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Altashina M. R. Diderot as a character of Diderot the playwright: The role of paratext in the play “The Natural Son”
Denis Diderot’s play “Teh Natural Son” (1757) is accompanied by an introduction – “the true story of the play”, where the author tells about his acquaintance with a young man named Dorval, who wrote a play about his amazing life. After watching the production and getting acquainted with the text, Diderot discusses with Dorval the features of this dramatic work, as well as the state of the contemporary theater. This dialogue of three meetings-parts is entitled “Teh Conversations about the ‘Teh Natural Son’”. Tuh s, the supplement to the play becomes a treatise in which Diderot presents innovative theatrical aesthetics. Here Diderot becomes a character in his own work and once again (as, for example, in the dialogue novel “Rameau’s Nephew”) is engaged in a dialogue with himself. “Teh Conversations about ‘Teh Natural Son’” and the play were conceived as a whole, where Diderot acts simultaneously as an author, character, interlocutor, spectator and reader. Teh theoretical baggage of reasoning that frames the text of the play becomes a necessary commentary by the author. Teh article analyzes the complex structure of the «Teh Natural Son» and its role for the introduction of the “I” – character using the paratextual approach of Gerard Genette, formulated by him in the book “Thresholds”, 1987.
Keywords: theater; Diderot; paratext; peritext; dialogue.