表现主义和荒诞派戏剧.doc

表现主义和荒诞派戏剧Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas.12 Expressionist artists sought to express meaning3 or emotional experience rather than physical reality.34Expressionism was developed as an avant-garde style before the First World War. It remained popular during the Weimar Republic,1 particularly in Berlin. The style extended to a wide range of the arts, including painting, literature, theatre, dance, film, architecture and music.The term is sometimes suggestive of emotional angst. In a general sense, painters such as Matthias Grnewald and El Greco are sometimes termed expressionist, though in practice the term is applied mainly to 20th-century works. The Expressionist emphasis on individual perspective has been characterized as a reaction to positivism and other artistic styles such as naturalism and impressionismOrigin of the termWhile the word expressionist was used in the modern sense as early as 1850, its origin is sometimes traced to paintings exhibited in 1901 in Paris by an obscure artist Julien-Auguste Herv, which he called Expressionismes. 6 Though an alternate view is that the term was coined by the Czech art historian Antonin Matjek in 1910, as the opposite of impressionism: An Expressionist wishes, above all, to express himself. (an Expressionist rejects) immediate perception and builds on more complex psychic structures. Impressions and mental images that pass through mental peoples soul as through a filter which rids them of all substantial accretions to produce their clear essence .and are assimilated and condense into more general forms, into types, which he transcribes through simple short-hand formulae and symbols. 7Expressionism is notoriously difficult to define, in part because it overlapped with other major isms of the modernist period: with Futurism, Vorticism, Cubism, Surrealism and Dada. 11 Richard Murphy also comments: the search for an all-inclusive definition is problematic to the extent that the most challenging expressionists such as Kafka, Gottfried Benn and Dblin were simultaneous the most vociferous anti-expressionists. 12What, however, can be said, is that it was a movement that developed in the early twentieth-century mainly in Germany in reaction to the dehumanizing effect of industrialization and the growth of cities, and that one of the central means by which expressionism identifies itself as an avante-garde movement, and by which it marks its distance to traditions and the cultural institution as a whole is through its relationship to realism and the dominant conventions of representation. 13 More explicitly: that the expressionists rejected the ideology of realism. 14The term refers to an artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. 15 It is arguable that all artists are expressive but there are many examples of art production in Europe from the 15th century onward which emphasize extreme emotion. Such art often occurs during times of social upheaval, such as the Protestant Reformation, German Peasants War, Eight Years War, and Spanish Occupation of the Netherlands, when the rape, pillage and disaster associated with periods of chaos and oppression are presented in the documents of the printmaker. Often the work is unimpressive aesthetically,citation needed yet has the capacity to cause the viewer to experience extreme emotions with the drama and often horror of the scenes depicted.Expressionism has been likened to Baroque by critics such as art historian Michel Ragon 16 and German philosopher Walter Benjamin.17 According to Alberto Arbasino, a difference between the two is that Expressionism doesnt shun the violently unpleasant effect, while baroque does. Expressionism throws some terrific fuck yous, baroque doesnt. Baroque is well-mannered.18American Expressionism22 and American Figurative Expressionism, particularly the Boston figurative expressionism,23 were an integral part of American modernism around the Second World War。Major figurative Boston Expressionists included: Karl Zerbe, Hyman Bloom, Jack Levine, David Aronson. The Boston figurative Expressionists post World War II were increasingly marginalized by the development of abstract expressionism centered in New York City.After World War II, figurative expressionism influenced worldwide a large number of artists and styles. Thomas B. Hess wrote that the New figurative painting which some have been expecting as a reaction against Abstract Expressionism was implicit in it at the start, and is one of its most lineal continuities.24New York Figurative Expressionism2526 of the 1950s represented New York figurative artists such as Robert Beauchamp, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Goodnough, Grace Hartigan, Lester Johnson, Alex Katz, George McNeil (artist), Jan Muller, Fairfield Porter, Gregorio Prestopino, Larry Rivers and Bob Thompson. Lyrical Abstraction, Tachisme27 of the 1940s and 1950s in Europe represented by artists such as Georges Mathieu, Hans Hartung, Nicolas de Stal and others. Bay Area Figurative Movement2829 represented by early figurative expressionists from the San Francisco area Elmer Bischoff, Richard Diebenkorn, and David Park. The movement from 1950 to 1965 was joined by Theophilus Brown, Paul Wonner, James Weeks, Hassel Smith, Nathan Oliveira, Bruce McGaw, Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown, Manuel Neri, Frank Lobdell, Joan Savo and Roland Peterson. Abstract Expressionism of the 1950s represented American artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Hans Burkhardt, Mary Callery, Nicolas Carone, Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, Philip Guston, and others 3031 that participated with figurative expressionism. In the United States and Canada, Lyrical Abstraction beginning during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Characterized by the work of Dan Christensen, Peter Young, Ronnie Landfield, Ronald Davis, Larry Poons, Walter Darby Bannard, Charles Arnoldi, Pat Lipsky and many others.323334 Neo-expressionism was an international revival style that began in the late 1970s and included artists from many nations: LiteratureTwo leading Expressionist journals published in Berlin were Der Sturm, published by Herwarth Walden starting in 1910,35 and Die Aktion, which first appeared in 1911 and was edited by Franz Pfemfert. Der Sturm published poetry and prose from contributors such as Peter Altenberg, Max Brod, Richard Dehmel, Alfred Dblin, Anatole France, Knut Hamsun, Arno Holz, Karl Kraus, Selma Lagerlf, Adolf Loos, Heinrich Mann, Paul Scheerbart, and Ren Schickele, and writings, drawings, and prints by such artists as Kokoschka, Kandinsky, and members of Der blaue Reiter. In prose, the early stories and novels of Alfred Dblin were influenced by Expressionism,36 and Franz Kafka is sometimes labelled an Expressionist.37Oskar Kokoschkas 1909 playlet, Murderer, The Hope of Women is often termed the first expressionist drama. In it, an unnamed man and woman struggle for dominance. The man brands the woman; she stabs and imprisons him. He frees himself and she falls dead at his touch. As the play ends, he slaughters all around him (in the words of the text) like mosquitoes. The extreme simplification of characters to mythic types, choral effects, declamatory dialogue and heightened intensity all would become characteristic of later expressionist plays. The German composer Paul Hindemith created an operatic version of this play, which premiered in 1921.Expressionism was a dominant influence on early 20th-century German theatre, of which Georg Kaiser and Ernst Toller were the most famous playwrights. Other notable Expressionist dramatists included Reinhard Sorge, Walter Hasenclever, Hans Henny Jahnn, and Arnolt Bronnen. Important precursors were the Swedish playwright August Strindberg and German actor and dramatist Frank Wedekind. During the 1920s, Expressionism enjoyed a brief period of popularity in American theatre, including plays by Eugene ONeill (The Hairy Ape, The Emperor Jones and The Great God Brown), Sophie Treadwell (Machinal) and Elmer Rice (The Adding Machine).Expressionist plays often dramatise the spiritual awakening and sufferings of their protagonists. Some utilise an episodic dramatic structure and are known as Stationendramen (station plays), modeled on the presentation of the suffering and death of Jesus in the Stations of the Cross. August Strindberg had pioneered this form with his autobiographical trilogy To Damascus. Theses plays also often dramatise the struggle against bourgeois values and established authority, frequently personified by the Father. In Sorges The Beggar, (Der Bettler), for example, the young heros mentally ill father raves about the prospect of mining the riches of Mars and is finally poisoned by his son. In Bronnens Parricide (Vatermord), the son stabs his tyrannical father to death, only to have to fend off the frenzied sexual overtures of his mother.In Expressionist drama, the speech is either expansive and rhapsodic, or clipped and telegraphic. Director Leopold Jessner became famous for his expressionistic productions, often set on stark, steeply raked flights of stairs (having borrowed the idea from the Symbolist director and designer, Edward Gordon Craig.Among the poets associated with German Expressionism were George Trakl, Gottfried Benn, Georg Heym, Else Lasker-Schler, Ernst Stadler, and August Stramm. T. S. Eliot has also been labeled an Expressionist. 38Some further writers and works that have been called Expressionist include:Novelists: Franz Kafka (1883-1924): Metamorphosis (1915), The Trial (1925), The Castle (1926); 39 Rainer Marie Rilke (1875-1926): The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (1910); 40 Alfred Dblin (1857-1957): Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929); 41 Wyndham Lewis ( 1882-1957); 42 Djuna Barnes (1892-1982): Nightwood (1936);43 Malcolm Lowry (1909-57): Under the Volcano (1947); Ernest Hemingway; 44 William Faulkner; 45 James Hanley (1897-1985); 46; James Joyce (1882-1941): The Nighttown section of Ulysses (1922) 47 Patrick White (1912-90); 48 D. H. Lawrence;49, Sheila Watson: Double Hook; 50 Elias Canetti: Auto de Fe; 51 Thomas Pynchon 52Playwrights:Main article: Expressionism (theatre)Georg Kaiser (1878); Ernst Toller (1893-1939); Reinhard Sorge (1892-1916); Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956); Sean OCasey (1880-1964); 53 Eugene ONeill (1885-1953); Elmer Rice (1892-1967); Tennessee Williams (1911-83) 54; Arthur Miller (1915-2005); Samuel Beckett (1906-89) 55Theatre of the Absurd From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaJump to: navigation, search This article provides insufficient context for those unfamiliar with the subject. Please help improve the article with a good introductory style. (October 2009)The Theatre of the Absurd (French: Thtre de lAbsurde) is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1960s, as well as one for the style of theatre which has evolved from their work. Their work expressed the belief that human existence has no meaning or purpose and therefore all communication breaks down.Critic Martin Esslin coined the term in his 1960 essay Theatre of the Absurd. He related these plays based on a broad theme of the Absurd, similar to the way Albert Camus uses the term in his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus.1 The Absurd in these plays takes the form of mans reaction to a world apparently without meaning, and/or man as a puppet controlled or menaced by invisible outside forces. Though the term is applied to a wide range of plays, some characteristics coincide in many of the plays: broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichs, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism and the concept of the well-made play.Playwrights commonly associated with the Theatre of the Absurd include Samuel Beckett, Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet, Harold Pinter, Tom Stoppard, Friedrich Drrenmatt, Fernando Arrabal, Suzanne Carbone and Edward Albee.Theatrical featuresPlays within this group are absurd in that they focus not on logical acts, realistic occurrences, or traditional character development; they, instead, focus on human beings trapped in an incomprehensible world subject to any occurrence, no matter how illogical.108109110 The theme of incomprehensibility is coupled with the inadequacy of language to form meaningful human connections.24 According to Martin Esslin, Absurdism is the inevitable devaluation of ideals, purity, and purpose111 Absurdist drama asks its viewer to draw his own conclusions, make his own errors.112 Though Theatre of the Absurd may be seen as nonsense, they have something to say and can be understood.113 Esslin makes a distinction between the dictionary definition of absurd (out of harmony in the musical sense) and dramas understanding of the Absurd: Absurd is that which is devoid of purpose. Cut off from his religious, metaphysical, and transcendental roots, man is lost; all his actions become senseless, absurd, useless.114edit CharactersThe characters in Absurdist drama are lost and floating in an incomprehensible universe and they abandon rational devices and discursive thought because these approaches are inadequate.115 Many characters appear as automatons stuck in routines speaking only in clich (Ionesco called the Old Man and Old Woman in The Chairs uber-marrionettes).116117 Characters are frequently stereotypical, archetypal, or flat character types as in Commedia dellarte.118119120The more complex characters are in crisis because the world around them is incomprehensible.120 Many of Pinters plays, for example, feature characters trapped in an enclosed space menaced by some force the character cant understand. Pinters first play was The Room in which the main character, Rose, is menaced by Riley who invades her safe space though the actual source of menace remains a mystery 121 and this theme of characters in a safe space menaced by an outside force is repeated in many of his later works (perhaps most famously in The Birthday Party). In Friedrich Drrenmatts The Visit the main character, Alfred, is menaced by Claire Zachanassian; Claire, richest woman in the world with a decaying body and multiple husbands throughout the play, has guaranteed a payout for anyone in the town willing to kill Alfred.122 Characters in Absurdist drama may also face the chaos of a world that science and logic have abandoned. Ionescos recurring character Berenger, for example, faces a killer without motivation in The Killer, and Berengers logical arguments fail to convince the killer that killing is wrong.123 In Rhinocros, Berenger remains the only human on Earth who hasnt turned into a rhinoceros and must decide whether or not to conform.124125 Characters may find themselves trapped in a routine or, in a metafictional conceit, trapped in a story; the titular characters in Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, for example, find themselves in a story (Hamlet) in which the outcome has already been written.126127The plots of many Absurdist plays feature characters in interdependent pairs, commonly either two males or a male and a female. Some Beckett scholars call this the pseudocouple.128129 The two characters may be roughly equal or have a begrudging interdependence (like Vladamir and Estragon in Waiting for Godot126 or the two main characters in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead); one character may be clearly dominant and may torture the passive character (like Pozzo and Lucky in Waiting for Godot or Hamm and Clov in Endgame); the relationship of the characters may shift dramatically throughout the play (as in Ionescos The Lesson130 or in many of Albees plays, The Zoo Story131132 for example).edit LanguageDespite its reputation for nonsense language, much of the dialogue in Absurdist plays is naturalistic. The moments when characters resort to nonsense language or clichswhen words appear to have lost their denotative function, thus creating misunderstanding among the characters, making the Theatre of the Absurd distinctive.24133 Language frequently gains a certain phonetic, rhythmical, almost musical quality, opening up a wide range of often comedic playfulness.134 Jean Tardieu, for example, in the series of short pieces Theatre de Chambre arranged the language as one arranges music.135 Distinctively Absurdist language will range from meaningless clichs to Vaudeville-style word play to meaningless nonsense.130136 The Bald Soprano, for example, was inspired by a language book in which characters would exchange empty clichs that never ultimately amounted to true communication or true connection.137138 Likewise, the characters in The Bald Sopranolike many other Absurdist charactersgo through routine dialogue full of clichs without actually communicating anything substantive or making a human connection.139140 In other cases, the dialogue is purposefully elliptical; the language of Absurdist Theater becomes secondary to the poetry of the concrete and objectified images of the stage.141 Many of Becketts plays devalue language for the sake of the striking t