Filonenko O. Renaissance-Baroque "magic code" in British literature (on the material of late XVI-XX centuries works)

This thesis is the first comprehensive research in Ukrainian literary studies of the Renaissance-Baroque literary "magic code" (a set of certain literary conventions - themes, plot twists, characters and settings possessing stable characteristics) functioning in British literature from the late sixteenth till twentieth century. Based on the studies of the fantastic and Western esotericism, structuralist, semiotic, psychoanalytic, and archetypal literary criticism approaches, this thesis offers to regard "magic code" as a certain strategy of text creation that depends on the magical ideas of each age, while also, due to its connections to the mechanisms of the unconscious, possesses trans-historical and trans-cultural characteristics. This "magic code" has several variations closely related to the notion of the magical, dominant in Western Europe, which had finally taken shape by the Renaissance. It can be divided into several categories with respective literary "magic codes/sub-codes": magic of magical creatures (code Fa?rie); highly demonised magic of women and unlearned smallfolk (code Witchcraft); and so called "learned magic" (code Magic)-intensively intellectualized and exclusively male practice, with its two branches-White magic (sub-code Magic proper) and Black magic (sub-code Sorcery). The positive variant of "learned magic" aligns with Christian doctrine and laid the foundation for the development of European experimental science. In connection with these ideas, the Renaissance-Baroque "magic code" was formed in three plays with a mage as protagonist-Marlowe's "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus" as an exemplar embodiment of sub-code Sorcery, Shakespeare's "The Tempest" as an ideal of sub-code Magic proper and Jonson's "The Alchemist" as a magic mockery. These plays can be regarded as "magical stories" (i.e. such narratives which describe the events managed by the use of magic or its imitation) and the medium for formation of the three versions/sub-codes of the Renaissance-Baroque "magic code"-Faustian, Prosperian and Subtlian (after the name of protagonists). Thus, the Renaissance-Baroque "magic code" reveals its universal nature, which enables it to modify and adapt to new cultural environments. In addition, through intertextual connections and influence of Anglo-Saxon cultural tradition, it can structure works of other national literatures.