Drama is a text written for performance. How do performances, which are particular and unstable, shape drama as a text? What is the relationship between the text and the performances it intends to generate? The testimonies of playwrights articulate what writing for performance means, which considerations guide the composition of such texts, and how do such considerations influence the character of dramatic texts. I examine the authority that drama has over performance by focusing on two analogies used in contemporary philosophical debates. The choice of analogy itself shapes our way of thinking about the relationship between texts and their implementation in performances. Finally, I turn to drama as a practice of writing for audiences, rather than readers, analyzing the activity that drama performs in addressing audiences.

Philosophy and Drama

The past year has seen a resurgence of interest in the political thinker Hannah Arendt, "the theorist of beginnings," whose work probes the logics underlying unexpected transformations-from totalitarianism to revolution. A work of striking originality, The Human Condition is in many respects more relevant now than when it first appeared in 1958. In her study of the state of modern humanity, Hannah Arendt considers humankind from the perspective of the actions of which it is capable. The problems Arendt identified then-diminishing human agency and political freedom, the paradox that as human powers increase through technological and humanistic inquiry, we are less equipped to control the consequences of our actions-continue to confront us today. This new edition, published to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of its original publication, contains Margaret Canovan's 1998 introduction and a new foreword by Danielle Allen. A classic in political and social theory, The Human Condition is a work that has proved both timeless and perpetually timely.

The Human Condition

Drama, Performativity, and Performance

Affecting audiences with depictions of suffering and injustice is a key function of tragedy, and yet it has long been viewed by philosophers as a dubious enterprise. In this book Thomas Gould uses both historical and theoretical approaches to explore tragedy and its power to gratify readers and audiences. He takes as his starting point Plato's moral and psychological objections to tragedy, and the conflict he recognized between "poetry"--the exploitation of our yearning to see ourselves as victims--and "philosophy"--the insistence that all good people are happy. Plato's objections to tragedy are shown to be an essential feature of Socratic rationalism and to constitute a formidable challenge even today. Gould makes a case for the rightness and psychological necessity of violence and suffering in literature, art, and religion, but he distinguishes between depictions of violence that elicit sympathy only for the victims and those that cause us to sympathize entirely with the perpetrators. It is chiefly the former, Gould argues, that fuel our responses not only to true tragedy but also to religious myths and critical displays of political rage. Originally published in 1990. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Ancient Quarrel Between Poetry and Philosophy

The theatre of Bertolt Brecht

Acknowledgments Preface: Drama, Poetry, and Performance Introduction: Between Poetry and Performance i Shakespeare 30 ii Images of Writing/Metaphors of Performance The score The blueprint Information/software Dramatic tools, performance technologies iii Agencies of Drama: Burke, Poetry, and Performance Writing as agency: "Antony in Behalf of the Play" 1 From Poetry to Performance i Dramatic Performance and its Discontents: The New Criticism Drama, poetry, and "interpretation" "An arrangement of words" Acts of speech Heresy, responsibility, and performance ii Dramatic Writing and its Discontents: Performance Studies, Drama Studies Antigone's bones The "theater of acting" Rethinking writing 2 Performing Writing: Hamlet i Hamlet's Book Playing the book The law of writ Speaking by the card ii Corrupt Stuff or, Doing Things with (Old) Words The crux of performance Enseamed beds iii "OK, we can skip to the book": The Wooster Group Hamlet Theatrofilm by Electronovision (Re)playing Burton, performing Hamlet 3 Embodying Writing: Ibsen and Parks i Can We Act What We Say?: Rosmersholm Inscribing character Acting the role Confession, disclosure, detour Doing (unspeakable) things with words ii Footnoting Performance: The America Play and Venus A wink to Mr Lincolns pasteboard cutout Diggidy-diggidy-diggidy-dawg 4 Writing Space: Beckett and Brecht i Quad : Euclidean Dramaturgies ii By Accepting This License iii What Where: Brechtian Technologies Notes Works Cited Further Reading Index

Philosophy and Drama

References

The Human Condition

Drama, Performativity, and Performance

The Ancient Quarrel Between Poetry and Philosophy

The theatre of Bertolt Brecht

Drama: Between Poetry and Performance

Related Papers (5)

Examining the Language of Drama Texts with a Reference to Two Plays: A Stylistic Study

Text as Design, Writers as Designers

Writing, texts and site-specific performance in the recent work of Deborah Warner

Creative-academic writing

Bringing the Author Back Into the Audience Research: A Hermeneutical Perspective on the Audience's Understanding of the Author