Dramatic theory
Dramatic theory tried to connect the literary quality of a play with its social standing, especially when it comes to the traditional difference between tragedies and comedies.
In the 18th century, the commercial success started to be the reason for a positive or negative assessment of a specific drama.
At the beginning of the 20th century, dramatic theory turned from a prescriptive doctrine to a descriptive discipline, analyzing the regularities of dramas.
[1]: 64–65 The Greek philosopher Plato rejected all types of fictional literature as dangerous for the state in his work Politeia.
The scenic performance of a tragic plot should provoke lamenting ("eleos") and shuddering ("phobos") in the viewer.
Aristotle sees this as desirable, as the discharge of pent-up tensions results in a cleansing from strong affects ("catharsis") leading to inner welfare ("eudamonia").
[7] Comedies were a common form of entertainment in Rome, while tragedies were somewhat more restricted to events of the upper classes.
In the High Middle Ages, popular theater developed in the cities based on liturgical drama.
[10] The most important dramatic theorist of the French Classicism was Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711) with his L’art poétique (1669–1674), which is entirely written in verse.
Johann Christoph Gottsched tried to establish his theory based on Boileau in the German speaking theater.
[11] Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) formulated his theory in Trois discours sur le poème dramatique (1660).
He based his dramatic theory on baroque martyr-plays, which exhibit an extremely polarized set of characters: The heroes, who are entirely certain of their salvation, and the villains, who are that evil, that they are immediately recognized as such by the spectators.
[12] This polarization led Corneille to the idea, that Aristotle's catharsis means the cleansing of desires, which were regarded as bad.
[13][7] Denis Diderot (1713–1784) published his dramatic theory in Entretiens sur le fils naturel (1757) and De la poésie dramatique (1758).
He demanded that characters be not stereotypical or polar but show the entire range of human emotions and thoughts.
[15] The term national was meant to bridge the difference in between the drama of the courts and popular theater, and thereby concealing the dimension of social criticism in Lessings work.
His Weimar Classicism used antique characters and court behavioral rules and remodeled them to fit his ideal.
[14] When he started to bring his antique characters to the stage, the theatrical world had already moved on from classicist plays.
Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), alike Goethe, wanted that Classicism move closer to antique ideals then the French one.
[1]: 64–65 [16] Whether Freytag's description is in deed a role model and whether or not it is applicable to antique or contemporary drama is disputed.
This is the basis for Richard Wagners (1813–1883) dramatic theory, which he published in Oper und Drama (1852) and Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft.
Wagner, unlike Freytag, saw himself as a revolutionary, who, after the failure of the German Revolution (1948/49), was troubled with the political hardship.
[18] Wagner was heavily criticized for his attempt to include the religious dimension of drama form the Athenian original into his opera.
Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) positioned himself against naturalism, which he saw as bourgeois theater closing its eyes before the social and political reality.
It makes sense for him to combine them, because he forbids to imitate the actions displayed in order to create a distance to the audience.
In his work Theaterprobleme (1955), he discusses the difference between tragedy and comedy and comments on Brecht's Epic Theater.
Dürrenmatt meant that there is no more tragedy, as noblemen and military figures are no longer representative, "the tragic hero is without name".
Martin Esslin (1918–2002) categorized the schools of modern dramatics that developed from the avant garde after 1900 under the term Theatre of the Absurde.
Esslin's theory is a scientific description of those philosophical and artistic schools of thought which encompass authors such as Eugène Ionesco or Samuel Beckett.
Structuralistic approaches had a lot of influence on literature science and linguistics until the 1970's, but was largely ignored in dramatic theory.
