Metadrama
The term metadrama (Gr.μετά meta: between, behind, after) is used as a literary theoretical or literary scientific term for that form of drama in which the dramatic work on itself as a literary form or fiction or as a theatrical illusion ( metatheater ) and makes this self-referentiality or this auto -reflexivity the object of the presentation.
Despite a different reference to the dramatic text substrate , the term meta-theater is often used as a synonym, especially in literary representations or in practice of interpretation .
Although there is an affinity between the playful character of the metadrama and postmodern literature , the metadrama basically represents an ahistorical feature or element of the drama, which is worked with in comedies in particular , but also in the audio-visual media of film or television.
Historically, the metadrama in European literary tradition can be traced back to the mystery games or spiritual games in the Middle Ages .
According to the typology of Karin Vieweg-Marks (1989), six different types of metadrama can be distinguished in operationalizable form:
- Thematic metadrama
- The theater or theater milieu becomes the setting ; Actors play actors. The audience's awareness of the “theatrical nature” of what is presented on stage is increased without destroying the dramatic illusion.
- Fictional metadrama
- As a play within a play , the drama represents the performance of a work (or the rehearsals for it); In this way the fictionality of the play is increased and the perspective structure of the drama is fanned out.
- Epic metadrama
- The absoluteness of the drama is broken up by prologue , epilogue , chorus , asides , narrative sub- or paratext or a narrative function . In this way, the situation of the performance is made clear to the audience in an anti-illusionistic way.
- Discursive metadrama
- The foregrounding of the medium is mimetically generated through theatrical references in the replicas ; the spectrum ranges from dead metaphors to verbalizing the consciousness of the dramatic characters that they are in a theatrical space. This also breaks the illusionistic expectations of the audience.
- Figurative metadrama
- The viewers are made aware of the duality or duplication of actor and role through various (episodic) means of representation, for example through the means of “ falling out of the role ”. Another means is the faking of secondary roles, which is assigned to the figure conception .
- Adaptive metadrama
- The reference of the primary text to a (known) material or a concrete pretext or an explicit reference to a genre (e.g. crime thriller , farce) creates a self-reflective nature of the medium. The intertextual reference clarifies and focuses the literary and fictional nature of the dramatic work.
literature
- Lionel Abel: Metatheatre: A New View of Dramatic Form . Hill and Wang, New York 1969.
- Janine Hauthal: Metadrama and theatricality: genre and media reflection in contemporary English theater texts . Scientific publishing house Trier 2009, ISBN 978-3-86821-211-2 .
- Richard Hornby: Drama, Metadrama and Perception . Bucknell University Press, Lewisburg 1986.
- Karin Vieweg-Marks: Metadrama and contemporary English drama . Lang Verlag, Frankfurt am Main et al. 1989, ISBN 3-631-41563-X .
Web links
- Andrés Pérez-Simón: The Concept of Metatheatre: A Functional Approach . On: academia.edu . Retrieved April 23, 2014. (In English)
- Ryan Claycomb: Metadrama and Metatheatre . On: Center for Literary Computing - West Virginia University . Retrieved on April 23, 2014. ( PDF , English)
- Cornelia Macsiniuc: Paradoxes of Disbelief: Metamorphosis and Metadrama in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" . Retrieved on April 23, 2014. ( PDF , English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Reingard Nischik: Metadrama / Metatheater . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , pp. 171f.
- ↑ See Reingard Nischik: Metadrama / Metatheater . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , p. 171.
- ↑ See Reingard Nischik: Metadrama / Metatheater . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , p. 171. Cf. also in detail the exemplary work analyzes and literary theoretical foundations in Robert Weimann: Shakespeare and the tradition of the people's theater - sociology · dramaturgy · design . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1975, for example pp. 121-139.
- ↑ Cf. on the typology of metadrama outlined here, in addition to the explanations by K. Vieweg-Marks, as well as the summarizing presentation by Reingard Nischik: Metadrama / Metatheater . In: Ansgar Nünning (ed.): Basic concepts of literary theory . Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart and Weimar 2004, ISBN 3-476-10347-1 , p. 171.