Academic literature on the topic 'Metadramatic discourse'

The history of drama shows that in transitional periods dramatic texts often turn into a space for analyzing of the ways of art development and, above all, the theater. Experiments, denial of traditions, and the acute need to update aesthetic coordinates become an integral part of the communicative discourse of characters, as well as the basis of dramatic conflict. Legitimate at such stages is the demand for metadramatic forms. The theory of metadrama actively develops in modern literary criticism, based on the studies of Lionel Able, Richard Hornby, Karen Viweg-Marks, Slavomir Sviontka and others, while in Ukrainian literary studies partly represented by studies of Olena Bondareva, Oksana Kohut, Natalia Malyutina, and Yevhen Vasiliev. Metadrama is considered to be a special type of plays, which poetics is aimed at self-reflection of the nature of the theater. One of the key techniques of metadrama is the critics of theater. The purpose of the article is to analyze theatrical-critical discourse as a factor in metadramatic poetics of Varvara Cherednychenko's "Actress without Roles". It is proved that the metadrama is realized at several levels of the play. The basic level should be considered the use of drama-discussion genre, built on the actual conflict of theatrical concepts of the post-revolutionary era. At the character level, the metadrama focuses on the positions of the three main characters that are apologists to the fundamental trends in the history of the theater: сoryphaeus (Kyrylo Petrovich), Modernists (Roman), and the proletarian theater (Alla). The critical function of metadrama is manifested in polemics about strategies for reforming stage art in Ukraine, in particular due to appeal to various iconic texts from the repertoire of Ukrainian theaters.

The article analyzes methods of implementing antitheatrical discourse in Ukrainian dramaturgy. Different types of antitheatricality in literary texts are distinguished on the basis of plays by M. Starytskyi, I. Karpenko-Karyi, A. Krushelnytskyi, V. Vynnychenko, Ya. Mamontiv, V. Cherednychenko, and M. Kulish. The authors define key vectors that the antitheatrical discourse follows: criticism of theater as an institution, criticism of the drama school / method, criticism of theatricality and acting, including in offstage situations. It is arguably reasonable to examine the phenomenon of antitheatrical prejudice in the context of the theory of metadrama as one of its factors. Artistic interpretation of the theater in an ironic or farcical vein, discussions over the repertoire that is no longer relevant, the aesthetic nature of stage technique, and discredit of acting as an occupation all generally encourage dramatic conventionality to double. Most common metadramatic devices used to implement antitheatricality in Ukrainian drama are believed to include a play within a play, adaptation of spectator’s reception for stage, and intertextual references.

Beaumarchais fait son entrée dans le théâtre français en crise. Comment écrire en tant que dramaturge ? Trois procédés s’offrent à lui : développer une théorie de la fusion déjà entamée par d’autres précurseurs : Fontenelle, Nivelle de la Chaussée, Destouches, Voltaire et Diderot. Tout d’abord, en préconisant la fusion du comique et du dramique, il stimule des effets de gaieté et d’attendrissement chez son public, annonce officiellement la naissance du nouveau genre : le Drame. Ceci dépasse la séparation nette entre le tragique et le comique, faisant ainsi au sein du genre théâtral un premier pas vers une révolution qui implique de nombreuses possibilités. Ensuite, en introduisant des éléments narratifs dans le genre théâtral, il effectue une fusion entre le roman et le théâtre, révolutionne ainsi le concept de genre dramatique. La poétique dramatique chez lui n’est pas qu’une question d’esthétique formelle, mais relève de l’extension littéraire de sa vie de combattant aux plans historique, social, politique de son époque. Dans une perspective de réception, son utilisation du discours métadramatique permet à son public d’être en permanence entre distance et illusion. Ceci révolutionne le rapport scène-public et exercera une influence considérable sur sa postérité. Au sens large, le discours métathéâtral de Beaumarchais dépasse son temps. La circulation séculaire de la trilogie espagnole permettra au public chinois d’étudier l’adresse singulière de Beaumarchais sur sa poétique dramatique et ses riches connotations idéologiques qui se mêlera dans l’histoire, la société et l’esthétique chinoises. Ainsi, Beaumarchais et ses œuvres s’intégreront à la généalogie de la littérature étrangère classique en Chine, et deviendront un événement typique de la littérature mondialisée
Beaumarchais made his dramaturgical entry when French theatre was undergoing a crisis. How to write as a playwright? He solved this issue on three levels and developed a theory of fusion already started by other precursors: Fontenelle, Nivelle de la Chaussée, Destouches, Voltaire and Diderot. First of all, by advocating the fusion of the comic and the dramatic, he stimulated the effects of gaiety and tenderness in his audience, officially announcing the birth of the new genre: Drama. This overcomes the clear separation between the tragic and the comic, thus taking the first step within the theatrical genre towards a revolution that opens up a whole range of possibilities. Then, by introducing narrative elements into the theatrical genre, he achieved the fusion between the novel and the theatre, revolutionising the concept of dramatic genre. For him, dramatic poetics was not just a question of formal aesthetics, but of the literary extension of his life as a fighter, which relates to the historic, social and political context of his time. From a reception perspective, his use of metadramatic discourse allowed his audience to be constantly wavering between distance and illusion. This revolutionised the relationship between stage and audience, and had a considerable influence on his posterity. In the broadest sense, Beaumarchais’ metatheatrical discourse transcended his time. The secular circulation of the Spanish trilogy will enable Chinese audiences to study Beaumarchais' singular address on his dramatic poetics and its rich ideological connotations, which will blend into Chinese history, society and aesthetics. In this way, Beaumarchais and his works will become part of the genealogy of classical foreign literature in China, and a typical event in the world literature

碩士
國立中正大學
比較文學研究所
90
This thesis aims to discuss the metadramatic issues of representation, illusion, and reality in William Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard. Metadrama is not simply a narrow phenomenon, but is ubiquitous occurring, the interplay of resemblance between the world onstage and that offstage intrigue the writer to discuss metatheatre pieces about life seen as already theatricalized. Hence, audiences are immersed in realistic presentation while metadrama particularly tends to expose its theatricality to its audience and then destabilizes stage illusion, from illusion to disillusion, form alienation to integration. Chapter One tries to describe the concepts of representation (mimesis) from ancient Plato and Aristotle to contemporary Derrida, the introduction is to question the validity of representation as well as the verbal and the performative significance. Chapter Two attempts to discuss the metadramatic aspects of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and “The Murder of Gonzago” and to prove Hamlet as a man of the theater. Within the play Hamlet, we would find not only the earliest and rudimentary practices of metatheatre- role, play-within-play and other exploration of theater, but also the evolution of metadrama itself. Shakespeare brought the world of the theater into his play, especially the actor, at moments when he wished to increase spectators’ psychic distance from the action, not merely plot about Hamlet but also drama about drama. Chapter Three is typical metadramatic adaptation from Shakespeare’ Richard III. In Pacino’s Looking for Richard, Pacino lets the audience experience the panorama of the onstage and offstage in which Al Pacino cast as playwright, director, and actor. Pacino’s film includes the confusion of real documentary, of cinema, and of scenes of the fictious production of Richard III as well as Hamlet in “Mousetrap”, a man of the theater. For the audience, both Shakespeare’s theater and Pacino’s cinema offer an experiences of approaching reality through illusion (mimetic representation, make-believe) and pretense (the play-within-play), that mingles the two much more complicated. The reality is a kind of “theatrical reality” because within the framework of the illusion of the theatre and cinema Hamlet and Richard III are as real as anyone. If a play is like a mirror, the mirror mirrors itself within a mirror; from the reflections, Audiences see themselves more thoroughly. Pacino observed that the meaning of a play or a film lies in audiences’ constantly participation and interpretations. From the discussions of metadrama, predicated on theater’s self-contradiction and self-referentiality, this thesis offers an alternative view to look at the theater which have not been settled down; even a more comprehensive strategy to interpret or to analyze our contemporary Shakespeare, endowing Shakespeare with vitality and possibility.

This chapter explores Jonson’s metadramatic technique in Sejanus and Poetaster and its staging of the legitimacy of poetic and political authority. The informer lurks in the metadramatic shadows here, as a significant element within both Jonson’s critique of compromised authority in Sejanus, and the implications he makes in Poetaster, about his artistic enemies. In both cases their authority is tainted by the connection, going beyond simply blaming informers for the woes of his society, the most significant aspect of this is the way in which metadrama and the structures of informing fit so integrally together. The chapter also asks what this means for the person of the author. If Poetaster addresses the relationship between poetic legitimacy and political authority within the world of the informer, Sejanus elevates this discourse to the realm of political revolution, in which, for the authorities of the time, Jonson’s desire to monopolise poetic legitimacy in the production of his own dramatic authority seems ambitiously excessive.

This chapter describes the ambivalent use of informer-figures found in the metadrama of The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and argues that the magical setting of these plays may facilitate a more revealing picture of authorities’ reliance on these than Jonsonian realism, or tragic form, might allow. Exceptionally, a discourse of ‘illusion and reality’ is useful in interpreting the metadrama of these plays, since in both cases it is authority which is displaced into the licentious landscapes of magic and fantasy. MND argues for an ideal of dramatic authorial power in a world where a relatively beneficent authority, free of hierarchical dysfunction, oversees agents acting in playful mischief rather than insidious paid malignity. The Tempest’s dramatic and magical setting, meanwhile, demonstrates a greater concern to control representation. In this case the interplay of metadramatic levels of ‘reality’ mirrors early modern conditions of production for the teller of tales, in which authority requires both authorship skills and those of unseen observation. The fact that the dominant imagery of authority and informing persists in these texts despite the fantastic content may suggest an inherently political aspect to metadramatic form itself.

The introduction firstly identifies the defining characteristics, important contexts, and devices of early modern metadrama; it then elaborates on popular conceptions of the informer-figure, and explores connections between them. Using significant examples, including from such coney-catching literature as Dekker’s Lantern and Candlelight, as well as Shakespeare and Jonson, it outlines how metadrama contains discourses of production and reception which mirror authors’ perceptions of their own authorship, their audiences, and ultimately the nature of early-modern society. In describing how the proliferation of metadramatic structures in the early modern theatre coincides with an increasing sense of the ubiquity of the informer, it develops the idea that this hauntingly present figure reflects a perception of the potential venality of the audience. Further it demonstrates how the figure of the informer can also become a shady representation of an emerging authorial voice.

Even more so than Iago, or Middleton’s Vindice, Webster’s Bosola is the quintessential combination of informer and actor. His self-conscious Machiavellian role in the Duchess’s tragedy includes much metadramatic structure and some self-reflection on the typical actor who is cursed, or occasionally prosecuted, for playing the part of the villain. As this complex character’s conscience gets the better of him, his resistance to the role allotted him feeds into contemporary discourses on the nature of the informer, as much as it does into theatrical controversies and apologetics. The fact that his resistance comes too late for the Duchess, and ultimately for himself, works as an effective social commentary and satirical invective on these discussions surrounding both acting and informing. His activities finally come to rest at the feet of the authorities which instigate and fund them.

The devices of metadrama allow the theatre to reflect upon itself in a way which reveals the preoccupations of writers, and it is a curious fact that the proliferation of metadramatic structures in the early modern theatre coincides with an increasing sense of the ubiquity of the informer in society. The introduction identifies the defining characteristics of early modern metadrama and the informer-figure, and explores the connections between them. It explains how this hauntingly present figure, often indicative of the potential venality of the audience, also becomes a shady representation of the author, through its involvement in the generation of narrative. This often causes authors to protest too much about the distinction between themselves and these despised individuals. In this way early modern metadrama contains discourses of production and reception which mirror authors’ perceptions and experiences of their own authorship, their audiences, and the nature of early-modern authority itself.