The Concept of Metatheatre: A Functional Approach
This essay reviews the highly popular concept of metatheatre or metadrama, whose first formulation appeared in Lionel Abel’s collection of essays Metatheatre in 1963. Abel’s contribution in the field of theatre studies took place in the wake of Roman Jakobson’s model of six linguistic functions, whi...
Сохранить в:
| Опубликовано в: : | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/trans, |
|---|---|
| Главный автор: | |
| Формат: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Язык: | Anglais |
| Опубликовано: |
TRANS-
2011
|
| Online-ссылка: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Итог: | This essay reviews the highly popular concept of metatheatre or metadrama, whose first formulation appeared in Lionel Abel’s collection of essays Metatheatre in 1963. Abel’s contribution in the field of theatre studies took place in the wake of Roman Jakobson’s model of six linguistic functions, which Jakobson had introduced in a conference held in Indiana five years before the publication of Metatheatre. In my review of Jakobson’s model, I argue that neither the metalinguistic nor the poetic function can fully explain the existence of multiple self-referential, anti-illusionist devices in twentieth-century dramaturgies (a few examples from the modernist years are discussed in my essay). In order to shed new light into Jakobson’s model, I propose a return to the four-function model developed by Jan Mukařovský, the most important critic of the Prague School, in the late 1930s. Mukařovský expanded upon Karl Bühler’s Sprachtheorie (with the functions Darstellung, presentation ; Ausdruck, expression ; and Appell, appeal), by conceptualizing a fourth function, the aesthetic, one that brings to the fore the structural components of the artistic work. |
|---|