Information distribution
The distribution of information in drama is a complex and multi-layered process that was first systematically recorded in its entirety in 1977 by the literary scholar Manfred Pfister. According to this, information is not only transmitted between the characters of a dramatic event (internal communication system), but through the performance situation it also reaches the viewer's perception (external communication system). This means that “one and the same linguistic or extra-linguistic signal ... normally has different informational value in the external and internal communication system”.
Advance information and expectations of the viewer
The starting point for the extent to which a viewer is informed is often the genre of the drama and the associated expectations. In general, viewers know whether they are going to see a tragedy or a comedy before going to the theater . The title also conveys more specific expectations, although there may always be deliberate strategic misinformation by the author. The function of thematic preliminary information of a historical or mythological nature is that the dramatic exposition no longer has to reprocess the entire prehistory.
Interrelation of the information allocation modes
In the relationship between linguistic and extra-linguistic information, there are three possible relationships, which Pfister describes as identity, complementarity and discrepancy . The identity between the expressed intention of a character and the corresponding action leads to a doubling of the information. In the case of complementarity , extra-linguistic information (gestures, movements, etc.) supplements the information conveyed by language.
The discrepancy between utterance and activity is relatively recent and is often associated with theater of the absurd . The example from Beckett's Waiting for Godot is well known , where the characters repeatedly express that they want to leave, but then do not do so.
Relationships between the figures and the audience
It is not surprising that the characters have different degrees of informedness depending on their role. The advantage of the audience (and thus an important part of the effective structure of dramatic texts) is, however, that the audience "can sum up the only partial information of the individual characters and correlate them with one another". This gives the audience an information advantage over the individual figures. From antiquity to the present day, this has been the dominant structure of discrepant information.
The reverse structure of the viewer's information backlog is much less common . An example of this is Kleist's comedy The Broken Jug , in which the viewer is introduced to the fact that the village judge Adam broke the jug only after a few scenes through the evasions and deceit of the village judge. Congruent extent to which information is provided in all drama texts with a closed end when information discrepancies between the characters and the audience resolve in the last phase of the game.
Dramatic irony
Dramatic irony is also a special case of discrepant knowledge (see Dramatic Irony )
The perspective structure of dramatic texts
The perspective structure of a dramatic text represents, so to speak, the superordinate context of the relationship between the figure and the audience, in that the message or meaning is generated from the corresponding and contrasting figure perspectives. In the perception of the audience, the individual figure perspectives are superordinated or subordinated.
Perspective control techniques
How the audience creates the author's intended reception perspective from the various figure perspectives depends specifically on a number of control techniques. In addition to the extra-linguistic information such as stature, physiognomy, costumes, facial expressions, stage design, props, noises, music, etc., the verbal evaluation signals should be mentioned such as B. speaking character names, behavior of characters in the course of action, but also the convention of poetic justice that sets in at the end of the drama, through which the good are rewarded and the bad are punished.
Types of perspective structure
Pfister names three ideal-typical structures: the a-perspective structure , the closed perspective structure and the open perspective figure . All three can be explained by the categorical difference between the internal and external communication system. With the a-perspective structure, the central statement in the internal communication system is identical to the perception of the audience ( monoperspectivity ). In the closed perspective structure, there are several perceptions in the internal communication system ( polyperspectivity ), but only one perception for the viewer ( monoperspectivity ). An example is the play-within-a-play in Shakespeare's Hamlet . While Hamlet and Horatio use the drama troupe's game scene to find out whether Claudius is the murderer of Hamlet's father, the courtiers and spectators of the internal communication system see that Hamlet is threatening Claudius, because in the fictional story the murderer is the king's nephew as well Hamlet is the nephew of Claudius. So within the character ensemble there are several character perspectives, while the audience in the external communication system correlates the two and comes to a conclusion that Claudius is guilty. In the open perspective structure, several perspectives compete in the internal communication system as well as in the external one. ( Polyperspectivity ). The end of the drama leaves the viewer without a solution.
Individual evidence
source
- Manfred Pfister. The Drama - Theory and Analysis. Wilhelm Fink, Munich 1977, ISBN 3-7705-1368-1 .