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Importance of literature to culture
How literature shapes culture
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In the late 1970s, literary critic Kenneth Burke postulated an interpretive critical method to help explain the intricacies behind human relations and the motives involved in all spheres of society. Commonly referred as dramatism, Burke claims that life, as any captivating film or theatre, is heavily dependent on dramatization in the process of motivating audiences into actions. Closely linked to one of Shakespeare’s acclaimed theatrical texts that reads “all the world is a stage / and all the men and women are merely players,” Burke suggests that the world as we know it functions as a metaphorical stage where humans are actors, writers, directors, and audiences simultaneously—that is, life is not a drama, but rather life is a drama. This
“A dramatistic explaination appears in terms that performers can comfortably employ in their efforts to stage events” (Pelias and Shaffer 62). This means that the process for understanding text in an aethestic manor needs to be simple and understandable to the performer so it can be clearly related to the audience. So, for the process to be effective it has to be true to reality, otherwise the message of the text will be lost. Pelias and Shaffer describe the questions in Burke’s Pentad as “fundamental of all human action” (62). The simplicity and familiarity of the concepts are comfortable for even the most inexperienced performer.
Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night is a comedy that has been interpreted in different ways, enabling one to receive multiple experiences of the same story. Due to the content and themes of the play, it can be creatively challenging to producers and their casting strategies. Instead of being a hindrance, I find the ability for one to experiment exciting as people try to discover strategies that best represent entertainment for the audience, as well as the best ways to interpret Shakespeare’s work.
...ly progressed from a way to tell stories about kings and gods to a way to tell stories about ordinary human beings. By moving our focus off of nobility, the language of plays became the language of every individual, and eventually, due to America’s “melting pot” culture, the language itself became individual. The unique language of American dramatic characters represents not only the diversity of the American people, but also the diversity of all human beings. These dramatically dissimilar differences were not typical of older plays when they were written, but now, they are what make American drama so valuable. Our acceptance and love for characters with different values than ours is representative of the love we can develop for those who are different from us. It represents the worldview that our current culture idealizes and strives to achieve: acceptance for all.
Theatre is an art form that has been shared across cultures for hundreds of years. This art form is extremely versatile in the types of plays, such as comedic, tragedy, and many other genres. Although theatre is thought of a form of entertainment, playwrights have seized the opportunity to inject political opinions into the play to inform the audience about present issues in their lives. Issues that playwrights have incorporated into plays have included stories that people may not be ready to hear but it encourages the audience to look inside themselves and assess their moral standing on certain issues. One subject that has been incorporated into many plays throughout the last century is women’s issues. These plays have challenged the way women
The first discussion of this article is looking at the evolution of the development of Burke’s theory on form. It begins with his earliest writings in the 1920’s and continues to evolve throughout the 1970’s. During this time his thoughts reflect the influence of literary and rhetorical theory, perspectives on psychology and classical philosophy. He solved these influences into a dramatistic view of form as act. Heath states, as act, form is created by the interrelationship among substance, the discursive progression of an idea through its various stages of modification and amplification, and audience expectations. Burke states this unity is possible because appeal in form is intrinsic to language, the symbolic realm. He concludes that act, form and idea are
Brecht argues that the ultimate purpose of play is to induce pleasure and to entertain, and that--because of this purpose--play needs no justification. Plays should not be simply copied from or seen through older performances, but need to develop on their own to better relate to a new audience. Through the use of alienation which aims to make the familiar unfamiliar, play and theatre can be seen under a new perspective, and the actor can feel more free to perform under a new guise.
“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” William Shakespeare may have written these words in As You Like It in 1600, but Erving Goffman truly defined the phrase with his dramaturgical theory. Dramaturgical analysis is the study of social interaction in terms of theatrical performance. Unlike actors though, who use a script telling them how to behave in every scene, real life human interactions change depending upon the social situation they are in. We may have an idea of how we want to be perceived, and may have the foundation to make that happen. But we cannot be sure of every interaction we will have throughout the day, having to ebb and flow with the conversations and situations as they happen.
In K. Burke’s book titled The Philosophy of Literary Form, Burke attempts to explain literary form by spinning up a fictitious tale located in one of the book’s passages. In this story, he asks the reader to imagine oneself entering a parlor, attempting to comprehend an ongoing debate that has captivated everyone in the premises. Eventually, the reader understands enough and speaks up; participating in this dispute, but after endless discussion, nightfall approaches and the reader departs, having given his two cents.
Edmund Burke was a british politition and Philosipher during the time of the Enlightenment and Romanticism from 1765 to 1795. Burke proposed many works that explored the ideas of nature and the natural law. He believed that “the emotional and spiritual life of man as a harmony within the larger order of the universe.” (http://www.britannica.com). According to Burke he described the idea of beautiful as “well-formed and aesthetically pleasing, whereas the sublime is what has the power to compel and destroy us.” (wikipedia.org). He leads us to a singular idea where he leaves no room for imagination at all. In Burkes reading he describes the sublime and beautiful as an idea of terror or horror. Burke says that “ to make any thing very terrible,
In the “Three Greened-Eyed Monsters: Acting as Applied Criticism in Shakespeare's Othello”, Geoffrey Bent claims that actors can serve an important, if not, a better hermeneutic, or a method of interpretation than academic critics. Generally, when one wants to know how a play will turn out they resort to scholar interpretations from the web or renowned universities. Academic critics appear to be credible when claiming bizarre interpretations with just a piece of supporting text. Unfortunately, this form of interpretation seems to shrink the credit given to actors as interpreters, who are dedicated to bringing a piece of text to life. The audience, who has already been influenced by outside sources, often overlook actors when in actuality actor
In theatrical performance, the fictional realm of drama is aligned with the factual, or “real” world of the audience, and a set of actors feign re-creation of this factual world. At the same time the audience, by participating as spectators, feigns believability in the mimic world the actors create. It is in this bond of pretense between the on-stage and off-stage spheres of reality—the literal and the mock-literal—that the appeal of drama is engendered. The Merchant of Venice then, like any effective drama, ostensibly undermines realism by professing to portray it. The work contains no prologue to establish dramatic context; it offers no assertion of its status as imitation, a world separate from our own. And yet, the bond of pretense forged between actors and audience prevents the line between the fictional and the factual from being blurred completely. This division allows the device of metatheatricality to emerge as a means by which the play can ally itself with realism, rather than undermining it, by acknowledging its own status as drama.
This meaning dramas is often focused on specific topics that an individual is able to apply directly to his or her life. For example, a drama can be based strictly on family issues, financial issues, or even personal issues. This too also enables someone to relate to the plot of a drama. As a result, he or she is on the receiving end to gain knowledge or guidance in their own life. He also believes that drama can teach us about life in a way that is clearer and more vivid than what we are used to living. This also has something to do with an individual receiving knowledge and guidance from a drama that can be applied to their
Theater is a natural outlet for our desire to hear and tell stories, and in some ways it is even more primal and powerful than the written word. At its worst, theater will merely bore; while at its best it will not only entertain but move and shape its audience. Two such genres of theater, or drama, have consistently achieved this effect. Tragedy, represented by the weeping actors’ mask, usually features the title character’s fall from greatness to ruin, guided by the gods or fate. Oedipus Rex, written by Sophocles, is the epitome of classic Tragedy, as defined by Aristotle (96-101). Here, Oedipus falls from kingship to blindness and exile. Drama’s other great genre, Comedy, is represented by the laughing actors’ mask. In Comedy the action is usually propelled by a problem or crisis of some sorts, but unlike tragedy it usually ends well. Lysistrata, written by Aristophanes, is a perfect example of classic Comedy. The farcical story line follows the title character, who rallies the women of Greece to withhold sex from their mates all in the good cause of ending war. At first glance these two genres would seem to have nothing in common with each other. Comedy entails laughter and good feelings while the audience will leave a Tragedy in tears. But the best of Comedy and the best of Tragedy will produce the same affect: catharsis. Catharsis is the purgation and purifying of the emotions, specifically fear or pity. (“Catharsis”) The plays that manage to produce catharsis in their audience are the ones that we return to time and time again. Although catharsis is one of the main objectives of Greek Tragedy (Jacobus 34), Comedy done well will shape and move its audience in the same way. These two classic genres use characters that are co...
Since 300 B.C, dramatists all over the world have modeled their works after Aristotle’s definition of drama as “the imitation of an action that is serious…in a dramatic rather than narrative form with incidents arousing pity and fear wherewith to accomplish a catharsis of these emotions.” Aristotle’s ideas have endured centuries of change and continue to transcend cultural and historical boundaries. Countless works, whether classical or contemporary, follow the example set by the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare and others, to create dramatic masterpieces that thrill, dazzle and overwhelm the audience by appealing to their emotions. However, the dawn of twentieth century gave rise to new theatrical forms that take the audience into a world of unfamiliarity and deep introspection. While modern plays differ vastly in form, scope and origin, they all deviate from Aristotle’s code by rejecting the fundamental belief that a drama must arouse specific emotions in its spectators. Specifically, the plays of Anton Chekhov, Bertolt Brecht, Tennessee Williams, and Samuel Beckett eschew emotional stimulus by deemphasizing sentimentality and encouraging a more cerebral experience in which the audience must actively evaluate and contemplate what they see.
Although dramatic action plays a major role in every theatrical performance, the dramatic meaning behind the actions is what gives the performance meaning. In Samuel Beckett’s ‘Waiting for Godot”, looking at the dramatic action alone, it would seem as if there’s no purpose to the play but when combining the action with dramatic meaning it develops a deeper understanding of the relationship the performance has to everyday life. This is represented and shaped through Absurdist theatre conventions such as circular structure, grotesque characters and puppetry/being controlled by invisible forces. These conventions help to develop the elements of drama through the actions, expressions and emotions of the characters. Absurdist theatre does not follow the traditional linear structure of a narrative play, but instead does the exact opposite.