Offerings
View how EL2019 is offered in 2004
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EL2019:03

Out of Bounds: Modern Drama

[Offered in odd-numbered years]

Cairns

HECS Band 1

12 hours lectures, 24 hours tutorials. Semester 2.

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 20th 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 essays (50%); tutorial contribution (20%); examination (30%).