POETICS OF SILENCE IN THE PROSE OF ALBERT CAMUS

Yaryna T. Stetsko

Email: yaryna75@ukr.net

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-1787-1457

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv

Zoryana F. Piskozub

Email: Zoryana.Piskozub@lnu.edu.ua

ORCID ID: 0000-0002-0441-8311

Candidate of Philological Sciences, Associate Professor,

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/StudLing2025.27.157-167

PDF (UKRAINIAN)

ABSTRACT

The article examines the means of expressing silence and quietness in Albert Camus’s works, which the author employs to depict the image of the mother. Silence or the quiet sound of maternal reflection runs through the author’s works, from his first artistic texts to his last unfinished novel.

Using comparative methods, the article highlights and analyses the reproduction of the elusive or quiet sound of artistic images in the novels La peste, L’étranger, the collection L’envers et l’endroit, and the final unfinished novel Le Premier homme..

It is determined that silence in Camus is not only the absence of sound or words, but also a reflection of the image of filial love, maternal tenderness, and understanding.

The expressive eloquence of silence and the desire for a new, unconventional way to convey its figurative weight are among the essential features of 20th-century literary texts in general. Interest in the linguistic expression of silence in Albert Camus’s artistic discourse is growing among Ukrainian and French scholars.

This is not only about a new interpretation of silence in 20th-century artistic texts in general, but also about the particular density of silence in the construction of the author’s image of the mother.

At the same time, linguistic methods of expressing silence as a figurative factor in the author’s artistic text have not yet been thoroughly studied. The phenomenon of reading the image of the mother through silence separately has not yet been considered. The phonetic and grammatical means of expressive load carried by silence in the original texts of Albert Camus’ novels and their Ukrainian translations have not been compared either.

The article also outlines the phenomenon of numerous interpretations of A. Camus’ works in world art using various semiotic systems (the language of painting, music, comics, etc.).

Keywords: contrast, expression of silence, implicit reading, synesthesia, silence, tempo-rhythm.

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