Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh

Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh PDF Author: Mae J. Smethurst
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739172425
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 127

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Book Description
This book explores the ramifications of understanding the similarities and differences between the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles and realistic Japanese noh. First, it looks at the relationship of Aristotle's definition of tragedy to the tragedies he favored. Next, his definition is applied to realistic noh, in order to show how they do and do not conform to his definition. In the third and fourth chapters, the focus moves to those junctures in the dramas that Aristotle considered crucial to a complex plot - recognitions and sudden reversals -, and shows how they are presented in performance. Chapter 3 examines the climactic moments of realistic noh and demonstrates that it is at precisely these moments that a third actor becomes involved in the dialogue or that an actor in various ways steps out of character. Chapter 4 explores how plays by Euripides and Sophocles deal with critical turns in the plot, as Aristotle defined it. It is not by an actor stepping out of character, but by the playwright's involvement of the third actor in the dialogue. The argument of this book reveals a similar symbiosis between plot and performance in both dramatic forms. By looking at noh through the lens of Aristotle and two Greek tragedies that he favored, the book uncovers first an Aristotelian plot structure in realistic noh and the relationship between the crucial points in the plot and its performance; and on the Greek side, looking at the tragedies through the lens of noh suggests a hitherto unnoticed relationship between the structure of the tragedies and their performance, that is, the involvement of the third actor at the climactic moments of the plot. This observation helps to account for Aristotle's view that tragedy be limited to three actors.

Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh

Dramatic Action in Greek Tragedy and Noh PDF Author: Mae J. Smethurst
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0739172425
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 127

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book explores the ramifications of understanding the similarities and differences between the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles and realistic Japanese noh. First, it looks at the relationship of Aristotle's definition of tragedy to the tragedies he favored. Next, his definition is applied to realistic noh, in order to show how they do and do not conform to his definition. In the third and fourth chapters, the focus moves to those junctures in the dramas that Aristotle considered crucial to a complex plot - recognitions and sudden reversals -, and shows how they are presented in performance. Chapter 3 examines the climactic moments of realistic noh and demonstrates that it is at precisely these moments that a third actor becomes involved in the dialogue or that an actor in various ways steps out of character. Chapter 4 explores how plays by Euripides and Sophocles deal with critical turns in the plot, as Aristotle defined it. It is not by an actor stepping out of character, but by the playwright's involvement of the third actor in the dialogue. The argument of this book reveals a similar symbiosis between plot and performance in both dramatic forms. By looking at noh through the lens of Aristotle and two Greek tragedies that he favored, the book uncovers first an Aristotelian plot structure in realistic noh and the relationship between the crucial points in the plot and its performance; and on the Greek side, looking at the tragedies through the lens of noh suggests a hitherto unnoticed relationship between the structure of the tragedies and their performance, that is, the involvement of the third actor at the climactic moments of the plot. This observation helps to account for Aristotle's view that tragedy be limited to three actors.

The Artistry of Aeschylus and Zeami

The Artistry of Aeschylus and Zeami PDF Author: Mae J. Smethurst
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400860059
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 356

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Book Description
By means of a cross-cultural analysis of selected examples of early Japanese and early Greek drama, Mae Smethurst enhances our appreciation of each form. While using the methods of a classicist to increase our understanding of no as literary texts, she also demonstrates that the fifteenth-century treatises of Zeami--an important playwright, actor, critic, and teacher of no--offer fresh insight into Aeschylus' use of actors, language, and various elements of stage presentation. Relatively little documentation apart from the texts of the plays is available for the Greek theater of the fifth century B.C., but Smethurst uses documentation on no, and evidence from no performances today, to suggest how presentations of the Persians could have been so successful despite the play's lack of dramatic confrontation. Aeschylean theater resembles that of Zeami in creating its powerful emotional and aesthetic effect through a coherent organization of structural elements. Both playwrights used such methods as the gradual intensification of rhythmic and musical effects, an increase in the number and complexity of the actors' movements, and a progressive focusing of attention on the main actors and on costumes, masks, and props during the course of the play. Originally published in 1989. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama

A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama PDF Author: Betine van Zyl Smit
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 1118347773
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 624

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Book Description
A Handbook to the Reception of Greek Drama offers a series of original essays that represent a comprehensive overview of the global reception of ancient Greek tragedies and comedies from antiquity to the present day. Represents the first volume to offer a complete overview of the reception of ancient drama from antiquity to the present Covers the translation, transmission, performance, production, and adaptation of Greek tragedy from the time the plays were first created in ancient Athens through the 21st century Features overviews of the history of the reception of Greek drama in most countries of the world Includes chapters covering the reception of Greek drama in modern opera and film

The Materialities of Greek Tragedy

The Materialities of Greek Tragedy PDF Author: Mario Telò
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350028800
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
Situated within contemporary posthumanism, this volume offers theoretical and practical approaches to materiality in Greek tragedy. Established and emerging scholars explore how works of the three major Greek tragedians problematize objects and affect, providing fresh readings of some of the masterpieces of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The so-called new materialisms have complemented the study of objects as signifiers or symbols with an interest in their agency and vitality, their sensuous force and psychosomatic impact-and conversely their resistance and irreducible aloofness. At the same time, emotion has been recast as material “affect,” an intense flow of energies between bodies, animate and inanimate. Powerfully contributing to the current critical debate on materiality, the essays collected here destabilize established interpretations, suggesting alternative approaches and pointing toward a newly robust sense of the physicality of Greek tragedy.

Adapting Greek Tragedy

Adapting Greek Tragedy PDF Author: Vayos Liapis
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107155703
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 447

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Book Description
Shows how contemporary adaptations, on the stage and on the page, can breathe new life into Greek tragedy.

The Poetics of Aristotle

The Poetics of Aristotle PDF Author: Aristotle
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Aesthetics
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description


Reconstructing Satyr Drama

Reconstructing Satyr Drama PDF Author: Andreas P. Antonopoulos
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 311072524X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 967

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Book Description
The origins of satyr drama, and particularly the reliability of the account in Aristotle, remains contested, and several of this volume’s contributions try to make sense of the early relationship of satyr drama to dithyramb and attempt to place satyr drama in the pre-Classical performance space and traditions. What is not contested is the relationship of satyr drama to tragedy as a required cap to the Attic trilogy. Here, however, how Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (to whom one complete play and the preponderance of the surviving fragments belong) envisioned the relationship of satyr drama to tragedy in plot, structure, setting, stage action and language is a complex subject tackled by several contributors. The playful satyr chorus and the drunken senility of Silenos have always suggested some links to comedy and later to Atellan farce and phlyax. Those links are best examined through language, passages in later Greek and Roman writers, and in art. The purpose of this volume is probe as many themes and connections of satyr drama with other literary genres, as well as other art forms, putting satyr drama on stage from the sixth century BC through the second century AD. The editors and contributors suggest solutions to some of the controversies, but the volume shows as much that the field of study is vibrant and deserves fuller attention.

The Japanese Theatre

The Japanese Theatre PDF Author: Benito Ortolani
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691043333
Category : Drama
Languages : en
Pages : 432

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Book Description
From ancient ritualistic practices to modern dance theatre, this study provides concise summaries of all major theatrical art forms in Japan. It situates each genre in its particular social and cultural contexts, describing in detail staging, costumes, repertory and noteworthy actors.

Translations of Greek Tragedy in the Work of Ezra Pound

Translations of Greek Tragedy in the Work of Ezra Pound PDF Author: Peter Liebregts
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350084174
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Turning the tables on the misconception that Ezra Pound knew little Greek, this volume looks at his work translating Greek tragedy and considers how influential this was for his later writing. Pound's work as a translator has had an enormous impact on the theory and practice of translation, and continues to be a source of heated debate. While scholars have assessed his translations from Chinese, Latin, and even Provençal, his work on Greek tragedy remains understudied. Pound's versions of Greek tragedy (of Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and of Sophocles' Elektra and Women of Trachis) have received scant attention, as it has been commonly assumed that Pound knew little of the language. Liebregts shows that the poet's knowledge of Greek was much more comprehensive than is generally assumed, and that his renderings were based on a careful reading of the source texts. He identifies the works Pound used as the basis for his translations, and contextualises his versions with regard to his biography and output, particularly The Cantos. A wealth of understudied source material is analysed, such as Pound's personal annotations in his Loeb edition of Sophocles, his unpublished correspondence with classical scholars such as F. R. Earp and Rudd Fleming, as well as manuscript versions and other as-yet-unpublished drafts and texts which illuminate his working methodology.

Theory for Theatre Studies: Movement

Theory for Theatre Studies: Movement PDF Author: Rachel Fensham
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350026387
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
How do we define movement in performance? Who or what is being moved and how? And which movements are felt, observed, or studied, in theatre? Part of the Theory for Theatre Studies series which introduces core theoretical concepts that underpin the discipline, Movement provides the first overview of relevant critical theory for students and researchers in theatre and performance studies. Exploring areas such as vitality, plasticity, gesture, effort and rhythm, it opens up the study of theatrical production, live art, and intercultural performance to socio-political conceptions of movement as both practice and concept. It covers movement training systems and considers how they have been utilized in key works of the 20th and 21st centuries. The final section traces the convergence of movement in theatre with other media and digital technologies. A wide range of in-depth case studies helps to equip readers to explore new methodologies and approaches to movement as a performance concept. These include analysis of Satoshi Miyagi's production of Sophocles' Antigone (2017), Thomas Ostermeier's production of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler (2008), the Berliner Ensemble's Mother Courage (1949), The Constant Prince (1965) performed by Ryzsard Cieslak, and the National Theatre's production of War Horse (2007). The final section considers a suite of concepts that shape postdramatic and intermedial theatre from China, Germany-Bangladesh, Australia, the United States, and United Kingdom. The volume is supported by further online resources including video material, questions, and exercises.