Theater and Nation in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Sosulski, Michael J.

doi:10.4324/9781315236476

Cited by 3 publications

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“…Parallel to letter‐writing and the psychological novel were two phenomena in the theatrical sphere at the time: Actors began to be praised as “amateur psychologists” as playwrights like Schiller created more nuanced, realistic characters that demanded actors probe their inner motivations and explore deeper questions of subjectivity. This paralleled a shift from a representational acting style of gesture and symbolism to psychological realism (Roach, ; Sosulski, ; Vicentini, ) Other playwrights challenged the idea of the known immediacy of self presumed in novels, that novels could render inwardness transparent, even as they claimed to be able to teach audiences how to detect subterfuge in their interactions (Freeman, ). …”

Section: Habermas and Democratic Theorists’ Suspicion Of The Stagedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Sometimes I mean things so much I have to act”: Theatrical acting and democracy

Goktepe

2018

Constellations

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Consider political campaigning today. Many, including those inside the arena, have noted its overt theatricality and spectacular nature. "It's like going to the circus: You have acrobats and clowns and dancing bears" (Cruz quoted in Mascaro, 2016). This confirms the view of many contemporary democratic theorists that the political arena has become a place for spectacle and entertainment as opposed to critical public debate (see, for example, Bottici, 2014;Green, 2010; Urbinati, 2014, especially chapter 4). This situation has only worsened since 1962, when Habermas described the decline of the vibrant public sphere of the 1700s. According to Habermas, the expansion of capitalism eroded public-private distinctions and once-active voters became passive consumers dedicated to personal consumption and private interests rather than to a dynamic democratic polity. On the one side of the dichotomy is the theatrical representation of public officials; on the other, rational democratic debate (Habermas, 1989). Habermas speaks with disdain of "the staged and manipulative effectiveness of a publicity aimed at rendering the broad population … infectiously ready for acclamation" (Habermas, 1989, p. 211, The public only exists-is passively "brought in"-to applaud mindlessly this staged publicity. Habermas here registers his anti-theatricalism. The theater and its tricks remain beyond the pale of rational public discourse. Later, he will amend his views. In Between Facts and Norms, in 1992, he argues that new social movements and subcultures can dramatize relevant social problems and certain experiences-such as the experiences of oppressed or marginalized groups-can find expression in artistic forms of discourse that can have resonance in the more centralized, formal public sphere. He even gives as an example of arranged publics: "theater performances" right alongside "rock concerts," syntactically giving them equal weight (Habermas, 1996, p. 374).Theater, however, deserves consideration as separate from other artistic discourses for its educational value in a democratic society, not for the influence theater has on audiences but rather on actors themselves. Insofar as theater is just another forum for the use of expressive language that can capture personal sufferings and generate new awareness of political issues to place on the agenda, it is not very different from literature (but see Ajello, 2014). If it is true that successful political candidates today are "experts in communication," that is, "persons who have a better command of the techniques of media communication than others," then one solution is to broaden these techniques-to promote and embrace theatricality in the public sphere for all (Manin, 1997, p. 220). If[c]ontemporary representative democracy faces … a decline of electoral and political participation to which corresponds the growth of the aesthetic and theatrical function of the public, a voyeuristic machine that serves to gratify people's longing for political spectacle (Urbinati, 2014, p. 226

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Section: Habermas and Democratic Theorists’ Suspicion Of The Stagedmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Sometimes I mean things so much I have to act”: Theatrical acting and democracy

Goktepe

2018

Constellations

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The Legacy of ‘ Ariadne’ and the Melodramatic Sublime

Glatthorn

2019

Music and Letters

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Georg Benda’s Ariadne auf Naxos (1775) was an immediate success. By the end of the century, not only was it in the repertory of nearly every German theatre, but it was also one of the few German-language pieces translated for performances across Europe. Central to this melodrama—traditionally defined as an alternation of emotional declamation and pantomime with instrumental music—is its evocation of the sublime. Though scholars have posited Ariadne and its defining aesthetics as a model employed in subsequent Romantic opera, such teleological readings overlook reform melodramas that embraced vocal music and localized sublime moments. I argue that these works, rather than Ariadne, pushed melodrama’s generic boundaries to the verge of opera and in the process provided instrumental music with the power to express the sublime without the aid of text. This exploration offers fresh insight into melodrama’s music–text relations, generic hybridity, and aesthetic entanglements with opera and symphonic music.

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Rat Teeth, Not Roses: Aesthetics and Politics of the Grotesque in Gerhart Hauptmann's Naturalist Theater

Jackson¹

2019

German Studies Review

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Theater and Nation in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Cited by 3 publications

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“Sometimes I mean things so much I have to act”: Theatrical acting and democracy

“Sometimes I mean things so much I have to act”: Theatrical acting and democracy

The Legacy of ‘ Ariadne’ and the Melodramatic Sublime

Rat Teeth, Not Roses: Aesthetics and Politics of the Grotesque in Gerhart Hauptmann's Naturalist Theater

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