EL2019:04
*NOTE* Contemporary Comparative Drama
Cairns
Prerequisites: At least 6 units of EL subjects including 3 units of literature subjecs
Inadmissable Subject Combination: EL3019
12 lectures, 24 tutorials. Second semester.
Staff: Dr R Lansdown.
The modern drama of the Western world marks an astonishing experimental rebirth after the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: a flurry of activity with which the contemporary theatre is still coming to terms. Starting with Ibsen in the 1890s, this subject will pursue the course of twentieth-century drama through writers such as Strindberg, Pirandello, Brecht, Jean Genet and Samuel Beckett. We will also analyse a variety of shorter texts to shed light on what the ‘dramatic’ truly is, and the nature of ‘experimental theatre’.
Learning Objectives:
- a grasp of what ‘the dramatic’ and ‘the experimental’ are in literature and what they may involve;
- a fair understanding of the traditions of European drama with which modern writers have experimented;
- the ability to read a modern dramatic text perceptively and to understand the aesthetic ideas addressed within a fair range of modern drama;
- an understanding of the diversity of major contemporary dramatic styles and a broad sense of the history of modern Western drama;
- an awareness of the potential issues raised in the transition from text to performance.
Assessment by participation in discussion (20%); one assignment of 1,500 words (30%); one essay of 3,000 words (50%).