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| What conscious movement emerged in theatre around the middle of the nineteenth century. |
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| What did realism stress? How was it perceived by many play-goers |
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| Realists stressed objectivity and knowledge of the real world as possible only through direct observation. Thus, everyday life, with which the playwright was directly familiar, became the subject matter of drama. Interest shifted from the past to human motives and experience, or, most likely, idealized versions of these. Many play-goers objected that playwrights turned the theatre into a "sewer or a tavern". |
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| Who was the acknowledged master of realism? How did he build powerful problem-dramas? What are most of his plays about? |
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| Norway's Henrik Ibsen. By carefully selecting detail and plausible character-to-action motivations. His plays usually bring to conclusion events that began well in the past, with meticulous exposition. Ibsen's concern for detail carries to the scenery and costumes, and his plays contain detailed descriptions of setting and properties, all of which are essential to the action. The content of many of Ibsen's plays was controversial, and most deal with questions about moral and social issues that remain difficult today. |
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| Realism quickly spread, finding expression in the work of who? How was he like Isben? What is he regarded as? Where did he draw his themes from? |
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| Anton Chekhov. Chekhov, like Isben, incorporates symbolism into his works. Many people regard Chekhov as the founder of modern realism. He is regarded as the founder of modern realism. He drew his themes and subjects matter from Russian daily life. His structures flow in the same apparently aimless manner as the lives of his characters. While short on theatricality and compact structure, his skillfully constructed plots give the appearance of actuality. |
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| Chekhov's masterpiece, Uncle Vanya, provided deep insights into what? What happens in the story? |
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into aimlessness and hopelessness.
Uncle Vanya endures bitter disappointment when he realizes he has wasted his life tending to the business affairs of his former brother-in-law, a second-rate academic. Drama happens, but in the end Vanya cannot give up the work to which he has devoted his life, regardless of that work's meaninglessness. |
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| Which Irish writer embodied the spirit of nineteenth-century realism? Why? |
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Definition
| . This witty, brilliant artist stood above all a humanitarian, and although many Victorians considered him a heretic and a subversive, his faith lay in humanity and its infinite potential. |
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Term
What does Shaw's plays deal with?
What was his favorite device?
What play does he use it in, as an example? |
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Definition
The unexpected, and they often appear contradictory and inconsistent in characterization and structure.
In his favorite device he built up a pompous notion and then destroyed it. For example, in Man and Superman, a family is against their daughter that is pregnant, a character comes to her defense but the girl rejects him going against her family. |
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| What doctrine did Shaw oppose? and why? |
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Definition
| The doctrine of "art for art's sake" and he insisted that art should have a purpose. He believed that plays made better vehicles for social messages than speeches or pamphlets. |
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| What also flourished at the same time as realism? |
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Definition
| Naturalism, a style closely related to realism. |
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| Who was a leading proponent of Naturalism? |
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| What are the similarities and differences between realism and naturalism? |
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Definition
| Both realism and naturalism insisted on a truthful depiction of life, but naturalism went on to insist on the basic principle that heredity and environment determine behavior. Absolute objectivity, not personal opinion, formed naturalism's goal. |
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Term
| What was symbolism in comparison to realism? What is symbolism all about? |
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Definition
It was anti-realism, neo-Romanticism, idealism, or impressionism.
It avows that we grasp truth only by intuition, not through the senses or rational thought. Thus, ultimate truths can be suggested only through symbols, which evoke in the audience various states of mind that correspond vaguely with the playwright's feelings. |
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| Who was Belgian Maurice Maeterlinck? What did he believe? |
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Definition
One of the principal dramatic symbolists.
He believed that every play contains a "second level" of dialogue that speaks to the soul. |
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Term
| What did symbolists not deal with? |
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Definition
| Symbolists did not deal at all with social problems. Rather, they turned to the past and tried to suggest universal truths independent of time and place, as Maeterlinck did, for example, in Pelleas and Melisande. |
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Term
| What is expressionism a revolt against? |
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| For playwrights expressionism proved merely an extension of what? |
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Definition
| realism, or naturalism, but it allowed them to express their reactions to the universe more fully |
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| Who turned into the subconscious mind? |
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| August Strindberg turned inward to what? |
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| What play did August Strindberg write? |
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| Who wrote the Ghost Sonata? |
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| The plays of who typify German expressionistic disillusionment after World War I. His personal struggles, his communist idealism, and his opposition to violence reflect in the heroine of Man and the Masses. |
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| What did Ernst Toller write? |
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| What is Man and the Masses by Ernst Toller about? |
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| Sonia, a product of the upper class, leads a strike for peace. She suffers imprisonment and a death sentence for leading the disastrous strike. |
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| Who was the two American Expressionist playwrights? |
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| Elmer Rice and Eugene O'Neill |
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| Who wrote Adding Machine? |
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| What did the American writer, Elmer Rice, write? |
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Definition
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| What is Elmer Rice's Adding Machine about? |
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| It's about Mr Zero, a man who stumbles through a pointless existence. A machine has replaced him and he is no longer needed. |
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| What did the American Writer Eugene O'Neill write? |
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| What is Eugene O'Neill's The Hairy Ape about? |
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| About a man named Yank who bullies everyone around. He plots against people but it doesn't work and he end up retreating into a zoo feeling deep isolation from society. He releases an ape and it kills him. |
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| What did Eugene O'Neill, the American playwright, explore in his plays? |
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Definition
| He explored what at the time constituted revolutionary techniques - such as expressionistic dialogue and spoken asides - that the theatre later adopted as standard. |
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| Who played with expressionistic dialogue and spoken asides? |
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| Explain the importance of Norway's Henrik Ibsen. |
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| He was the acknowledged master of realism. |
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| What did Anton Chekhov write? |
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| The leading proponent of Naturalism |
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| Who was George Bernard Shaw? |
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| An Irish writer that embodied the spirit of nineteenth-century relism. |
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Definition
| Playwright who's plays typify German Expressionistic disillusionment after World War I. |
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| Who opposed the doctrine of "art for art's sake"? |
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