Philosophical Allusions in Fowles' Novel 'The Magus': a Linguistic Aspect
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31548/philolog15(1).2024.05Abstract
The article explores philosophical allusions in Fowles' novel "The Magus" within their linguistic context. The aim of the article is to analyze the novel in terms of intertextual references to philosophical texts, considering their types, source spaces, degree of explicitness, and structure, as well as their functions in activating the symbolic and hermeneutic codes of the text. The methods employed for analyzing philosophical intertextuality in the novel include intertextual, context-interpretative, and taxonomic analysis, as well as narrative-semiotic encoding and elements of structural analysis. According to the criterion of source spaces, the article identifies intertextual references to ancient philosophy, represented by the ideas of Heraclitus and Lucretius, as well as to existentialist philosophical texts. Based on types of intertextuality, the identified forms of borrowing include paraphrase, intertextual retelling, reminiscence, and allusion. Regarding the criterion of transparency/implicitness, the intertextual references in the article are differentiated into means with maximum explicitness – references to precedent phenomena, such as the names of philosophers, well-known philosophical works, and key existentialist concepts; means with moderate implicitness – structurally modified allusions containing an explicitly marked component, allowing recognition of the concept from the source space but unfolding in the target text in a new context; and means with maximum implicitness – reminiscences of philosophical ideas related to chance, causality, the struggle of opposites, "chosenness," and existentialist concepts associated with the ideas of Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard and Sartre. Regardless of the degree of explicitness, all allusions contribute either to the symbolic code of the text, actualizing its conceptual oppositions, or to the hermeneutic code, conveying the meaning of the protagonist's spiritual journey from existence to essence within the space of the God's play — metatheater. In terms of structure, intertextual means are differentiated into three main types: individual lexemes, phrases, and references to entire texts. An analysis of the text “Magus” from the perspective of multimodal intersemiotic allusions and reminiscences to painting, music, sculpture and other forms of art seems to be a prospect for further research.
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