SHAKESPEAREAN INTERTEXT IN A.S. BYATT'S NOVEL «THE CHILDREN'S BOOK»

Abstract

This article explores Shakespearean intertextuality in A.S. Byatt’s novel The Children's Book to illuminate the organic synthesis of realist and postmodern poetics. The methodological framework for this analysis relies on Byatt’s own literary essays, wherein she articulates her views on appropriating classical heritage – particularly Shakespearean texts, which function as the conceptual and structural core of the novel. The study emphasizes the dual nature of intertextuality within the work: the Shakespearean intertext serves simultaneously as a historical marker of the Edwardian era and as an instrument of psychologization, deconstruction, and metanarration. Primary attention is given to the analysis of four stagings of Shakespeare's comedy “A Midsummer Night's Dream”, which function as a mise en abyme within the text, reflecting the novel's overarching problematics. Through her stylistic balance between realism and fantasy, Byatt deconstructs the escapist potential of this comedy. The analysis of the main characters reveals the darker aspects of Shakespearean archetypes, where blurring the boundary between stage and reality leads to psychological abuse, the adult usurpation of power, and the loss of childhood identity. Furthermore, the article traces the role of allusions to other Shakespearean plays, such as “King Lear”, “The Tempest”, and “The Winter's Tale” – as a means of implicit psychological characterization, social critique, and irony. It exposes the motif of appropriating the humanistic potential of Shakespearean drama to justify personal immorality. Ultimately, the study argues that the theatrical aestheticization of everyday life becomes a fatal vulnerability for the Edwardian era; the collision with the historical realities of World War I inevitably shatters the Shakespearean dream, marking the definitive collapse of an artificial utopia. This catastrophe ruthlessly obliterates the era itself in both material and ideological dimensions, leaving the characters defenseless in the face of twentieth-century challenges.