Contexts and Intertexts in the Novel "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes" by Suzanne Collins

Background. Suzanne Collins, renowned for her "Hunger Games" trilogy, responded to long-standing reader interest with a prequel, "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", in 2020. This novel not only expands the narrative framework of "Hunger Games", but also significantly reconfigures the analytical discourse surrounding previously known characters – most notably, the fallen hero Coriolanus Snow. The figure of Coriolanus is familiar to well-read audiences through the cognominal play by William Shakespeare, who in turn drew inspiration from Plutarch's "Parallel Lives". In this regard, Collins inherits the legacy of prior literary traditions and synthesizes them with a new interpretation. Actuality of the article lies in the necessity of establishing clear connections between contemporary literary works and classical texts of past eras. Such need is underscored by the cyclical nature of historical and social processes, repeatedly illustrated within the literary continuum. Article findings will contribute to future research on the discourse of heroics within Ukrainian literature studies. The article aims to examine and interpret intertextual references and encoded contexts in Collins's "The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes", applying these findings in the context of analyzing the hero's journey. Methods. The study was carried out using comparative-historical, receptive and comparative-literary methods, alongside the methods of hermeneutic and intertextual analysis. Results. It is established that Suzanne Collins organically incorporates Roman context into the prequel. Classical references become essential anchors for literary analysis: for example, the etymology of the notion "tribute", which alludes to the Roman wartime tax. The author draws an allusive parallel between the fates of two Coriolanuses – her own and Shakespeare's – thus mimicking Plutarch's tradition. However, Collins introduces critical revisions to this figure, adapting him to the universe of Panem so that Snow survives the Hunger Games and ultimately ascends to leadership in the Capitol (as established in the first book of the original trilogy). Conclusions. The young Snow lacks hamartia that characterizes Shakespeare's Coriolanus, thereby enabling to treat him not as a tragic hero but as a fallen one. This modification enables Collins to embed the character into the matrix of Hunger Games, wherein the diachrony of intertextual references demonstrates that although the concept of renewed gladiatorial combat in the Capitol is articulated and structured by the author in the XXI century, it draws on traditions that long predate the trilogy

Ballad · Etymology · HERO · Intertextuality · Narrative · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Literary Theory and Cultural Hermeneutics · Themes in Literature Analysis

• Republican Virtues

  Open Access•Malcolm Schofield•A Companion to Greek and Roman…•2009

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• Plutarch's Life of Coriolanus

  Open Access•D A Russell•The Journal of Roman Studies•1963

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