Exploring the Lyric-Dramatic Interaction in the Work of T.S. Eliot

<p>T. S. Eliot's fascination with the interaction between the lyric and the dramatic is evident from the fact that his poetry was often dramatic even before he began to write verse drama. Part of the reason for this interaction in Eliot was a kind of radical modernism that ensured a return to a primitivism where there was little distinction between the lyric and the dramatic. In this thesis I argue that this interaction is central to the nature of Eliot's creative work. The need for an interaction between the lyric and dramatic meant that The Waste Land (1922) possessed several dramatic qualities making it a precursor to Eliot's entry into the realm of poetic drama with the play, Sweeney Agonistes (1932). As part of my thesis, I conducted theatre workshops of the first two parts of The Waste Land in order to discover what dramatic elements emerged from the text and how their presence affected the lyric-dramatic interaction in the work, something which can surface only through performance. I argue that The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes occupy critical spaces in the mapping of the lyric-dramatic interaction in Eliot's creative oeuvre. The intensity of the lyric-dramatic interaction in Eliot's poetry builds up to a moment where he comes extremely close to drama in The Waste Land moving him to ultimately write his first play, Sweeney Agonistes. While Eliot's works after these two texts continue to exhibit characteristics of this lyric-dramatic interaction, the nature of this interaction undergoes a transformation after Eliot's conversion, manifesting itself in his religious poetry and drama which turns out to be a cul-de-sac in his experimentations. The intensity of this interaction in his work then gradually reduces to a point where the lyric and the dramatic no longer overlap especially after Eliot's first commercially successful play, The Cocktail Party (1949). By examining the reasons for the slow disassociation of these two crucial elements in Eliot's later work, I aim to stress the centrality of The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes to the lyric-dramatic trajectory in his work.</p>

Exploring the Lyric-Dramatic Interaction in the Work of T.S. Eliot

<p>T. S. Eliot's fascination with the interaction between the lyric and the dramatic is evident from the fact that his poetry was often dramatic even before he began to write verse drama. Part of the reason for this interaction in Eliot was a kind of radical modernism that ensured a return to a primitivism where there was little distinction between the lyric and the dramatic. In this thesis I argue that this interaction is central to the nature of Eliot's creative work. The need for an interaction between the lyric and dramatic meant that The Waste Land (1922) possessed several dramatic qualities making it a precursor to Eliot's entry into the realm of poetic drama with the play, Sweeney Agonistes (1932). As part of my thesis, I conducted theatre workshops of the first two parts of The Waste Land in order to discover what dramatic elements emerged from the text and how their presence affected the lyric-dramatic interaction in the work, something which can surface only through performance. I argue that The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes occupy critical spaces in the mapping of the lyric-dramatic interaction in Eliot's creative oeuvre. The intensity of the lyric-dramatic interaction in Eliot's poetry builds up to a moment where he comes extremely close to drama in The Waste Land moving him to ultimately write his first play, Sweeney Agonistes. While Eliot's works after these two texts continue to exhibit characteristics of this lyric-dramatic interaction, the nature of this interaction undergoes a transformation after Eliot's conversion, manifesting itself in his religious poetry and drama which turns out to be a cul-de-sac in his experimentations. The intensity of this interaction in his work then gradually reduces to a point where the lyric and the dramatic no longer overlap especially after Eliot's first commercially successful play, The Cocktail Party (1949). By examining the reasons for the slow disassociation of these two crucial elements in Eliot's later work, I aim to stress the centrality of The Waste Land and Sweeney Agonistes to the lyric-dramatic trajectory in his work.</p>

Shakespeare's Historiography

<p>This study explores, in a sixteenth century context, the historical thought and consciousness of a selection of Shakespeare's English history plays. Looked at in relation to contemporary historiographical works, it is concluded that the plays in question qualify as a form of dramatic historiography both transitional and progressive in nature. The study, after considering some aspects of Tudor historiography relevant to Shakespeare and his drama in the introductory chapter, goes on in Chapter One to explore Shakespeare's Henry VI sequence. My discussion finds that the interaction of the roles and requirements of both dramatist and historian has two important results: firstly an emerging awareness of the impossibility of presenting the historical "truth"; and secondly an appreciation that the (re)construction of a linear historical narrative (dramatisation), especially when developed from diverse Chronicle accounts, requires the dramatist/historian's critical and historical judgement concerning probability. Also observed in this chapter is the drama's capacity for making character as much a part of history as event. In Chapter Two Shakespeare's Richard III is juxtaposed with its main source, Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III. These texts provide a springboard for discussion of the tradition of oral history and the problems associated with its use as a source for authoritative historiography, and the apparent resemblance between the historian's and lawyer's pursuit of the "truth". The methods and principles of the courtroom are intimately related to those used by the dramatist/historian. The final chapter couples the anonymous history play Edward III with Shakespeare's most sophisticated history, Henry V. In this chapter I first discuss the growing sixteenth century distinction between poetry (the medium of the history play) and historiography. The history presented in Edward III is interrupted and disrupted by the "poetic" interlude of King Edward's residence at the Countess of Salisbury's castle; I argue that the play (ironically, given its own status as verse drama) privileges "history" at the expense of "poetry". In Henry V, in contrast, there is evidence of a conceptual shift in the use and perception of history. Here, also, is found the full realisation of the ineluctable evasiveness of historical "truth" through the contradictory accounts of the Chorus and the stage action, and the opacity of King Henry.</p>

Shakespeare's Historiography

<p>This study explores, in a sixteenth century context, the historical thought and consciousness of a selection of Shakespeare's English history plays. Looked at in relation to contemporary historiographical works, it is concluded that the plays in question qualify as a form of dramatic historiography both transitional and progressive in nature. The study, after considering some aspects of Tudor historiography relevant to Shakespeare and his drama in the introductory chapter, goes on in Chapter One to explore Shakespeare's Henry VI sequence. My discussion finds that the interaction of the roles and requirements of both dramatist and historian has two important results: firstly an emerging awareness of the impossibility of presenting the historical "truth"; and secondly an appreciation that the (re)construction of a linear historical narrative (dramatisation), especially when developed from diverse Chronicle accounts, requires the dramatist/historian's critical and historical judgement concerning probability. Also observed in this chapter is the drama's capacity for making character as much a part of history as event. In Chapter Two Shakespeare's Richard III is juxtaposed with its main source, Sir Thomas More's History of King Richard III. These texts provide a springboard for discussion of the tradition of oral history and the problems associated with its use as a source for authoritative historiography, and the apparent resemblance between the historian's and lawyer's pursuit of the "truth". The methods and principles of the courtroom are intimately related to those used by the dramatist/historian. The final chapter couples the anonymous history play Edward III with Shakespeare's most sophisticated history, Henry V. In this chapter I first discuss the growing sixteenth century distinction between poetry (the medium of the history play) and historiography. The history presented in Edward III is interrupted and disrupted by the "poetic" interlude of King Edward's residence at the Countess of Salisbury's castle; I argue that the play (ironically, given its own status as verse drama) privileges "history" at the expense of "poetry". In Henry V, in contrast, there is evidence of a conceptual shift in the use and perception of history. Here, also, is found the full realisation of the ineluctable evasiveness of historical "truth" through the contradictory accounts of the Chorus and the stage action, and the opacity of King Henry.</p>

Man of the Theatre: Stage Performances of T. S. Eliot’s Work in Spain (1949–2016)

T. S. Eliot’s presence in Spanish theatres has taken various forms. His verse drama enjoyed a relative popularity in the late 1940s and in the 1950s: Murder in the Cathedral, The Family Reunion and The Cocktail Party were staged by student and amateur groups, “chamber” companies and even a national theatre. Reviews were ambivalent, most of them finding fault with the plays’ poetic density as an impediment for performance. Although, as a conservative Anglo-Catholic, Eliot was a priori an unproblematic author for the Francoist establishment and its censorship, critics loyal to Spanish National Catholicism were uncomfortable with the tragic fatalism of The Family Reunion, or with the non-judgemental treatment of adultery in The Cocktail Party. When Eliot’s plays were losing their appeal from the late 1950s onwards, only Murder in the Cathedral was occasionally performed in Spain. More recently, intermedial transpositions and dramatizations of Eliot’s poetry have consolidated his image as a great influential poet whose drama is a rarity.

Staging Empire as History and Allegory in Austria and Germany

Theatrical presentations of the foundational myths of the Austrian and German empires, either as costumed processions and pageants or as specially commissioned plays for the theatre, were staged on anniversaries and important jubilees. In Austria, the most important was Franz Joseph’s Diamond Jubilee in 1908, when a pageant of 12,000 lay participants took place in Vienna, while other elements of the national myth were presented on the stage. Wilhelm II played an active part in promoting the imperial theatre festival in Wiesbaden between 1896 and 1914, for which parts of the Hohenzollern myth were dramatized. In 1897, on Wilhelm I’s hundredth birthday, Ernst von Wildenbruch’s Willehalm was performed in Berlin, a verse drama presenting Wilhelm I in allegorical form as the hero who rescued Germany from the evil French.

Suicide, Melancholia, and Manic Defense in Byron’s Manfred

Richard Lansdown, “Suicide, Melancholia, and Manic Defense in Byron's Manfred” (pp. 1–32) This essay presents a literary-critical account of Lord Byron’s verse drama Manfred (1817) from the perspective of Freudian and Object Relations psychological theories, in particular as regards the distinction between melancholia and mourning and the presence of part-objects within the psyche. It argues that whereas it is important to preserve a distinction between the poet and his works, such a distinction can never be total: like Childe Harold, Manfred is clearly in part a personal projection, given Byron’s state of mind at the time of composition. To provide context for these discussions the essay surveys both Byron’s personal views concerning suicide and the history of self-slaughter in Western culture, with Romanticism as a particular focus. The poet’s attitudes were many and various, depending on which cases he had in mind. Furthermore, the Romantic tradition initiated by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) and continued by Byron’s numerous treatments of suicide mark a complication of the attitudes we find voiced by Enlightenment philosophers and, indeed, by Sigmund Freud himself.

La vida es sueño en forma analógica Teoría, metodología y recepción de la traducción a contrapelo

Since at least the 1990s, Translation Studies theorists have advocated greater respect for alterity in literary translation. With the advent of Naturalist theatre and, later, the predominance of free-verse poetry in the 20th century, renderings of both poetry and verse drama in the English-speaking world have favoured assimilation with target-culture values. “Organic form”, described by James S. Holmes as the methodology with which a translator renders a source text primarily for its meaning, has been the prevalent strategy for translating works such as Spanish Golden Age dramas for approximately a century now. A return to the methodology of “analogical form”, with which a translator seeks to render the source text using correlatives to its form and function in the source culture, would do much to recognise the Other by avoiding both de-historicisation and de-poeticisation through less domesticated target texts. Examples of these competing methodologies will be examined in a few American translations of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La vida es sueño.