Biographies of Harlequin and Pierrot in England and France in the 18th–19th Centuries.

The article is devoted to the biographies of Harlequin and Pierrot created in the 18th and 19th centuries in England and France. The research material is the anonymous story The History and Comical Adventures of Harlequin and His Pleasing Companion, Columbine, the novel La Jeunesse de Pierrot by Alexandre Dumas, and the novel “Histoire du célèbre Pierrot” by Alfred Assolant. The main research method is comparative historical, and the goal is to identify common features in the biographies. The study characterizes each writer's approach to depicting dell'arte's characters, and puts forward hypotheses about the reason for creating the biographies of Harlequin and Pierrot. It was established that the appearance of these biographies chronologically coincided with the heyday of pantomime - English in the 18th century and French - in the 19th century. The similarities between the English and French biographies come down to the use of fairy-tale elements, satire, humor, irony and parodies of 17th-century panegyrics. All three biographies show the influence of the traditions of Italian comedy of the 18th century (Carlo Gozzi's fiab) and pantomime, English and French.