Drama

1. What is a Drama?

• What similarities and differences do you see between these genres?
• Can you think of literary works that couldn't be subsumed under any of these three genres?

"performance of a fictional text on stage, usually distributed in different roles"

Drama is frequently classified by the following subgenres: comedic and tragic.

• What is the purpose of such distinctions? Can you think of other ways to distinguish various kinds of drama?

2. Elements of a Drama

a. character

b. plot
    Up until Chekhov and Ibsen, this meant action.
    cf. Aristotle: "a complete action" with a beginning, middle, and end

c. setting
    time; place; scenery; props
    : They all can be expressions of an "inner" drama: language

d. dramatic speech
    but: Beckett's monologues!
 

The structure of a traditional (five-act) drama is frequently represented in a triangle, also called "Freytag's pyramid" (after Gustav Freytag's seminal work Technique of the Drama, 1863):

        III                           I: Exposition: prehistory, motivation/inciting moment
                                      II: Complication (rising action): retardative elements
                                      III: Climax
     II     IV                     IV: Reversal (peripety; falling action): retardative elements
                                            /moment of last suspense
                                       V: Denouement: catastrophe or comic resolution
I                 V
 

• Does this scheme appear plausible to you?  What needs improvement?

3. Dramatic Conventions

• Which ones can you find in the plays we're reading? in other plays you've seen? in movies?

 
In medias res
drama cannot start with the climax —> no tension, but it can show the main character in a decisive situation
Prelude
the usual opening: before the (noble, elevated) hero come lower characters: contrast, curiosity
cf. the witches in Macbeth; the soldiers and the ghost in Hamlet
Foreshadowing
heightens the aesthetic (not simply the physiological) pleasure: we indistinctly expect sth. to happen
Contrast and gradation of character
protagonist/antagonist
minor characters mirror and reflect the conflict of the major ones
cf. Hamlet's conflict between reason and passion: Claudius, Laertes, Fortinbras, Horatio
Gradations of style and language
verse, prose as reflection of individual and social manners, with moral implications
Comic relief
At the point of highest tension, you cannot increase it anymore —> sudden relief —> the viewer experiences the renewed tension as higher yet
Dramatic irony
deliberate contradiction between what is said and what is meant: the viewer knows more than the characters
increases the fatefulness of a tragic fall
Mistaken identities
same effect as dramatic irony: the viewer knows more
possible in comedy and tragedy (where it is often too bombastic)
frequent in opera
Leitmotif
annunciation and accompaniment of a character or theme by an easily recognizable motif
cf. Sh's iterative imagery
Dramatic use of props
an object may mark (and come to symbolize) the dramatic conflict
cf. Desdemona's hanky in Othello: Ibsen's wild duck
Manipulation of sympathy
the dramatist cannot directly interfere with comments, but our sympathies can easily be changed
Parallel actions, subplots
serves critical commentary
comedy: master/servant —> ridicules aristocracy
Symmetry and counterpoint
symmetric convergence of a rising positive and a falling negative thematic/plot development
Progression and regression
a past action is gradually uncovered —> crisis: analytical drama
cf. Oedipus Rex; Ibsen
 

Tragedy

• Critics who focus on the question of meaning often try to reconstruct the tragic "spirit" (or "world view" or "sensibility" or "vision") of an author.  Can you formulate it for the tragedy we're currently reading?

other key words: verisimilitude; hamartia, hubris (also hybris), nemesis

Aristotle's Poetics is the most important critical work of classical antiquity and the most influential work of literary criticism:
• Forgotten during the Middle Ages, it survived in two sources:
               1. an Arabic translation of a Syriac translation of a Greek MS. of the 5ct or 6ct
               2. a Greek MS. of the 13ct or 14ct
• Reintroduced to Europe in early 16ct Italy and applied as immutable "rules" (for both tragedy and comedy) during the Baroque age (esp. Nicolas Boileau, L'Art poétique, 1674):
five acts
the three unities
elevated diction

• What differences do you see between the poetic theories of Plato and Aristotle?

"catharsis" — a problematic term:
        moral interpretation: "purification of ..."
        19ct: medical: "purification from ..."

A Theory of Tragedy

Tragedy reflects the breakdown of an aristocratic society:
        5ct B.C. Greece
        Elizabethan England
        18ct Germany

exception:
        no tragedy in France, except Racine
        nor in 20ct America (except O'Neill, Miller?)
            (but the theory holds for the Southern writers: Williams; Faulkner)
 

• How do you explain that we experience aesthetic pleasure when watching a tragedy — which, after all, deals with what crushes human life?

Comedy

• Which side do you agree with, and why?  What similarities and differences do you see between comedy and tragedy with regard to the underlying world view? the structure, laws and limits of each genre?

1. Comedic subgenres

a. character comedy
• satirical: the dunce is held up for ridicule
• ironic: the fool is converted by the effects of his foolishness (Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew)
• humorous: the fool is amiable, admirable even (—> comedy of manners)

b. situation comedy
• satirical: self-assertion and inner triumph of a rational but generally ridiculed person over a foolish world
• ironic: the absurd conflict dissolves itself, the protagonist experiences a happy ending

c. comedy of manners (< farce)

• Certain social conditions, modes of behavior, or concepts are absurd but they can be corrected by ridiculing them.
: often in mixed form
 
• Can you name examples for these?  TV shows?  Why do we experience such situations as funny?  Why do we laugh?

2. Commedia dell'arte

•  set routines and skids and improvised monologues and dialogues
•  masks, musical interludes, vulgar jokes, mimes, clowning, physical humor
•  appeal to an audience consisting of all social classes and cultural backgrounds
•  stock characters, recognized by mask and costume (and originally by regional dialect):

il Dottore (the Doctor), a pompous, chatty pedant (from Bologna); Pantalone, a cheap and gullible merchant and cuckolded husband (from Venice); il Capitano (the Captain), a coward and inane lover, always boasting of his victories in love and war; Arlecchino (Harlequin), the valet, clownish, acrobatic (from Bergamo); Pulcinella, a pot-bellied rascal, lusty, cruel (from Naples); Columbine (Smeraldina), a servant or wife, smart, charming; Scaramuccio

With these characters, the troupe was able to put together hundreds of plot ideas. Actors also developed individual comic routines, called lazzi (cf. the banana peel).

3. Farce (Fr. 'filler')

• originally a crude comic interlude in the medieval French Miracle Play
• after 1600: independent, short piece in verse ridiculing human weakness and folly through typical situations and characterizations, aiming to excite laughter through exaggeration and extravagance (and the use of dialect) rather than by realism
• difference to comedy: in the farce, plot is more important than character

Novel

1. What is a Novel?

difference between novel and romance (E.C. Riley):

Technically the same genre, they reflect different sociocultural phenomena and respond to different needs:
 

rise of the novel
    1. socioeconomic conditions: middle class
    2. revolution in rhetoric
    3. role of women
    4. shift in intellectual interests: self-realization —> exploration of society and of the psyche

start of the novel in England: middle class
        Richardson: the human soul
        Fielding: society
 
The romance survived in adventure stories etc. ("trivial").
 

2. Novelistic Genres

what they are about
e.g. Gothic novel, thriller, mystery, science fiction novel ...
how they are written
e.g. epistolary novel, novella, short story, diary ...

• To what genre belongs the novel you're currently reading?

Narrative Perspective

(= Point of View)

function of the narrator:
    mediation of events: "epic distance"
    manipulation of space and time

• What difference do you see to the "lyrical I," the poetic persona?

1. First-person narrator

• no epic distance: the narrator is part of the world he experiences: closer to action
• subjective, limited perspective (usually presented as reality: "autobiography," "diary," "memoirs," "letters": a ploy!): "interior monologue"

• purpose:
• tension, difference, problems of identity (possibility for critique of young self; irony) (e.g. Huck Finn, Catcher in the Rye)
• authentication, historicity (cf. More's Utopia, Swift's Gulliver's Travels)
• psychological projection (Moby Dick); illusion
 

a. "I" as witness (static):

• often for ironic distance, to neutralize exotic of highly romantic events
e.g. Mann's Doctor Faustus
 

 b. "I" as protagonist (dramatic):

• often in retrospect two different I's (e.g. St. Augustine's Confessions):
the young I who experiences (protagonist)
the old I who narrates (observer)

2. Third-person point of view

a. Omniscient (auctorial) p.o.v.

The narrator is not an acting figure, but may interfere with comments and interjections (not identical with the author) (once the most popular form: Fielding, Scott, Dickens; Faulkner's Light in August).
• all-knowing: flashbacks, look ahead
• introspection into characters, irony
• epic distance —> humor, reflection
• addresses to the reader (from the perspective of "we" or "I"), asides
NB. not identical with the author
 

b. Figural perspective ("third-person limited perspective")

The narration of fictional events recedes behind the scenic presentation of reality or its reflection in the consciousness of a character: illusion of "a slice of life" (Flaubert). (The limited p.o.v. is usually not employed in its pure form, but tends toward multiple perspectives or relies on an omniscient narrator.)
Prevalent since the second half of the nineteenth century:
• philosophical interest: demand for objectivity
• narratological innovation: persistent maintaining of a chosen perspective
• new theme: human consciousness and subconscious
 

Similar concepts, but different names:
 

a. "center of consciousness," "central intelligence" or "reflector" (H. James), "interior monologue": "persona" (e.g. The Ambassadors)
• introspection into one character's mind: we see everything through this one consciousness
b. self-effacing author:
• no subjective commentary by the narrator, but movements in space and time and into/out of the characters' minds (e.g. Ulysses)
c. scenic (or dramatic) presentation (or fly-on-the-wall technique):
• direct speech, observation, without comment (=> no narrator: epistolary novels)
• neutral, objective, "historical": distance
 

c. Multiple perspective ("multi-personal narrator")

The narrative viewpoint switches from one character's consciousness to the next without offering an omniscient, unifying outlook. (This perspective is the most frequent today.)
• illusion of presence
• popular since Flaubert: scientific objectiveness (cf. photography, film)

d. Fictional report

The narrator functions as chronicler, as merely a mediator of events.(This perspective is very rare.)
• resembles a factual account: refers to past events
• interpretation only through letters, diaries, etc.
 
e.g. Michael Kohlhaas; Robinson Crusoe (report and first-person narrative coincide)
 

• Can you think of further examples for each? filmic equivalents?

Reliable vs. unreliable narrator

The unreliable narrator cannot entirely be trusted, distorts the truth, or doesn't tell the whole story (cf. Austen, Emma) —> ironic relation between the narrator's point of view and the reader's point of view.

• What examples can you find in literature or film?
• Why would an author want to use an unreliable narrator? Is the use of the unreliable narrator immoral?

4 Ways of Looking at

Character

1. according to function

protagonist/antagonist
foil; chorus character
confidante ...

2. according to resemblance to real people (E.M. Forster)

round (or three-dimensional): psychological depth
development, crisis, change —> possible identification of the reader
flat:
a. eccentrics (bizarre, grotesque)
b. types
advantage: easy to identify
we often know people as flat characters
traditional stock characters:
Agroikos (farmer, country bumpkin); Alazon (impostor, braggart); Eiron (self-effacing trickster who undermines the Alazon); Pharmakos (victim, scapegoat); Vice (< medieval morality plays: playful, often comic tempter whose mischief is not serious or lasting)
=> a schematic view of society
 
• Can the individual be described at all? Are we condemned to playing roles? (—> early 20ct novel: away from type)
• Or are all characters more or less typical?

3. archetypal characters

female figures: Mary/Eve/Penelope
more complex since Realism
but they persist in pulp fiction and many movies
male figures:
Byronic hero (—> decline into dandy)
good-natured klutz, teddy-bear
noble savage (since 18ct, but already in ancient pastoral fiction; Percival)
trickster
dragon slayer (Captain Ahab)

NB. What matters for the interpretation is not so much the original archetype, but the use the author makes of it.
 
 

4. changes

static/dynamic
motivation
consistency
crisis

direct:
through others
indirect:
through themselves (incl. stream of consciousness)
through their actions

The Novel: Some Basic Definitions

plot: the structure or ordering of events ("parabola"),

e.g. Genesis and Paradise Lost tell the same story (Adam and Eve), but the plot is different.

• "conflict"
• suspense, surprise
• narrative stages: exposition, climax, denouement (cf. drama)
• manipulation of time

1. a. linear-progressive
    b. retrospective
            frame story
            analytical method, e.g. detective novel
2. a. episodic
            picaresque novel (problem: ending), e.g. Fielding
    b. dramatic
            Gothic novel (cf. melodrama)
            novel of manners: love (e.g. Jane Austen)
3. a. development
            Bildungsroman (little plot), e.g. David Copperfield, Wilhelm Meister
    b. disillusionment (resignation, passivity, suicide)
e.g. Constant, Adolphe; Stendhal, Le rouge; Balzac, Les illusions perdues; Flaubert, Mme Bovary
4. horizontal flow of events
            modern and "postmodern" novel: frequently no climax, no disillusionment
e.g. Ulysses (stream of consciousness), Manhattan Transfer (montage), The Man Without Qualities

• themes of the novel you're reading?

leitmotif: three-times repeated signal, gesture, melody ... with deeper significance

• motifs/leitmotifs of the novel you're studying?
• What is the significance of these motifs in regard to the history of ideas?

It helps to know what might have been the poet's design, but essential for the piece is not the final intention, but what happens in it.

"Art" exceeds the message: ambiguity

Frame Story

1. Frame (or outer) story

2. Inner story (tale within a tale)

3. Connection between the two:

• illustration
• "expert" account
• audience response
• mirror —> twist

Epistolary Novel

Frank G. Black (1940) has counted over 800 epistolary novels written between 1740 and 1840, not counting epistolary fiction in verse nor in periodicals (the main bulk was produced between 1760 and 1810).

reasons for its popularity:

• immediacy: "instantaneous description" (Richardson) under the impression of events: suspension of narrative distance; illusion of the direct reflection (= mirroring) of events

Sometimes to the point of absurdity, e.g. Holdroft's Anna St. Ives (1792):
 
The hero, Frank, writes: "I hear them in the keeper's room. These are the last words I shall ever write. They are determined on immediate murder,— But I will sell my life dearly * * * * * * * *"

Meanwhile, the heroine writes: "Merciful Heaven! I hear the voice of Frank!— What is happening?— Must I remain here?— O Misery!— What cries.* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *"

• intimacy: spontaneous subjective self-presentation (not possible in a first-person novel)
• semidisguised account of fact or secret history
• the motive of curiosity
• multiple perspectives —> objectivity

The Sentimental School
The Novel of Manners/Foreign Manners
Fiction as Propaganda/Education
Historical and Gothic Romance

Famous and influential examples are:

Rousseau, La Nouvelle Hélöise
Goethe, The Sufferings of Young Werther
de Laclos, Les Liaisons Dangereuses