UDC

Authors

Abstract

This paper studied the image of music in Agatha Christie’s lyrical and psychological novel Giant’s Bread, in which the reader discovers quite a new side of the renowned detective writer: a master of lyrical and autobiographical prose. The article attempts to reveal the possible prototype of this novel’s protagonist. Among them there are not only real composers: Roger Coke, Arthur Bliss, Sergei Prokofiev, Alexander Scriabin (some of whom A. Christie knew personally), but also Jean-Christophe, a character from Romain Rolland’s novel. The author of the article argues that Agatha Christie had managed to create a true image of a composer seeking new, experimental ways of expressing and fulfilling the trends of the early 20th century art and trying to free himself from the well-established conventional norms. For the first time in her literary career, Agatha Christie portrays a creatively gifted person in his relations with the society, shows the loneliness of the genius and his passion for creativity in the face of various life circumstances and troubles. The fundamental features of the Giant’s Bread allow us to suggest that it could have been influenced by Romain Rolland’s Jean-Christophe, also portraying a genius musician. The image of music creates an exceptional atmosphere of lyricism as a special way of artistic thinking, with innermost personal experience and deep feelings of the author as well as his/her emotional bond with the characters being prevalent.

Keywords

References

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