“The Petty Demon” by F. Sologub: the comic and the humorous. Problems of reception and interpretation

The research aims to determine the specifics of the comic in the novel “The Petty Demon” from the perspective of its functioning in various communicative situations. The scientific novelty of the study lies in identifying and characterizing types of comic situations in “The Petty Demon” from the point of view of reception and interpretation at different levels of communication. Special attention is paid to the methods of realization of the comic: in the “character’s text” and in the “narrator’s text”. The article analyzes various comic and “potentially comic” fragments of the text. Depending on the communicative situation and context, the categories of addressee of the comic, addresser of the comic (subject of the comic), object of the comic (the one being laughed at), and observer (witness to the creation of the comic) are considered. The problematic issue associated with the interpretation of certain comic situations is highlighted. Fragments of text in which the “comic” or “humorous” are realized in the “character’s text” and the “narrator’s text” are compared. As a result, it is established that the specificity of the comic lies in the periodic change in the structure of communicative situations within which the comedy is carried out. The change in the addressee of the comic, realized either in the “narrator’s text” or in the “character’s text”, as well as the balancing between the “comic” and the “humorous”, determines the originality of the “comic pattern” of Sologub’s text.