THE TRANSMEDIAL TRANSLATION OF ARTHURIANA: FRENCH MUSICAL “THE LEGEND OF KING ARTHUR”

Abstract

The article deals with transformation of mythological and literary basis of Arthuriana from a verbal sign system into an audiovisual system based on the material of a musical “The Legend of King Arthur”. An interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of the musical allows identifying the key images and storylines of the myth of King Arthur, which become the basis of intersemiotic translation. The mythological, “historical”, epic components of the story about King Arthur are investigated, the process of the so-called “mythologization of history”. The characteristics of the main images revealed in the Arthurian primary characters: Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Morgana, Meleagant are analyzed from the point of view of translating them into the language of another synthetic art form. Particular attention is paid to their visual embodiment: costume, color details. The study touches upon the question of the transformation of the mythological space of Arthuriana in the stage representation. The article concludes that the specificity of transmedial translation and the assessment of its success is determined, first of all, by the degree of elaboration of the Arthuriana cultural codes.