The article analyzes the main features of the comic in the famous come-dy of the famous Swiss German-speaking novelist, playwright and publicist Friedrich Durrenmatt. As you know, the nature of comedy determines the genre variety of comedy. The play “Meteor” is a black comedy-farce, since its main theme is death, and for two acts the comedy is connected exclusively with the preparation of the main character for death. The article reveals the essence of the two main genre-forming elements of the play: paradox and black clowning. The meaning of the paradox lies in the depic-tion of phenomena that lie beyond the ordinary understanding of reality and contain a certain contradiction. The paradox is considered one of the most powerful means of in-fluencing the reader. Clowning, on the other hand, indicates the global nature of the con-flict, since it is a view of man from the perspective of the Cosmos. There is no phenome-non more universal, equally predetermined for any being, than physical death. This fact determines the author’s choice of the main comic technique and its character.
For citation:
Kiseleva I.S. Paradox and black clowning in Friedrich Durrenmatt’s comedy “Meteor”, Ivanovo State University Bulletin, Series: Humanities, 2022, iss. 3, pp. 22—27.