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Genre questions around early drama |
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Genre questions around early drama,
[in:] K. Czibula, A. Em1di, J.-S. Szabolcs (eds.), Dráma - MĂşlt - SzĂnház - Jelen. Tanulmányok a dráma- Ă©s szĂnháztörtĂ©net körĂ©bõl,
ErdĂ©lyi MĂşzeum-EgyesĂĽlet, Kolozsvár; Partium Kiadó, Nagyvárad, 2009, pp. 15-24.
The paper is discussing some style and genre questions arising in the study of early modern drama. Looking at examples of dramas from Polish jesuit colleges around 1700 we see frequent use of new, non-classicist ways of dramatic representation (e.g. neglecting the unity of dramatic action, the bipartite structure Prothasis-Apodosis), or in their mise-en-scène (e.g. the laterna magica). The Prothasis-Apodosis technique connects in one spectacle subject matters from quite distant areas and times without any historical justification. Pictures projected from the magic lantern disturb the unity of place and time of the dramatic action being shown on stage. Both techniques are consciously used to oppose the classicist rules whose main purpose was to increase the mimetic effect of the performance. In the discussed type of plays the audience cannot feel comfortable in a smooth fictional real-time story. However, essential functions of the plays remain apparently quite traditional. The paper’s thesis is that the new anti-classicist techniques of dramatic representation and performance express the typological sense of the presented world – a manner of literary construction of religious representations we know best from medieval drama and spectacle. |
