Transformation of the motifs system in the poetics of dramatic interpretations of the myth about Amphitryon in the 20th and early 21st century

The study aims to provide a diachronic focus on the changing of the motifs system, which has developed in precedent texts of Plautus and then in Molière’s ones, involved into interpreting events of the myth about Amphitryon in dramatic works of H. Kleist “Amphitryon” (1803), H. Giraudoux’s “Amphitryon 38” (1929), G. Kaiser’s “Zweimal Amphitryon” (1943), P. Hacks’ “Amphitryon” (1968) and A. Monvizh-Montvid’s “New Amphitryon” (2019). The novelty of the article consists in the identification in the above-mentioned dramatic texts of an associative motif field that determines the constant and variable features of the reception and interpretation of the myth of Amphitryon. The chosen perspective allows us to comprehensively examine works that have never been the object of research in their entirety; as well as in the use of a previously unexplored version by A. Monvizh-Montvid. The article concludes that the system under consideration includes such motifs as: duality; madness; dichotomy of the divine and human, male and female; theatricality (in a narrower sense – the motif of the mask). The central motif is the motif of duality, which performs plot- and structure-forming functions, concentrating in its associative field the other above-mentioned motifs.