The Politics And Poetics Of Contemporary English Tragedy

Author : Sean Carney
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 355 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2013-01-01
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781442613973

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The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy by Sean Carney Pdf

The Politics and Poetics of Contemporary English Tragedy is a detailed study of the idea of the tragic in the political plays of David Hare, Howard Barker, Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Mark Ravenhill, Sarah Kane, and Jez Butterworth. Through an in-depth analysis of over sixty of their works, Sean Carney argues that their dramatic exploration of tragic experience is an integral part of their ongoing politics. This approach allows for a comprehensive rather than selective study of both the politics and poetics of their work. Carney's attention to the tragic enables him to find a common discourse among the canonical English playwrights of an older generation and representatives of the nineties generation, challenging the idea that there is a sharp generational break between these groups. Finally, Carney demonstrates that tragic experience is often denied by the social discourse of Englishness, and that these playwrights make a crucial critical intervention by dramatizing the tragic.

Author : Graham Saunders
Publisher : Springer
Page : 194 pages
File Size : 48,7 Mb
Release : 2017-10-14
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9781137444530

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Elizabethan and Jacobean Reappropriation in Contemporary British Drama by Graham Saunders Pdf

This book examines British playwrights' responses to the work of Shakespeare and his contemporaries since 1945, from Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to Sarah Kane’s Blasted and Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem. Using the work of Julie Sanders and others working in the fields of Adaptation Studies and intertextual criticism, it argues that this relatively neglected area of drama, widely considered to be adaptation, should instead be considered as appropriation - as work that often mounts challenges to the ideologies and orthodoxies within Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, and questions the legitimacy and cultural authority of Shakespeare’s legacy. The book discusses the work of Howard Barker, Peter Barnes, Edward Bond, Howard Brenton, David Edgar, Elaine Feinstein and the Women’s Theatre Group, David Greig, Sarah Kane, Dennis Kelly, Bernard Kopps, Charles Marowitz, Julia Pascal and Arnold Wesker.

Author : Richard Bradford,Madelena Gonzalez,Stephen Butler,James Ward,Kevin De Ornellas
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 912 pages
File Size : 47,7 Mb
Release : 2020-09-03
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781119653066

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The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature by Richard Bradford,Madelena Gonzalez,Stephen Butler,James Ward,Kevin De Ornellas Pdf

THE WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANION TO CONTEMPORARY BRITISH AND IRISH LITERATURE An insightful guide to the exploration of modern British and Irish literature The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature is a must-have guide for anyone hoping to navigate the world of new British and Irish writing. Including modern authors and poets from the 1960s through to the 21st century, the Companion provides a thorough overview of contemporary poetry, fiction, and drama by some of the most prominent and noteworthy writers. Seventy-three comprehensive chapters focus on individual authors as well as such topics as Englishness and identity, contemporary Science Fiction, Black writing in Britain, crime fiction, and the influence of globalization on British and Irish Literature. Written in four parts, The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature includes comprehensive examinations of individual authors, as well as a variety of themes that have come to define the contemporary period: ethnicity, gender, nationality, and more. A thorough guide to the main figures and concepts in contemporary literature from Britain and Ireland, this two-volume set: Includes studies of notable figures such as Seamus Heaney and Angela Carter, as well as more recently influential writers such as Zadie Smith and Sarah Waters. Covers topics such as LGBT fiction, androgyny in contemporary British Literature, and post-Troubles Northern Irish Fiction Features a broad range of writers and topics covered by distinguished academics Includes an analysis of the interplay between individual authors and the major themes of the day, and whether an examination of the latter enables us to appreciate the former. The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Contemporary British and Irish Literature provides essential reading for students as well as academics seeking to learn more about the history and future direction of contemporary British and Irish Literature.

Author : Michael Dobson,Estelle Rivier-Arnaud
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 195 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2017-06-23
Category : Art
ISBN : 9781443878708

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Rewriting Shakespeare’s Plays For and By the Contemporary Stage by Michael Dobson,Estelle Rivier-Arnaud Pdf

Why have contemporary playwrights been obsessed by Shakespeare’s plays to such an extent that most of the canon has been rewritten by one rising dramatist or another over the last half century? Among other key figures, Edward Bond, Heiner Müller, Carmelo Bene, Arnold Wesker, Tom Stoppard, Howard Barker, Botho Strauss, Tim Crouch, Bernard Marie Koltès, and Normand Chaurette have all put their radical originality into the service of adapting four-century-old classics. The resulting works provide food for thought on issues such as Shakespearean role-playing, narrative and structural re-shuffling. Across the world, new writers have questioned the political implications and cultural stakes of repeating Shakespeare with and without a difference, finding inspiration in their own national experiences and in the different ordeals they have undergone. How have our contemporaries carried out their rewritings, and with what aims? Can we still play Hamlet, for instance, as Dieter Lesage asks in his book bearing this title, or do we have to “kill Shakespeare” as Normand Chaurette implies in a work where his own creative process is detailed? What do these rewritings really share with their sources? Are they meaningful only because of Shakespeare’s shadow haunting them? Where do we draw the lines between “interpretation,” “adaptation” and “rewriting”? The contributors to this collection of essays examine modern rewritings of Shakespeare from both theoretical and pragmatic standpoints. Key questions include: can a rewriting be meaningful without the reader’s or spectator’s already knowing Shakespeare? Do modern rewritings supplant Shakespeare’s texts or curate them? Does the survival of Shakespeare in the theatrical repertory actually depend on the continued dramatization of our difficult encounters with these potentially obsolete scripts represented by rewriting?

Author : Jennifer Wallace
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 233 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2021-05-20
Category : History
ISBN : 9781350155114

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A Cultural History of Tragedy in the Modern Age by Jennifer Wallace Pdf

In this book leading scholars come together to provide a comprehensive, wide-ranging overview of tragedy in theatre and other media from 1920 to the present. The 20th century is often considered to have witnessed the death of tragedy as a theatrical genre, but it was marked by many tragic events and historical catastrophes, from two world wars and genocide to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the anticipation and onset of climate change. The authors in this volume wrestle with this paradox and consider the degree to which the definitions, forms and media of tragedy were transformed in the modern period and how far the tragic tradition-updated in performance-still spoke to 20th- and 21st-century challenges. While theater remains the primary focus of investigation in this strikingly illustrated book, the essays also cover tragic representation-often re-mediated, fragmented and provocatively questioned-in film, art and installation, photography, fiction and creative non-fiction, documentary reporting, political theory and activism. Since 24/7 news cycles travel fast and modern crises cross borders and are reported across the globe more swiftly than in previous centuries, this volume includes intercultural encounters, various forms of hybridity, and postcolonial tragic representations. Each chapter takes a different theme as its focus: forms and media; sites of performance and circulation; communities of production and consumption; philosophy and social theory; religion, ritual and myth; politics of city and nation; society and family, and gender and sexuality.

Author : Sean McEvoy
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
Page : 190 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2016-11-10
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781317629894

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Tragedy: The Basics by Sean McEvoy Pdf

Tragedy: The Basics is an accessible and up-to-date introduction to dramatic tragedy. A comprehensive guide for anyone undertaking a study of the genre, it provides a chronological overview and history of tragic theory. Covering tragedy from the classics to the present day, it explains the contextual and theoretical issues which affect the interpretation of tragedy, examining popularly studied key plays in order to show historical change. Including a glossary of key terms and suggestions for further reading, Tragedy: The Basics is an ideal starting point for anyone studying tragedy in literature or theatre studies.

Author : David Ian Rabey
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
Page : 240 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2015-02-26
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781408184486

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The Theatre and Films of Jez Butterworth by David Ian Rabey Pdf

Jez Butterworth is the most critically acclaimed and commercially successful new British dramatist of the 21st century: his acclaimed play Jerusalem has had extended runs in the West End and on Broadway. This book is the first to examine Butterworth's writings for stage and film and to identify how and why his work appeals so widely and profoundly. It examines the way that he weaves suspenseful stories of eccentric outsiders, whose adventures echo widespread contemporary social anxieties, and involve surprising expressions of both violence and generosity. This book reveals how Butterworth unearths the strange forms of wildness and defiance lurking in the depths and at the edges of England: where unpredictable outbursts of humour highlight the intensity of life, and characters discover links between their haunting past and the uncertainties of the present, to create a meaningful future. Supplemented by essays from James D. Balestrieri and Elisabeth Angel-Perez, this is a clear and detailed source of reference for a new generation of theatre audiences, practitioners and directors who wish to explore the work of this seminal dramatist.

Author : Sean McEvoy
Publisher : Springer Nature
Page : 220 pages
File Size : 40,9 Mb
Release : 2020-12-29
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9783030627119

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Class, Culture and Tragedy in the Plays of Jez Butterworth by Sean McEvoy Pdf

Jez Butterworth is undoubtedly one of the most popular and commercially successful playwrights to have emerged in Britain in the early twenty-first century. This book, only the second so far to have been written on him, argues that the power of his most acclaimed work comes from a reinvigoration of traditional forms of tragedy expressed in a theatricalized working-class language. Butterworth’s most developed tragedies invoke myth and legend as a figurative resistance to the flat and crushing instrumentalism of contemporary British political and economic culture. In doing so they summon older, resonant narratives which are both popular and high-cultural in order to address present cultural crises in a language and in a form which possess wide appeal. Tracing the development of Butterworth’s work chronologically from Mojo (1995) to The Ferryman (2017), each chapter offers detailed critical readings of a single play, exploring how myth and legend become significant in a variety of ways to Butterworth’s presentation of cultural and personal crisis.

Author : Kirsten Shepherd-Barr
Publisher : Oxford University Press
Page : 153 pages
File Size : 50,7 Mb
Release : 2016
Category : Performing Arts
ISBN : 9780199658770

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Modern Drama by Kirsten Shepherd-Barr Pdf

This book tells the story of modern drama through its seminal, groundbreaking plays and performances, and the artistic diversity that these represent. Exploring the new note of artistic hostility between dramatists and their audience, Shepherd-Barr draws on a range of theories and performances to reveal what makes modern drama 'modern'.

Author : Korbinian Stöckl
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 303 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2021-01-18
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110714708

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Love in Contemporary British Drama by Korbinian Stöckl Pdf

Despite the recent turn to affects and emotions in the humanities and despite the unceasing popularity of romantic and erotic love as a motif in fictional works of all genres, the subject has received surprisingly little attention in academic studies of contemporary drama. Love in Contemporary British Drama reflects the appeal of love as a topic and driving force in dramatic works with in-depth analyses of eight pivotal plays from the past three decades. Following an interdisciplinary and historical approach, the study collects and condenses theories of love from philosophy and sociology to derive persisting discourses and to examine their reoccurrence and transformation in contemporary plays. Special emphasis is put on narratives of love’s compensatory function and precariousness and on how modifications of these narratives epitomise the peculiarities of emotional life in the social and cultural context of the present. Based on the assumption that drama is especially inclined to draw on shared narratives for representations of love, the book demonstrates that love is both a window to remnants of the past in the present and a proper subject matter for drama in times in which the suitability of the dramatic form has been questioned.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 248 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Drama
ISBN : OSU:32435084552496

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Journal of Dramatic Theory and Criticism by Anonim Pdf

Author : Lara Maleen Kipp
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 320 pages
File Size : 49,9 Mb
Release : 2020-10-18
Category : Art
ISBN : 9780429668234

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The Scenography of Howard Barker by Lara Maleen Kipp Pdf

Influential contemporary British playwright and director Howard Barker has been engaging with the scenography of the Wrestling School’s productions since 1998. Despite this active involvement in the design of set, costume, lighting, and sound, no in-depth published study on this aspect of his work exists to date. This monograph therefore offers the first comprehensive and detailed analysis of Barker’s scenographic practice. Combining aesthetic analysis of play texts and production records with original interview materials, this book presents the first full-length foray into Barker’s scenography. It features extracts from conversations with designers working with Barker, and with Barker himself. In addition, it presents the first printed versions of select set and costume designs by Barker. With the first fully detailed analysis of Barker’s scenographic work, this book will be a vital read for scholars and postgraduates of Barker Studies, contemporary British and European drama, theatre, and scenography.

Author : Helene E. Bilis
Publisher : University of Toronto Press
Page : 272 pages
File Size : 54,9 Mb
Release : 2016-10-27
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781487510572

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Passing Judgment by Helene E. Bilis Pdf

The royal judge was an archetypal character in French tragedy during the 17th century. This figure impersonated the king by asserting his judicial authority and bringing order to an otherwise chaotic world. In Passing Judgment, Hélène Bilis examines how an overlooked character-type—the royal judge—remained a constant of the tragic genre throughout the 17th century, although the specifics of his role and position fluctuated as playwrights experimented with changing models of sovereignty onstage. Her readings analyze how this royal decision-maker stood at the intersection of political and theatrical debates, and evolved through a process of trial and error in which certain portrayals of kingship were deemed obsolete and were discarded, while others were promoted as culturally allowable and resonant. In tracing the royal judge’s persistent presence and transformation, Bilis argues that we can better grasp the weighty political stakes of theatrical representations under the ancien régime.

Author : Toni Bernhart,Jaša Drnovsek,Sven Thorsten Kilian,Joachim Küpper,Jan Mosch
Publisher : Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Page : 296 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2018-08-21
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9783110603521

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Poetics and Politics by Toni Bernhart,Jaša Drnovsek,Sven Thorsten Kilian,Joachim Küpper,Jan Mosch Pdf

Far from teleological historiography, the pan-European perspective on Early Modern drama offered in this volume provides answers to why, how, where and when the given phenomena of theatre appear in history. Using theories of circulation and other concepts of exchange, transfer and movement, the authors analyze the development and differentiation of European secular and religious drama, within the disciplinary framework of comparative literature and the history of literature and concepts. Within this frame, aspects of major interest are the relationship between tradition and innovation, the status of genre, the proportion of autonomous and heteronomous creational dispositions within the artefacts or genres they belong to, as well as strategies of functionalization in the context of a given part of the cultural net. Contributions cover a broad range of topics, including poetics of Early Modern Drama; political, institutional and social practices; history of themes and motifs (Stoffgeschichte); history of genres/cross-fertilization between genres; textual traditions and distribution of texts; questions of originality and authorship; theories of circulation and net structures in Drama Studies.

Author : Kenneth Usongo
Publisher : Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Page : 155 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2017-05-11
Category : Law
ISBN : 9781443893329

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Politics and Romance in Shakespeare’s Four Great Tragedies by Kenneth Usongo Pdf

This study of the political and romantic impulses of Shakespeare's tragic characters - including Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet, Othello, and Iago, among others - discusses the overblown ambition of these characters as they embrace cunning and evil in order to acquire power and romance. The excessive ambition shown by these characters fuels action in the plays and significantly contributes to their downfall. In other words, the book interrogates, in a pluralist critical frame, the forces behind the quest for power and romance by Shakespeare's protagonists, and explores how these forces propel the.