Jason Jacobs
- Published in print:
- 2000
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198742340
- eISBN:
- 9780191695018
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198742340.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
This book explores the formative period of British television drama, concentrating on the years 1936–55. It examines the continuities and changes of early television drama, and the impact this had ...
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This book explores the formative period of British television drama, concentrating on the years 1936–55. It examines the continuities and changes of early television drama, and the impact this had upon the subsequent ‘golden age’. In particular, it questions the caricature of early television drama as ‘photographed stage plays’ and argues that early television pioneers in fact produced a diverse range of innovative drama productions, using a wide range of techniques. It also explores the often competing definitions about the form and aesthetics of early television drama both inside and outside the BBC. Given the absence of an audio-visual record of early television drama, the book uses written archive material in order to reconstruct how early television drama looked, and how it was considered by producers and critics, whilst also offering a critical examination of surviving dramas, such as Rudolph Cartier's Nineteen Eighty-Four.Less
This book explores the formative period of British television drama, concentrating on the years 1936–55. It examines the continuities and changes of early television drama, and the impact this had upon the subsequent ‘golden age’. In particular, it questions the caricature of early television drama as ‘photographed stage plays’ and argues that early television pioneers in fact produced a diverse range of innovative drama productions, using a wide range of techniques. It also explores the often competing definitions about the form and aesthetics of early television drama both inside and outside the BBC. Given the absence of an audio-visual record of early television drama, the book uses written archive material in order to reconstruct how early television drama looked, and how it was considered by producers and critics, whilst also offering a critical examination of surviving dramas, such as Rudolph Cartier's Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Christopher B. Balme
- Published in print:
- 1999
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198184447
- eISBN:
- 9780191674266
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198184447.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama
This book is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms ...
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This book is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their indigenous traditions with the Western dramatic form. These experiments are termed ‘syncretic theatre’. The study provides a theoretically sophisticated, cross-cultural comparative approach to a wide number of writers, regions, and theatre movements, ranging from Maori, Aboriginal, and Native American theatre to Township theatre in South Africa. Writers studied include Nobel Prize-winning authors such as Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Rabindranath Tagore, along with others such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Jack Davis, Girish Karnad, and Tomson Highway. This book demonstrates how the dynamics of syncretic theatrical texts function in performance. It combines cultural semiotics with performance analysis to provide an important contribution to the growing field of post-colonial drama and intercultural performance.Less
This book is a major study devoted to post-colonial drama and theatre. It examines the way dramatists and directors from various countries and societies have attempted to fuse the performance idioms of their indigenous traditions with the Western dramatic form. These experiments are termed ‘syncretic theatre’. The study provides a theoretically sophisticated, cross-cultural comparative approach to a wide number of writers, regions, and theatre movements, ranging from Maori, Aboriginal, and Native American theatre to Township theatre in South Africa. Writers studied include Nobel Prize-winning authors such as Wole Soyinka, Derek Walcott, and Rabindranath Tagore, along with others such as Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Jack Davis, Girish Karnad, and Tomson Highway. This book demonstrates how the dynamics of syncretic theatrical texts function in performance. It combines cultural semiotics with performance analysis to provide an important contribution to the growing field of post-colonial drama and intercultural performance.
Ying Zhu, Michael Keane, and Ruoyun Bai (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622099401
- eISBN:
- 9789882207646
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622099401.001.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Television
This collection of essays brings together the first study of TV drama in China. Examining the production, distribution, and consumption of TV drama, the team of contributors demonstrate why it ...
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This collection of essays brings together the first study of TV drama in China. Examining the production, distribution, and consumption of TV drama, the team of contributors demonstrate why it remains the pre-eminent media form in China. The examples are diverse, highlighting the complexity of producing narrative content in a rapidly changing political and social environment. Genres examined include the revisionist Qing drama, historical and contemporary domestic dramas, anti-corruption dramas, “pink” dramas, Red Classics, stories from the Diaspora, and sit-coms. In addition to genres, the collection explores industry dynamics: how TV dramas are marketed and consumed on DVD, and China's aspirations to export its television drama rights. The book provides an international and cross-cultural perspective with chapters on Taiwanese TV drama in China, the impact of South Korean drama, and trans-border production between the Mainland and Hong Kong.Less
This collection of essays brings together the first study of TV drama in China. Examining the production, distribution, and consumption of TV drama, the team of contributors demonstrate why it remains the pre-eminent media form in China. The examples are diverse, highlighting the complexity of producing narrative content in a rapidly changing political and social environment. Genres examined include the revisionist Qing drama, historical and contemporary domestic dramas, anti-corruption dramas, “pink” dramas, Red Classics, stories from the Diaspora, and sit-coms. In addition to genres, the collection explores industry dynamics: how TV dramas are marketed and consumed on DVD, and China's aspirations to export its television drama rights. The book provides an international and cross-cultural perspective with chapters on Taiwanese TV drama in China, the impact of South Korean drama, and trans-border production between the Mainland and Hong Kong.
Sos Eltis
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198121831
- eISBN:
- 9780191671340
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198121831.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature, Drama
This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional ...
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This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional values of Victorian literature and society. By tracing Wilde's painstaking revisions and redrafting of his plays, the book uncovers themes subsequently concealed in successive versions which demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist. Wilde borrowed plots and incidents from numerous contemporary French and English plays, but he then subtly rewrote his plagiarized material in order to mock the conventions he imitated. By analysing previously unconsidered manuscript drafts, and comparing the finished plays with their sources, the book displays a surprising depth and complexity in Wilde's work. The little-known early play, Vera; or, The Nihilists is revealed as a politically radical drama, the society plays are shown to challenge Victorian sexual and social mores, and The Importance of Being Earnest is interpreted as an anarchic farce, which reflects the Utopian vision of Wilde's political essay, ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’.Less
This book challenges long-established views of Oscar Wilde as a dilettante and dandy, revealing him instead as a serious philosopher and social critic who used his plays to subvert the traditional values of Victorian literature and society. By tracing Wilde's painstaking revisions and redrafting of his plays, the book uncovers themes subsequently concealed in successive versions which demonstrate that Wilde was in fact an anarchist, a socialist, and a feminist. Wilde borrowed plots and incidents from numerous contemporary French and English plays, but he then subtly rewrote his plagiarized material in order to mock the conventions he imitated. By analysing previously unconsidered manuscript drafts, and comparing the finished plays with their sources, the book displays a surprising depth and complexity in Wilde's work. The little-known early play, Vera; or, The Nihilists is revealed as a politically radical drama, the society plays are shown to challenge Victorian sexual and social mores, and The Importance of Being Earnest is interpreted as an anarchic farce, which reflects the Utopian vision of Wilde's political essay, ‘The Soul of Man Under Socialism’.
SWAPAN CHAKRAVORTY
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198182665
- eISBN:
- 9780191673856
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198182665.003.0010
- Subject:
- Literature, Drama, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature
A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary ...
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A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary value for granted, no reality as unchanging’. His promiscuous texts are proven material for postmodern theatre and pedagogy, constantly assaulting the tidy notions of high and low, genre and counter-genre. It is not surprising that academic criticism should have managed to find in Middleton the extremes of both committed didacticism and detached irony. One reason it still finds him so difficult to place is the suggestion in his plays that desires, morals, society, and politics are subject to rules that can operate only by misrepresenting themselves to our consciousness. The suggestion makes Middleton an important waymark in our emergence out of cognitive innocence.Less
A recent survey of drama and society in the English Renaissance ends with applauding Thomas Middleton as ‘a master’ who ‘will take no contemporary value for granted, no reality as unchanging’. His promiscuous texts are proven material for postmodern theatre and pedagogy, constantly assaulting the tidy notions of high and low, genre and counter-genre. It is not surprising that academic criticism should have managed to find in Middleton the extremes of both committed didacticism and detached irony. One reason it still finds him so difficult to place is the suggestion in his plays that desires, morals, society, and politics are subject to rules that can operate only by misrepresenting themselves to our consciousness. The suggestion makes Middleton an important waymark in our emergence out of cognitive innocence.
Hilda Meldrum Brown
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198158950
- eISBN:
- 9780191673436
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198158950.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, 19th-century and Victorian Literature
This concluding chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. Prinz Friedrich von Homburg is indubitably the culmination of Kleist's art, and it provides complete justification for ...
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This concluding chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. Prinz Friedrich von Homburg is indubitably the culmination of Kleist's art, and it provides complete justification for his belief and commitment to the drama form. All the best features of his artistry are combined here: conciseness and density, elegance of structure, and a brilliant but (for the first time) utterly relaxed control of language. Although ideals and illusions are the stuff of Kleist's works, the pessimism which this often implies is itself balanced by the sheer panache and increasing confidence with which he handles his materials and which is often evident in the almost triumphant way he draws attention to the artifice itself.Less
This concluding chapter summarizes the discussions in the preceding chapters. Prinz Friedrich von Homburg is indubitably the culmination of Kleist's art, and it provides complete justification for his belief and commitment to the drama form. All the best features of his artistry are combined here: conciseness and density, elegance of structure, and a brilliant but (for the first time) utterly relaxed control of language. Although ideals and illusions are the stuff of Kleist's works, the pessimism which this often implies is itself balanced by the sheer panache and increasing confidence with which he handles his materials and which is often evident in the almost triumphant way he draws attention to the artifice itself.
David Brown
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231836
- eISBN:
- 9780191716201
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231836.003.0006
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This chapter explores the history of the theatre and drama and its varying relationships with religious belief. It begins in the ancient world where the term ‘liturgy’ had its origins and where one ...
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This chapter explores the history of the theatre and drama and its varying relationships with religious belief. It begins in the ancient world where the term ‘liturgy’ had its origins and where one such liturgical act was the staging of drama. It traces the revival of religious drama after its initial suppression by Christianity, not only in medieval mystery plays but also in now largely forgotten Reformation and Counter-Reformation drama. It then turns to baroque poetry and explores how disputes about ritual often reflected wider cultural change that is indebted to notions of theatre. Finally, it draws attention to the ways in which a relationship with religion continues, especially in the various theories that have been proposed about the value and purpose of drama.Less
This chapter explores the history of the theatre and drama and its varying relationships with religious belief. It begins in the ancient world where the term ‘liturgy’ had its origins and where one such liturgical act was the staging of drama. It traces the revival of religious drama after its initial suppression by Christianity, not only in medieval mystery plays but also in now largely forgotten Reformation and Counter-Reformation drama. It then turns to baroque poetry and explores how disputes about ritual often reflected wider cultural change that is indebted to notions of theatre. Finally, it draws attention to the ways in which a relationship with religion continues, especially in the various theories that have been proposed about the value and purpose of drama.
Beng Huat Chua and Koichi Iwabuchi (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9789622098923
- eISBN:
- 9789882206885
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Hong Kong University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5790/hongkong/9789622098923.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Media Studies
In this book, an international group of contributors provide a multi-layered analysis of the emerging East Asian media culture, using the Korean TV drama as its analytic vehicle. This collection of ...
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In this book, an international group of contributors provide a multi-layered analysis of the emerging East Asian media culture, using the Korean TV drama as its analytic vehicle. This collection of essays is also the result of a workshop organized by the Cultural Studies in Asia Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. The aim of the Cluster is to promote collaborative research in contemporary cultural practices which are influenced by intensifying transnational exchanges across historical, linguistic and cultural boundaries in Asia.Less
In this book, an international group of contributors provide a multi-layered analysis of the emerging East Asian media culture, using the Korean TV drama as its analytic vehicle. This collection of essays is also the result of a workshop organized by the Cultural Studies in Asia Research Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. The aim of the Cluster is to promote collaborative research in contemporary cultural practices which are influenced by intensifying transnational exchanges across historical, linguistic and cultural boundaries in Asia.
Terryl C. Givens
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195167115
- eISBN:
- 9780199785599
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195167115.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book is an exploration of the Mormon cultural identity that Joseph Smith and, to a lesser extent, Brigham Young founded. At the heart of their thinking were a number of dynamic tensions, or ...
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This book is an exploration of the Mormon cultural identity that Joseph Smith and, to a lesser extent, Brigham Young founded. At the heart of their thinking were a number of dynamic tensions, or paradoxes, that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Arguing that culture can be viewed as the result of a people's efforts to accommodate such irresolvable tensions, Givens looks at the Mormon “habit of mind”, and forms of artistic expression to trace consistent themes and ideas that constitute, or contribute to the formation of a distinct cultural community. This study begins by examining four especially rich and fertile tensions, or thematic pairings in Mormon thought, that have inspired recurrent and sustained engagement on the part of writers, artists, and thinkers in the Mormon community. The safety and strictures of centralized authority, the rhetoric and promise of theological certainty, the collapse of the sacred into the banal, and the retreat into chosen isolation all find their opposite temptation in the allure of radical individualism, the endless and endlessly deferred nature of saving knowledge, the yearning for a theology of transcendence, and the angst of alienation. As Mormonism continues its evolution from American denomination to a new religious tradition and world-wide faith, this study represents a timely look at the role of cultural achievement and self-representation in that process. Genres treated include education, intellectual life, architecture, music and dance, theater (drama) film, literature, and visual art.Less
This book is an exploration of the Mormon cultural identity that Joseph Smith and, to a lesser extent, Brigham Young founded. At the heart of their thinking were a number of dynamic tensions, or paradoxes, that give Mormon cultural expression much of its vitality. Arguing that culture can be viewed as the result of a people's efforts to accommodate such irresolvable tensions, Givens looks at the Mormon “habit of mind”, and forms of artistic expression to trace consistent themes and ideas that constitute, or contribute to the formation of a distinct cultural community. This study begins by examining four especially rich and fertile tensions, or thematic pairings in Mormon thought, that have inspired recurrent and sustained engagement on the part of writers, artists, and thinkers in the Mormon community. The safety and strictures of centralized authority, the rhetoric and promise of theological certainty, the collapse of the sacred into the banal, and the retreat into chosen isolation all find their opposite temptation in the allure of radical individualism, the endless and endlessly deferred nature of saving knowledge, the yearning for a theology of transcendence, and the angst of alienation. As Mormonism continues its evolution from American denomination to a new religious tradition and world-wide faith, this study represents a timely look at the role of cultural achievement and self-representation in that process. Genres treated include education, intellectual life, architecture, music and dance, theater (drama) film, literature, and visual art.
Jeffrey G. Snodgrass
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195304343
- eISBN:
- 9780199785063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195304349.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter presents Bhat ballads featuring linguistically talented bards who dominate and control their lords and benefactors. Bhat praise of kings and patrons in their practice as well as in their ...
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This chapter presents Bhat ballads featuring linguistically talented bards who dominate and control their lords and benefactors. Bhat praise of kings and patrons in their practice as well as in their myths and epics is less an acknowledgment of Rajput (former feudal landlords of Rajasthan) or Kshatriya (Warrior) supremacy — be it based on generous patronage, martial sacrifice, or some other virtue — and more a Bhat tactic for establishing their own importance as cunning bards who themselves defend and protect their patron-lords. In shifting the focus from patrons to the insights of the author’s bardic informants and the power of linguistic representation, this chapter hopes to draw more explicit attention to the imaginative dimensions of caste hierarchies and the arbitrariness of social centers and peripheries, It also argues that Bhat poetics parallel many of the insights of contemporary postmodern and poststructuralist theories. This chapter ends by exploring the manner Bhats use stories and puppet dramas placing themselves in close relationship to kings and nobles to help them appropriate the roles and statuses associated with royal bards, which in turn enables them to better exploit the modern tourist industry.Less
This chapter presents Bhat ballads featuring linguistically talented bards who dominate and control their lords and benefactors. Bhat praise of kings and patrons in their practice as well as in their myths and epics is less an acknowledgment of Rajput (former feudal landlords of Rajasthan) or Kshatriya (Warrior) supremacy — be it based on generous patronage, martial sacrifice, or some other virtue — and more a Bhat tactic for establishing their own importance as cunning bards who themselves defend and protect their patron-lords. In shifting the focus from patrons to the insights of the author’s bardic informants and the power of linguistic representation, this chapter hopes to draw more explicit attention to the imaginative dimensions of caste hierarchies and the arbitrariness of social centers and peripheries, It also argues that Bhat poetics parallel many of the insights of contemporary postmodern and poststructuralist theories. This chapter ends by exploring the manner Bhats use stories and puppet dramas placing themselves in close relationship to kings and nobles to help them appropriate the roles and statuses associated with royal bards, which in turn enables them to better exploit the modern tourist industry.
Victoria Wohl
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691166506
- eISBN:
- 9781400866403
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691166506.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Ancient History / Archaeology
How can we make sense of the innovative structure of Euripidean drama? And what political role did tragedy play in the democracy of classical Athens? These questions are usually considered to be ...
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How can we make sense of the innovative structure of Euripidean drama? And what political role did tragedy play in the democracy of classical Athens? These questions are usually considered to be mutually exclusive, but this book shows that they can only be properly answered together. Providing a new approach to the aesthetics and politics of Greek tragedy, this book argues that the poetic form of Euripides' drama constitutes a mode of political thought. Through readings of select plays, the book explores the politics of Euripides' radical aesthetics, showing how formal innovation generates political passions with real-world consequences. Euripides' plays have long perplexed readers. With their disjointed plots, comic touches, and frequent happy endings, they seem to stretch the boundaries of tragedy. But the plays' formal traits—from their exorbitantly beautiful lyrics to their arousal and resolution of suspense—shape the audience's political sensibilities and ideological attachments. Engendering civic passions, the plays enact as well as express political ideas. The book draws out the political implications of Euripidean aesthetics by exploring such topics as narrative and ideological desire, the politics of pathos, realism and its utopian possibilities, the logic of political allegory, and tragedy's relation to its historical moment. Breaking through the impasse between formalist and historicist interpretations of Greek tragedy, the book demonstrates that aesthetic structure and political meaning are mutually implicated—and that to read the plays poetically is necessarily to read them politically.Less
How can we make sense of the innovative structure of Euripidean drama? And what political role did tragedy play in the democracy of classical Athens? These questions are usually considered to be mutually exclusive, but this book shows that they can only be properly answered together. Providing a new approach to the aesthetics and politics of Greek tragedy, this book argues that the poetic form of Euripides' drama constitutes a mode of political thought. Through readings of select plays, the book explores the politics of Euripides' radical aesthetics, showing how formal innovation generates political passions with real-world consequences. Euripides' plays have long perplexed readers. With their disjointed plots, comic touches, and frequent happy endings, they seem to stretch the boundaries of tragedy. But the plays' formal traits—from their exorbitantly beautiful lyrics to their arousal and resolution of suspense—shape the audience's political sensibilities and ideological attachments. Engendering civic passions, the plays enact as well as express political ideas. The book draws out the political implications of Euripidean aesthetics by exploring such topics as narrative and ideological desire, the politics of pathos, realism and its utopian possibilities, the logic of political allegory, and tragedy's relation to its historical moment. Breaking through the impasse between formalist and historicist interpretations of Greek tragedy, the book demonstrates that aesthetic structure and political meaning are mutually implicated—and that to read the plays poetically is necessarily to read them politically.
Francesca Aran Murphy
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199219285
- eISBN:
- 9780191711664
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199219285.003.0007
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Because of their descriptive cast, narrative theologies are oriented to considering the future as the most significant tense; they thus recoup the ancient Christian millennarian tradition, as it ...
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Because of their descriptive cast, narrative theologies are oriented to considering the future as the most significant tense; they thus recoup the ancient Christian millennarian tradition, as it surfaces in, for instance, Joachim of Fiore. This focus on futurity indicates that the basic motivation in narrative theologies is the quest for scientific predictability. A philosophical theology which gives metaphysical status to the way in which scientific hypotheses are epistemically verified (in the future) is bound to say, with Hegel, that the truth of a proposition is what it becomes, just as the ‘truth’ of a story is its outcome. Rather than making God the epistemic outcome of human acts of knowledge or story-telling, this chapter proposes that God is a much livelier and energetic thing, love. The two foremost analogies of this dramatic love are tragedy and comedy. The book's thesis thus achieves the aim of narrative theologies to be true to the ‘God of the Gospel’ rather than the gods of our culture.Less
Because of their descriptive cast, narrative theologies are oriented to considering the future as the most significant tense; they thus recoup the ancient Christian millennarian tradition, as it surfaces in, for instance, Joachim of Fiore. This focus on futurity indicates that the basic motivation in narrative theologies is the quest for scientific predictability. A philosophical theology which gives metaphysical status to the way in which scientific hypotheses are epistemically verified (in the future) is bound to say, with Hegel, that the truth of a proposition is what it becomes, just as the ‘truth’ of a story is its outcome. Rather than making God the epistemic outcome of human acts of knowledge or story-telling, this chapter proposes that God is a much livelier and energetic thing, love. The two foremost analogies of this dramatic love are tragedy and comedy. The book's thesis thus achieves the aim of narrative theologies to be true to the ‘God of the Gospel’ rather than the gods of our culture.
Charlotte Scott
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199212101
- eISBN:
- 9780191705878
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199212101.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Shakespeare Studies
The ‘book’ — both material and metaphoric — is a recurring theme in William Shakespeare’s plays: it is held by Hamlet as he turns through revenge to madness; buried deep in the mudded ooze by ...
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The ‘book’ — both material and metaphoric — is a recurring theme in William Shakespeare’s plays: it is held by Hamlet as he turns through revenge to madness; buried deep in the mudded ooze by Prospero when he has shaken out his art like music and violence; forced by Richard II to withstand the mortality of deposition, fetishised by lovers, tormented by pedagogues, lost by kings, written by the alienated, and hung about war with the blood of lost voices. The ‘book’ begins and ends Shakespeare’s dramatic career as change itself, standing the distance between violence and hope, between holding and losing. This book is about the book in Shakespeare’s plays and focuses on seven plays, not only for the chronology and range they present, but also for their particular relationship to the book — whether it is political or humanist, cognitive or illusory, satirical or sexual, spiritual or secular, social or subjective. It is argued that the book on stage, its literal and semantic presence, offers one of the most articulate and developed hermeneutic tools available for the study of early modern English culture.Less
The ‘book’ — both material and metaphoric — is a recurring theme in William Shakespeare’s plays: it is held by Hamlet as he turns through revenge to madness; buried deep in the mudded ooze by Prospero when he has shaken out his art like music and violence; forced by Richard II to withstand the mortality of deposition, fetishised by lovers, tormented by pedagogues, lost by kings, written by the alienated, and hung about war with the blood of lost voices. The ‘book’ begins and ends Shakespeare’s dramatic career as change itself, standing the distance between violence and hope, between holding and losing. This book is about the book in Shakespeare’s plays and focuses on seven plays, not only for the chronology and range they present, but also for their particular relationship to the book — whether it is political or humanist, cognitive or illusory, satirical or sexual, spiritual or secular, social or subjective. It is argued that the book on stage, its literal and semantic presence, offers one of the most articulate and developed hermeneutic tools available for the study of early modern English culture.
Laurence Whitehead
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780199253289
- eISBN:
- 9780191600326
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199253285.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
Proposes an interpretative framework for the comparison of democratic transitions. It argues that the complex dynamics, shifting agendas, and multiple interactions that characterize all such ...
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Proposes an interpretative framework for the comparison of democratic transitions. It argues that the complex dynamics, shifting agendas, and multiple interactions that characterize all such processes can be integrated and brought into focus by the construction of an analogy with theatre and drama. Every democratic transition obeys the logic of a public dramatic performance. The chapter also revisits the origins of democracy to confirm the robustness of this analogy with drama.Less
Proposes an interpretative framework for the comparison of democratic transitions. It argues that the complex dynamics, shifting agendas, and multiple interactions that characterize all such processes can be integrated and brought into focus by the construction of an analogy with theatre and drama. Every democratic transition obeys the logic of a public dramatic performance. The chapter also revisits the origins of democracy to confirm the robustness of this analogy with drama.
Patrick O'Sullivan and C. Collard (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781908343352
- eISBN:
- 9781800342682
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781908343352.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of ...
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Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of its compositional elements with tragedy, to which it became an adjunct; for at the annual great dramatic festivals, it was performed only together with, and after, the three tragedies which each poet was required to present in competition. It was in contrast with them. Euripides' Cyclops is the only satyr play which survives complete. Its title alone signals its content, Odysseus' escape from the one-eyed, man-eating monster, familiar from Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey. Because of its uniqueness, Cyclops could afford only a limited idea of satyric drama's range, which the many but brief quotations from other authors and plays barely coloured. Our knowledge and appreciation of the genre have been greatly enlarged, however, by recovery since the early 20th century of considerable fragments of Aeschylus, Euripides' predecessor, and of Sophocles, his contemporary — but not, so far, of Euripides himself. This book provides English readers for the first time with all the most important texts of satyric drama, with facing-page translation, substantial introduction and detailed commentary. It includes not only the major papyri, but very many shorter fragments of importance, both on papyrus and in quotation, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries; there are also one or two texts whose interest lies in their problematic ascription to the genre at all. The intention is to illustrate it as fully as practicable.Less
Satyric is the most thinly attested genre of Greek drama, but it appears to have been the oldest and, according to Aristotle, formative for tragedy. By the 5th century BC at Athens, it shared most of its compositional elements with tragedy, to which it became an adjunct; for at the annual great dramatic festivals, it was performed only together with, and after, the three tragedies which each poet was required to present in competition. It was in contrast with them. Euripides' Cyclops is the only satyr play which survives complete. Its title alone signals its content, Odysseus' escape from the one-eyed, man-eating monster, familiar from Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey. Because of its uniqueness, Cyclops could afford only a limited idea of satyric drama's range, which the many but brief quotations from other authors and plays barely coloured. Our knowledge and appreciation of the genre have been greatly enlarged, however, by recovery since the early 20th century of considerable fragments of Aeschylus, Euripides' predecessor, and of Sophocles, his contemporary — but not, so far, of Euripides himself. This book provides English readers for the first time with all the most important texts of satyric drama, with facing-page translation, substantial introduction and detailed commentary. It includes not only the major papyri, but very many shorter fragments of importance, both on papyrus and in quotation, from the 5th to the 3rd centuries; there are also one or two texts whose interest lies in their problematic ascription to the genre at all. The intention is to illustrate it as fully as practicable.
Xueping Zhong
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- November 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780824834173
- eISBN:
- 9780824870010
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Hawai'i Press
- DOI:
- 10.21313/hawaii/9780824834173.001.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
Serialized television drama dianshiju, perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and ...
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Serialized television drama dianshiju, perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and contradictions of the post-revolutionary and pro-market period. This book draws attention to the multiple cultural and historical legacies that coexist and challenge each other within this dominant form of storytelling. This book argues for recognizing the complexity of dianshiju’s melodramatic mode and its various subgenres, in effect “refocusing” mainstream Chinese culture. The book opens with an examination of television as a narrative motif in three contemporary Chinese art-house films. It then turns attention to dianshiju’s most important subgenres. “Emperor dramas” highlight the link between popular culture’s obsession with emperors and modern Chinese intellectuals’ preoccupation with issues of history and tradition and how they relate to modernity. In an exploration of the “anti-corruption” subgenre, the book considers three representative dramas, exploring their diverse plots and emphases. “Youth dramas’” rich array of representations reveal the numerous social, economic, cultural, and ideological issues surrounding the notion of youth and its changing meanings. The chapter on “family-marriage” analyzes the ways in which women’s emotions are represented in relation to their desire for “happiness.” Song lyrics from music composed for television dramas are considered as “popular poetics.” The Epilogue returns to the relationship between intellectuals and the production of mainstream cultural meaning in the context of China’s post-revolutionary social, economic, and cultural transformation.Less
Serialized television drama dianshiju, perhaps the most popular and influential cultural form in China over the past three decades, offers a wide and penetrating look at the tensions and contradictions of the post-revolutionary and pro-market period. This book draws attention to the multiple cultural and historical legacies that coexist and challenge each other within this dominant form of storytelling. This book argues for recognizing the complexity of dianshiju’s melodramatic mode and its various subgenres, in effect “refocusing” mainstream Chinese culture. The book opens with an examination of television as a narrative motif in three contemporary Chinese art-house films. It then turns attention to dianshiju’s most important subgenres. “Emperor dramas” highlight the link between popular culture’s obsession with emperors and modern Chinese intellectuals’ preoccupation with issues of history and tradition and how they relate to modernity. In an exploration of the “anti-corruption” subgenre, the book considers three representative dramas, exploring their diverse plots and emphases. “Youth dramas’” rich array of representations reveal the numerous social, economic, cultural, and ideological issues surrounding the notion of youth and its changing meanings. The chapter on “family-marriage” analyzes the ways in which women’s emotions are represented in relation to their desire for “happiness.” Song lyrics from music composed for television dramas are considered as “popular poetics.” The Epilogue returns to the relationship between intellectuals and the production of mainstream cultural meaning in the context of China’s post-revolutionary social, economic, and cultural transformation.
David Brown
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199231836
- eISBN:
- 9780191716201
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199231836.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This book uses the way in which poetry and drama have in the past opened people to the possibility of religious experience as a launching pad for advocating less wooden approaches to Christian ...
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This book uses the way in which poetry and drama have in the past opened people to the possibility of religious experience as a launching pad for advocating less wooden approaches to Christian worship today. So far from encouraging imagination and exploration, hymns and sermons now more commonly merely consolidate belief. Again, contemporary liturgy in both its music and its ceremonial fails to take seriously either current dramatic theory or the sociology of ritual. Yet this was not always so. Poetry and drama, the book suggests, grew out of religion, and therefore, the book proposes, creative potential needs to be rediscovered by religion.Less
This book uses the way in which poetry and drama have in the past opened people to the possibility of religious experience as a launching pad for advocating less wooden approaches to Christian worship today. So far from encouraging imagination and exploration, hymns and sermons now more commonly merely consolidate belief. Again, contemporary liturgy in both its music and its ceremonial fails to take seriously either current dramatic theory or the sociology of ritual. Yet this was not always so. Poetry and drama, the book suggests, grew out of religion, and therefore, the book proposes, creative potential needs to be rediscovered by religion.
Kay Richardson
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195374056
- eISBN:
- 9780199776177
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374056.001.0001
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
When we watch and listen to actors speaking lines that have been written by someone else, a common experience if we watch any television at all, the illusion of “people talking” is strong. These ...
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When we watch and listen to actors speaking lines that have been written by someone else, a common experience if we watch any television at all, the illusion of “people talking” is strong. These characters are people like us—or else the illusion would not work—but they are also different, products of a dramatic imagination, and the talk they exchange is also not quite like ours either. This book examines, from an applied sociolinguistic perspective, and with reference to television, the particular kind of “artificial” talk that we know as dialogue: onscreen/on‐mike talk delivered by characters as part of dramatic storytelling in a range of fictional and nonfictional TV genres. As well as trying to identify the place that this kind of language occupies in sociolinguistic space, it seeks to understand the conditions of its production by screenwriters and the conditions of its reception by audiences, and offers two case studies, one British (Life on Mars) and one American (House).Less
When we watch and listen to actors speaking lines that have been written by someone else, a common experience if we watch any television at all, the illusion of “people talking” is strong. These characters are people like us—or else the illusion would not work—but they are also different, products of a dramatic imagination, and the talk they exchange is also not quite like ours either. This book examines, from an applied sociolinguistic perspective, and with reference to television, the particular kind of “artificial” talk that we know as dialogue: onscreen/on‐mike talk delivered by characters as part of dramatic storytelling in a range of fictional and nonfictional TV genres. As well as trying to identify the place that this kind of language occupies in sociolinguistic space, it seeks to understand the conditions of its production by screenwriters and the conditions of its reception by audiences, and offers two case studies, one British (Life on Mars) and one American (House).
Philip Lambert
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195390070
- eISBN:
- 9780199863570
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390070.001.0001
- Subject:
- Music, Theory, Analysis, Composition, Popular
In fourteen years of collaboration beginning in 1957, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick wrote seven Broadway musicals together: The Body Beautiful (opened in 1958), Fiorello! (1959), ...
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In fourteen years of collaboration beginning in 1957, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick wrote seven Broadway musicals together: The Body Beautiful (opened in 1958), Fiorello! (1959), Tenderloin (1960), She Loves Me (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970). This book presents a thorough examination of each of these shows, along with a survey of the many other smaller projects Bock and Harnick undertook as a team. It also discusses the work they did separately, before they met in the 1950s and after they went their separate ways in the early 1970s. Drawing from extensive archives of drafts, manuscripts, and lyric sheets, and new personal interviews and communications with the songwriters and many of their collaborators, the book explores the history and reception of each show and its place in the public consciousness. It documents myriad details of each show’s songs, explaining their dramatic impact and artistic vitality. Placing the work of Bock and Harnick in its historical context—within a pivotal era in the history of musical theater—the book demonstrates that they were expert craftsmen, who came to master the integration of music with drama,Less
In fourteen years of collaboration beginning in 1957, composer Jerry Bock and lyricist Sheldon Harnick wrote seven Broadway musicals together: The Body Beautiful (opened in 1958), Fiorello! (1959), Tenderloin (1960), She Loves Me (1963), Fiddler on the Roof (1964), The Apple Tree (1966), and The Rothschilds (1970). This book presents a thorough examination of each of these shows, along with a survey of the many other smaller projects Bock and Harnick undertook as a team. It also discusses the work they did separately, before they met in the 1950s and after they went their separate ways in the early 1970s. Drawing from extensive archives of drafts, manuscripts, and lyric sheets, and new personal interviews and communications with the songwriters and many of their collaborators, the book explores the history and reception of each show and its place in the public consciousness. It documents myriad details of each show’s songs, explaining their dramatic impact and artistic vitality. Placing the work of Bock and Harnick in its historical context—within a pivotal era in the history of musical theater—the book demonstrates that they were expert craftsmen, who came to master the integration of music with drama,
REGINE MAY
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199202928
- eISBN:
- 9780191707957
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199202928.003.0013
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, Plays and Playwrights: Classical, Early, and Medieval
This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. This book sets out to trace the use of tragedy, comedy, and mime in the different works of Apuleius. In using ...
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This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. This book sets out to trace the use of tragedy, comedy, and mime in the different works of Apuleius. In using Seneca’s tragedies and Aristophanes’ and Terence’s comedies in addition to the fashionable poetae veteres, Apuleius is much more inclusive than his contemporaries Fronto and Gellius. It can be shown not only that his philosophical texts use Plautine language for the purposes of archaizing colour, but that dramatic quotations from several genres can be applied to illustrate various other elements of philosophical discourse, for example by integration of a dramatic quotation into the argument, or manipulation of its meaning. The dramatic genres, however, play their part amongst many other genres.Less
This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. This book sets out to trace the use of tragedy, comedy, and mime in the different works of Apuleius. In using Seneca’s tragedies and Aristophanes’ and Terence’s comedies in addition to the fashionable poetae veteres, Apuleius is much more inclusive than his contemporaries Fronto and Gellius. It can be shown not only that his philosophical texts use Plautine language for the purposes of archaizing colour, but that dramatic quotations from several genres can be applied to illustrate various other elements of philosophical discourse, for example by integration of a dramatic quotation into the argument, or manipulation of its meaning. The dramatic genres, however, play their part amongst many other genres.
