Belarusian parody of the second half of the 20th century: the phenomenon of the plot with variations

Abstract

A plot with variations is a special type of parod y, where the author is required to create stylistically convincing versions of the texts of several authors through the prism of one precedent text. R. Baradulin and P. Sushko offered ori ginal artistic versions of a humorous reassessment of the works of famous Belarusian poets of the 20th century through the plot of the poem The hare brews beer by U. Karatkevich and the folk song Yas mowed clover. The parodies of R. Baradulin and P. Sushko embody two types of parody: in R. Baradulin’s one, the emphasis is generally on parodying the style of a certain author, in P. Sushko’s one – on parodying the author’s style by parodying the style of a specific work. In the Belarusian parody of the second half of the 20th century, the plot with variations was a means of humorous reinterpretation of someone else’s artistic experience on the basis of certain aesthetic and axiological attitudes and the affirmation of the stylistic versatility of poetry.