VIII Международный конкурс научно-исследовательских и творческих работ учащихся
Старт в науке
От смешного до великого. Литературный персонаж- кукла Панч
Автор работы награжден дипломом победителя III степени
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Introduction
At one of English lessons we talked about puppets. We were interested in history of puppet theater and its characters. Thus, we learned a lot about Punch and its “relatives”. We wanted to collect more and detailed information about this toy. We studied some books about Punch and then tried to make our own puppet by ourselves, wrote several plays for students of different grades and performed them at the lessons.
The main character of English folk puppet shows is a cheerful, invincible hero, defender of the weak and oppressed people. He has a huge nose and a pointed hat with a red top on his head. He is extremely mobile and nimble. His hands are tiny, but he gestures very expressively. We thought it was amazing how such a seemingly ugly hero could remain favorite for the people for so long.
The object of our study is the English glove puppet Punch and his "relatives" in other countries of the world.
The subject of the research is the features of an artistic image of Punch while studying various materials (articles from encyclopedias, the Internet), telling about the characters of folk theaters in Europe and the world.
The aim of the study is to analyze the importance of the puppet Punch in English literature. To achieve the goal, it was necessary to solve the following tasks:
1.To trace the history of Punch and to study the book 'The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Punch and Judy'
2. To identify artistic features of his image
3.To conduct a comparative analysis of Punch and his "foreign relatives".
4.To study features of representations of glove dolls of the last century.
5.To reveal the role of Punch in the history of the formation of theatrical art.
Chapter 1
H istory of Puppetry
Puppetry is an ancient form of artistic expression that is a variation on storytelling or human theatrical productions. In puppetry, a drama unfolds that is entirely or primarily acted out by specific representational objects, which are manipulated by a puppeteer. The human animator may or may not be visible to the audience. Cultural variations of puppetry developed independently in many parts of the world, with unique types still carried on today in Japan, China, Germany, Indonesia, and the United States, among other places. Some particular puppets became international icons in the age of television, including Howdy Doody, Lamp Chop, and Jim Henson’s Muppets.
Puppetry as an art form is believed to have its roots in ancient cultures, more than 3000 years old. It is sometimes claimed that puppets were used in the theater arts even before the advent of human actors. The earliest puppets probably originated in Egypt, where ivory and clay articulated puppets have been discovered in tombs. Puppets are mentioned in writing as early as 422 B.C.E. In ancient Greece, Aristotle and Plato both made reference to puppetry.
Many types of folk art puppetry developed in diverse regions of the world, and some of it is still practiced today. In Japan, the deeply sophisticated bunraku tradition evolved out of rites practiced in Shinto temples. The Vietnamese created the unique tradition of water puppetry, in which wooden puppets appear to walk in waist-high water; this was originally developed hundreds of years ago as a response to the flooding of rice fields. Indonesian shadow puppets are another example of a long-held folk tradition. Ceremonial puppets were also used in several pre-Columbian Native American cultures.
In medieval Italy, marionettes were used in the production of morality plays by the Christian church. The grand comedic puppet tradition of commedia dell’arte evolved in the face of censorship by the church. Later, the plays of William Shakespeare were sometimes performed with puppets in place of actors. Britain’s tradition of Punch and Judy shows, as well as the German version featuring Kasperle and Grete, grew out of the commedia dell’arte.
Chapter 2
A Few Stories About Punch's Origins
Physical Characteristics
His physical characteristics have been traced to an early Roman mime by the name of Maccus, images of whom have been found near Herculaneum and Pompeii. Some say his name is derived from the word paunch because of his protruding chest.
Neapolitan Legend
An old Neapolitan legend claims that the name Pulcinella did not orginate in the Commedia dell'arte but was actually derived from the name of a local hump-back in the village of Acerra who became a popular participant in travelling plays of the time. His name was Puccio d'Aniello.
Little Chicken
Others believe he got the name Pulcinella , which means "little chicken" in Italian, because of his crowing cry, beak nose and chicken breast.
Vasilache
Vasilache came to Romania from Ukraine and Poland. He is similar to Punch with the same big nose, pointy red hat and colorful clothes, although not quite as sophisticated as Punch's.
His behavior is the same too. He kills Marioara his wife because she doesn't obey him. He doesn't mean to kill her, but he beats her to death and then he mourns her.
Next he kills the priest who comes to bless Marioara because he doesn't like his attitude, and then he kills the devil and finally he kills Death. This is his big victory, when VASILACHE KILLS DEATH! Ironically in the end, Vasilache himself is killed by the dog.
Chapter 3
Punch and his relatives
Punch is accepted everywhere as the traditional puppet of Britain, or, to be more correct, of England, but through the ages other puppets who have much in common with Punch have come into being around the world. Perhaps they all have a common ancestor, Vidusake, of Ancient India, Dossennus-Manducus of the Atellan Farce, perhaps the basic ingredients of buffoonery are common throughout the world. Certainly since earliest times a humped back and a pot-belly have been thought funny; many court jesters were hunchbacks. Knockabout comedy has always been popular, so has cruelty, and, of course, comic faces too, especially those with big noses. It is not so surprising therefore to find. Punch's equivalent in many lands, but it is interesting to note how the Punch-like character is always the central figure of the puppet drama. By whatever means, this character has somehow become the star of the show, so everyone, it seems, loves a rogue!
K aragheuz , principal character of the Turkish puppet theatre, is unlike Punch in looks generally, although some versions of him have a large hook-nose; he has a large chin too but this is adorned with a black beard, and he has not got Punch's wide grin, in fact he looks ferocious. He is noticeably round-shouldered but hasn't the huge stylised hump of Punch. In boasting, pugnacity, cruelty, stupidity and cunning he fairly matches Punch and exceeds him in lewdness. Unlike Punch he is not a glove-puppet but a shadow-puppet. He and all the other characters in his play are flat, cut from thin translucent leather and tinted with bright colours. In addition pierced decoration outlines hands, facial features and details of costume. The puppets, worked by slender rods, are never see by the audience, for they are held against a screen of white linen on the side away from the audience and a lamp of some description behind them lights them up giving an effect reminiscent of figures in a stained glass window. The origins of the shadow puppet theatre go far into antiquity and though the shadow theatre is rarely seen now in the West it still remains popular in the Far East where it was born. The Turkish shadow theatre is almost extinct however and, as far as we can ascertain, is not now shown in Turkey at all. In Greece and North Africa though it is still to be seen.
Pulcinella, buffoon of the commedia dell'arte, in his travels towards England from his Italian birthplace, encountered and conquered France en route where he changed his name to Polichinelle and acquired a wife Dame Gigogne. He had established himself in Paris by the middle of the seventeenth century. It is almost certain that in the process of French naturalization he cast off the baggy white suit he had worn as Pulcinella and adopted the costume which has become traditional for Mr. Punch. It has been claimed that the costume was originally a caricature of the uniform of the Gascon officers of the time of Henry IV, that the pot-belly was originally the cuirass of the soldier. It seems much more likely, though, that it was referred to, jokingly, as a cuirass in the same way that a modern comedian might say of his pot-belly that it had once been his chest but had slipped! The hump on the back, as has been pointed out before, has always been associated with the buffoon and, long before the arrival of Polich'inelle it had been part of the Court-jester's make-up. Humpbacked or not, by nature, the jester wore a stylized, false hump on his back. The upturned pointed hump of present-day Punch may have been adopted in France. Some historians have claimed that Polichinelle is entirely a French creation but, obviously, both he and the English Punch have a common ancestor in Pulcinella.
On the Restoration puppet plays of London, Pepys writes of Punch under various but similar names. The records of St. Martin-in-the-Fields mention "Punchinello, ye Italian popet player", but Pepys' comments on Polichinello, Polichinelli, Punchinello and Punch and, very significantly, "Polichinellet"make one wonder if, in fact, he saw both Italian and French puppet shows with the same central character or if the Italian puppets were under a French influence after, perhaps, a sojourn in France en route for England. Possibly Polichinello was the Italian clown, still in his white suit; perhaps Polichinelle was the French clown in the traditional Punch's garb. It is more than likely there were a number of Italian and French puppet players in London, all exploiting the popularity of Punchinello. Pulcinella, certainly, was in white, and to this day is seen in Italy dressed in the traditional Commedia dell'arte fashion, Polichinelle wears the costume evolved in France and so does the English Punch.
Polichinelle as both string-puppet and glove-puppet flourished in France despite the jealous opposition of the live theatre and, as in England, played not only to the ordinary citizens but to the aristocracy as well. He lampooned everything and everybody with impunity, assuming the licence of a court jester, and his insolence and wit, to say nothing of his amorous proclivities, endeared him to the French people. The eighteenth century was the golden age of puppets but as the nineteenth century approached the great popularity of Polichinelle began to decline and a usurper arrived on the scene in the character of Guignol, a character, who today has virtually replaced Polichinelle as the hero of the French puppet theatre, though the two of them do still appear together. One Laurent Mourguet, a puppeteer of Lyon using Polichinelle as the star of his show, used to try out his new attractions on his neighbour, an old silk-weaver, before putting them before the public. One of the weavers expressions , "C'est guignolant" which he used when the puppet's antics took his fancy, Mourguet gave to one of his characters, a puppet modelled on the silk-weaver himself, though with a young almost boyish face, and in the inexplicable way in which certain phrases or expressions become catch-phrases of the general public "C'est guignolant" established the character who became known as Guignol as a result and who quickly became the principal character in a new series of puppet plays. This puppet, jolly and happy, freed from the limitations of speech imposed upon Polichinelle through the traditional use of the sifflet pratique, gathered around himself a set of characters just as Punch did, although they were conceived by Mourguet and did not evolve in the same way as the Punch play characters. Guignol has a wife, Madelon and a drunken friend Grafron who replaced Polichinelle as his partner and who contrives always to lead him astray, and a variety of other well-defined types as friends and enemies. There is none of the fire and swashbuckling pride of Polichinelle in Guignol yet he conquered France and his name has become synonymous with glove-puppet shows generally.
It is understandable that the Italian puppet showmen with their Commedia dell'arte repertoire and the principal comedian Pulcinella should wander all over Europe and that Pulcinella should be adopted by the various nations and, over the years, acquire characteristics peculiar to the country in which he found himself. In Germany and Austria he began as Polizinell and eventually became Hanswurst, that is Jack Sausage, which was just a popular name for a clown like the English Jack Pudding. Perhaps his sausage-like nose inspired the name, for certainly his nose became all-important, being given a joint or two, when he was a marionette, so he could wiggle it about as he talked. He leapt on to the stage to interrupt the most serious plays just as Punch did in England, and his coarse humour and habit of settling every argument with blows underlined the similarity of character. In Austria Hanswurst somehow became associated with Kasper or as he is more affectionately known, Kasperl, a character who had evolved as a clown from the ancient mystery plays of medieval times. Hanswurst became Kasperl, wiggling nose and all, but eventually Kasperl became a more elfin character, especially when he was a marionette, and Kasperl, unlike Punch who is now seen only as a glove puppet, remains to this day both glove-puppet and marionette. On the surface, though, Kasperl is far removed from, Punch but he remains a clown and still wields a stick with alacrity; the very name Kasperl conjures up, nowadays, a picture not of a hook-nosed ruffian but a rather simple, open-faced peasant type of character. He still gets himself involved, though, in all manner of plays, making himself the most important character in the play whilst having nothing to do really with the actual plot. His most famous role is that of a casual servant in the time-honoured puppet play "Dr. Faustus" when he torments the devils, ridicules Mephistophilis and even interrupts Faustus's meditations in his final hour, with tomfoolery. A wonderful character, this Kasperl, and it is not surprising that he has ousted Hanswurst not only in Austria but throughout Germany as well.
Pulcinella, by a process of naturalization, adopted a new name and some national characteristics of every country he settled in. He became Don Cristobal Punchinella in Spain, Hans Pickelharing and Jan Klaassen - another Jack Sausage - in Holland, Kasparck in Czechoslovakia and Valicke in Romania. The Russian Petrouchka immortalized in Stravinsky's ballet in a pathetic sawdust-stuffed creature but the real Russian Petrouchka of the street shows is none other than Punch with his long nose and habit of knocking down everyone who disagrees with him. (picture shows Jan Klaasen Poppekast, Holland).
Travelling further East, we find characters with Punch-like characteristics and of Punch-like appearance in the puppet dramas of India, the East Indies, Burma, Thailand and China and although they have no obvious link with Pulcinella, perhaps long, long ago, they had a common ancestor. This we shall never know, but one thing is certain, of them all, the English Punch is the biggest rogue: No other puppet in the world so joyfully commits so many murders in so short a time, yet the shrieks of merriment his crimes provoke in the audience, theimpertinent way in which he squeaks "That's the way to do it" after each, to receive the reply "Oh, no it isn't" from the laughing children, and to retort, "Oh, yes it is", and so on, testify to the harmlessness of the whole spectacle. Wife-beater and murderer Punch may be but no one is horrified or frightened, no one takes it seriously, everyone is delighted with the old ruffian and everybody knows the corpses will spring to life again for the next performance for they, like Punch, are immortal.
Chapter 4
Specific features of Punch as the main character of the puppet Comedy
Punch is accepted everywhere as the traditional puppet of Britain, or, to be more correct, of England. It turns out that all together: appearance, character and actions, voice, movement, make Punch from the character managed by a puppeteer in a Manager. He himself is the owner of his life, an equal interlocutor of the puppeteer, so bright and full-fledged hero that you stop believing that this doll comes to life only on performances.
In the British Punch and Judy show, Punch wears a brightly coloured jester's motley and sugarloaf hat with a tassel. He is a hunchback whose hooked nose almost meets his curved, jutting chin. He carries a stick (called a slapstick) as large as himself, which he freely uses upon most of the other characters in the show. He speaks in a distinctive squawking voice, produced by a contrivance known as a swazzle or swatchel which the professor holds in his mouth, transmitting his gleeful cackle. This gives Punch a vocal quality as though he were speaking through a kazoo. So important is Punch's signature sound that it is a matter of some controversy within Punch and Judy circles as to whether a "non-swazzled" show can be considered a true Punch and Judy Show. Other characters do not use the swazzle, so the Punchman has to switch back and forth while still holding the device in his mouth.
Since its appearance at the London fair, Punch has attracted the attention of the viewer, remaining funny, understandable and extremely relevant. Each era brought to the screen of the puppet theater something peculiar to her alone. New scientific theories and political trends force researchers to re-examine the tiny figure in a new light. Punch has become a subject of study as followers of Freud's theories, and the preachers of the Marxist ideas. It with ease can withstand any attacks of the authorities, and any weather conditions. Changing scenery and places where he shows his ideas are born of other stories, new characters. Punch has long moved into the category of entertainment for kids. However, he does not seem discouraged, each time being born anew on the small scene everything with the same invariable smile. And still wielding the baton, proclaiming victory over death, eternal life and the enjoyment of all it.
The tale of Punch and Judy varies from puppeteer to puppeteer, as previously with Punchinello and Joan, and it has changed over time. Nonetheless, the skeletal outline is often recognizable. It typically involves Punch behaving outrageously, struggling with his wife Judy and the baby, and then triumphing in a series of encounters with the forces of law and order (and often the supernatural), interspersed with jokes and songs.
Chapter 5
Analysis of the «Punch and Judy»
The figure who later became Mr. Punch made his first recorded appearance in England on 9 May 1662, which is traditionally reckoned as Punch's UK birthday. The diarist Samuel Pepys observed a marionette show featuring an early version of the Punch character in Covent Garden in London. It was performed by Italian puppet showman Pietro Gimonde, a.k.a. "Signor Bologna." Pepys described the event in his diary as "an Italian puppet play, that is within the rails there, which is very pretty."
The doll continued to live in the streets of English cities, and one of the performances was finally recorded in London in 1828. Given this view of the old puppeteer, the Italian-born, Picini. All his life he lived in England and played a puppet Comedy in the English language. The text was recorded by John Payne Collier. The text with drawings was printed in a separate book. Later this book was reprinted many times in London and in the United States of America.
The play, written from Picini’s performances, was called "a Tragic Comedy or comic tragedy of Punch and Judy". It was published twice in Russian.
A more substantial change came over time to the show's target audience. The show was originally intended for adults, but it changed into primarily a children's entertainment in the late Victorian era.
The story changes, but some phrases remain the same for decades or even centuries. For example, his famous catchphrase: "That's the way to do it!" The term "pleased as Punch" is derived from Punch and Judy; specifically, Mr. Punch's characteristic sense of gleeful self-satisfaction.
Modern British performances of Punch and Judy can now be seen at carnivals, festivals, birthday parties, and other celebratory occasions.
Punch and Judy might follow no fixed storyline, as with the tales of Robin Hood, but there are episodes common to many recorded versions. It is the set piece encounters or "routines" which is used by performers to construct their own Punch and Judy shows. The various episodes of the show are performed in the spirit of outrageous comedy—often provoking shocked laughter—and are dominated by the anarchic clowning of Mr. Punch.
The problems raised in the presentation of "Punch and Judy" are eternal and quite serious: the relationship of a man and a woman, the presence of the individual in society, a clash with the law and power, politics, issues of good and evil, life and death. However, what in real life seems important and often unsolvable in a puppet Comedy is solved in half an hour. The question of good and evil is resolved in favor of life, servants of the law fall silent under the blows of the stick, and the Devil dangles in the loop.
The characters in a Punch and Judy show are not fixed. The principal characters are Punch, Judy, Tobby. Along with Punch and Judy, the cast of characters usually includes their baby, a hungry crocodile, a clown, and a policeman.
This character is so popular that Punch has become a subject of study by many scientists. Punch has moved from the category of entertainment for kids. He is the fighter with evil.
Conclusion
Whatever the real lineage and true origin of the character we now know as Punch happens to be, for more than 300 years he has managed to easily cross numerous national and linguistic boundaries to become an integral part of the cultural life of many countries.
After analyzing the features of the performances "Punch and Judy" and summing up, trying to establish the reasons for such a long popularity of this show, once again emphasize the semantic richness of the show. Punch is not only a Bose challenge, but seems to be playing with the idea of life and death itself. Punch and Judy represent a certain model of consciousness. Personal and social rules Punch raises to the General level, immediately ended them as a marginal figure: he neither sent nor owners, nor justified by the law, nor the machine to them; all his post and adventures put him outside the law socially.
To sum up, we can say that Punch is one of the symbols of Great Britain. In the character and actions of Punch, the British recognize the characteristic peculiarities of national humor.
Bibliography
Leach R. The Punch and Judy Show. History, Tradition and Meaning. London, 1985. p.168.
Spealght G. The History of the English Puppet Theatre. London, 1955
Акройд П. Лондон; Биография. М., 2005
http://blog.arthistoryonline.ru/lyalya-chandra/pulchinello-petrushka-polishinel-panch-i-drugie/
http://www.spyrock.com/nadafarm/html/punchnames.html
https://bimp.uconn.edu/about/history/