged to play an Austrian waitress” [27; 23].

The conversations between the literary characters of the novel represent the concept “actor” best of all. So the literary character’s retorts represent the mentioned concept:

1) “That’s the face an actress wants. The face that can look anything, even beautiful, the face that can show every thought that passes through the mind. That’s the face Duse’s got” [27; 24].

2) “Actors are rotten, not parts. You’ve got a wonderful-voice, the voice that can wring an audience’s heart; I don’t know about your comedy, I’m prepared to risk that” [27; 24].

3) “You’re going to be a star. Nothing can stop you” [27; 39]

4) “The critics are right, damn, you’re an actress and no mistake” [27; 39].

Some other fragments also represent the concept “actor”:

1) “Charles Tamerley always said that what an actress needed was not intelligence, but sensibility, and he might be right; perhaps she wasn’t clever, but her feelings were alert and she trusted them” [27; 127].

2) “There was a certain fun to be got out of a man who never knew what you were talking about. But what did they mean when they said an actress had genius? “[27; 135]

3) “Actors do their damned look like gentlemen and gentlemen do all they can to look like actors” [27; 232]

The concept “actor” is represented as the description of the literary character’s person in the following fragments:

1) “She had acquired the reputation of a perfectly virtuous woman whom the tongue of scandal could not touch, and now it looked as though her reputation was a prison that she had built round herself. But there was worse. What had Tom meant by saying that she ate out of his hand? That deeply affronted her. Silly little fool. How dare he? She didn’t know what to do about it either. She would have liked to tax him with it. What was the good? He would deny it. The only thing was to say nothing; it had all gone too far now, she must accept everything. It was no good not facing the truth, he didn't love her, he was her lover because it gratified his self-esteem, because it brought him various things he cared for and because in his own eyes at least it gave him a sort of position” [27; 177].

2) “The strange thing was that when she looked into her heart it was not Julia Lambert the woman who resented the affront, she didn’t care for herself, it was the affront to Julia Lambert the actress that stung her. She had often felt that her talent, genius the critics called it,' but that was a very grand word, her gift, if you like, was not really herself, not even part of her, і but something outside that used her, Julia Lambert the woman, in order to express itself. It was a strange, immaterial personality that seemed to descend upon her and it did things through her that she did not know she was capable of doing. She was an ordinary, prettyish, ageing woman. Her gift had neither age nor form. If was a spirit that played on her body as the violinist plays on his violin” [27; 177].

So the concept “actor” is very wide-spread in the novel “Theatre” by W.S. Maugham. The functional role of the use of the mentioned concept is based on the author’s representation of the theatre as people for W.S.Maugham’s.

concept theatre Maugham

2.3 The place of tropes in W.S.Maugham’s presentation of the theatre concept

From our research we found out that W.S.Maugham was also a very good master of literary style.

As we knowstylistic device is a conscious and intentional intensification of some typical structural and/or semantic property of a language unit (neutral or expressive) promoted to a generalized status and thus becoming a generative model. Stylistic device is an abstract pattern, a mould into which any content can be poured.

Stylistic devicesare the conscious and intentional, literary uses of some of the facts of the language ( excluding expressive means ) in which the most essential features ( both structural and semantic ) of the language forms are raised to a generalized level and thereby present a generative model.A stylistic device is an intentional change of a fixed (usual) distribution of language units in speech.

W.S.Maugham’s representation of the THEATRE concept is mainly realized with the help of tropes. For instance, the following fragment includes the use of the epithet great:

“That’s because the public isn’t really interested in the theatre. In the great days of the English stage people didn’t go to see the plays, they went to see the players. It didn’t matter what Kemble and Mrs. Siddons acted. The public went to see them. And even now, though I don’t deny that if the play’s wrong you’re dished, I do contend that if the play’s right, it’s the actors the public go to see, not the play” [27; 17].

Another fragment of the novel also represents the THEATRE concept realized with the help of the epithet lovely, fairly tall, long, low rich, effective, emotional and too-modern: “She had her clothes made in Paris, both for the stage and for private life, and the dressmakers said that no one brought them more orders. She had a lovely figure, everyone admitted that; she was fairly tall for a woman, and she had long legs. It was а pity she had never had a chance of playing Rosalind, she would have looked all right in boy’s clothes, of course it was too late now, but perhaps it was just as well she hadn’t risked it. Though you would have thought, with her brilliance, her roguishness, her sense of comedy she would have been perfect. The critics hadn’t really liked her Beatrice. It was that damned blank verse. Her voice, her rather low rich voice, with that effective hoarseness, which wrung your heart in an emotional passage or gave so much humor to a comedy line, seemed to sound all wrong when she spoke it. And then her articulation; it was so distinct that, without raising her voice, she could make you hear her every word in the last row of the gallery; they said it made verse sound like prose. The fact was, she supposed, that she was much too-modern” [27; 19].

The author uses some tropes for the representation of the THEATRE concept in the following context of the novel. So he uses the simile like a high-born damsel, the epithetsgreat,ancient, wonderfully good, trembling old and pallid: “She felt like a high-born damsel, with all the tradition of a great and ancient family to keep up; her purity was a pearl of great price; she also felt that she was making a wonderfully good impression: of course he was I a great gentleman, and “damn it all” it behaved her to be a great lady. She was so pleased with her performance that when she had got into her room and somewhat noisily locked the door, she paraded up and down bowing right and left graciously to her obsequious retainers. She stretched out her lily white hand for the trembling old steward to kiss (as a baby he had often dandled her on his knee, and when he pressed it with his pallid lips she felt something fall upon it” [27; 60]. In this case the events represented by the author introduce the mentioned concept.

Another use of the epithets is also represented in the THEATRE concept: “In this business you have to take the rough with the smooth. You’re the best actress in England” [27; 79]. In this case the epithet best is used.

The tropes are used in the following fragment of the novel in order to represent the THEATRE concept: “With him she sought to be neither gay nor brilliant, she was tender and wistful. Her heart ached, notwithstanding the scintillating performance she had given during the day; arid’ it was with almost complete sincerity that with sighs, sad looks and broken sentences, she made him understand that her life was hollow and despite the long continued success of her career she could not but feel that she had missed something. Sometimes she thought of the villa at Sorrento on the bay of Naples” [27; 141]. So the epithets gay, brilliant, tender, wistful, scintillating, long continued are used in this case.

The THEATRE concept is also represented by the use of the epithet fashionable in the following fragment: “The play went well from the beginning; the audience, notwithstanding the season, a fashionable one, were pleased after the holidays to find themselves once more in a playhouse, and were ready to be amused” [27; 273].

So the THEATRE concept is mainly realized with the help of the use of epithets and similes in W.S.Maugham’s “Theatre” what made the novel more emotionally painted.


Conclusions

The tasks of our study were to learn the concept as the basic term of cognitive linguistics, to generalize the notion of theatre. Having made our study we can make some conclusions.

As remembered conceptualization is the process of the creation and construction of concept in the human recognition. It is also the process of thought concerning the new information that causes the creation of concept. The study of concept is the main task of the cognitive linguistics. Every attempt to realize the nature of concept causes the realization of the fact of presence of closely-related concepts and terms. Concept is the intellectual category that may not be recognized visually. This fact causes the presence of the wide area for the interpretation of concept.

Every language mark represents concept in the language, but it does not represent concept in a whole. With the assistance of its meaning the language mark represents several conceptual features that are relevant for the transmission of the information. If we need to express concept in a whole it is necessary to apply different linguistic means and the whole nominative field of concept. So both concept and its compounds may be verbalized and non-verbalized. It is difficult to define concepts that are non-verbalized.

The most wide-spread definition of concept is following: concept is the discrete mental creation that is the basic unit of the intellectual code of the human. This code is characterized by the internal structure. It is a result of the cognitive activity of the human and society and brings the complex and encyclopedic information about the subject and phenomenon and the social attitude to this phenomenon.

Concepts may be classified according to the type of knowledge and reflection of reality because these types are the foundation of the method of the assignment and description of concept.

So concepts represent the world in the human recognition creating the conceptual system. Besides, the marks of the human language codify the content of this system in the world. Concepts appear in the human recognition as a result of the activity, interpretation of the world and socialization. Every concept includes the generalized content of different forms of expression in the natural language and in spheres that are based on the language and their presence is impossible without language. Concepts as the results of the intellectual activity should be verbalized. The language connects the people into the nation with the assistance of concepts.