Sensual Polyphony of Wilde, Shaw, Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare in Woody Allen’s Films
Sensual Polyphony of Wilde, Shaw, Dostoyevsky and Shakespeare in Woody Allen’s Films

Summary/Abstract: Woody Allen’s comedies are like a perpetual carnival, filled with festivity and laughter—a time when most senses are awoken, and participants celebrate freedom and equality. His dramas are marked by a profanation of rules which are generally sacred or at least widely respected.The author of the article analyzes several of Woody Allen’s films, referring to Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory on polyphony and his concept of the carnivalesque. Allen’s films are upside down worlds of such classics as The Picture of Dorian Gray, Pygmalion, Crime and Punishment, Othello and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The director conducts a constant dialog with other artists, writers, philosophers and even God. He agrees or polemizes with them on subjects concerning a whole range of emotions and senses mostly in a humorous or ironic way, copying different styles to create a pastiche, a parody, or his own version of drama.

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