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61-518: The term first appears in the eponymous work Hamburg Dramaturgy (1767–69) by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing . Lessing composed this collection of essays on the principles of drama while working as the world's first dramaturge at the Hamburg National Theatre of Abel Seyler . Dramaturgy is distinct from play writing and directing, although the three may be practiced by one individual. Some dramatists combine writing and dramaturgy when creating

122-458: A director in integrating textual and acting criticism, performance theory, and historical research into a production before it opens. Since dramaturgy is defined in a general way and the function of a dramaturge may vary from production to production, the copyright issues regarding it in the United States have very vague borders. In 1996, there was debate on the question of the extent to which

183-412: A dramaturg for Abel Seyler 's Hamburg National Theatre . It was not originally conceived as a unified and systematical book, but rather as series of essays on the theater, which Lessing wrote as commentary on the plays of the short-lived Hamburg National Theater. This collection of 101 short essays represents one of the first sustained critical engagements with the potential of theater as a vehicle for

244-449: A basis for discussing politics. Although Boileau claims to have based his theory on Aristotle and Horace, he diverges a lot from them. Boileau rejects Shakespeare 's and Calderón 's works as irrational. He saw them as concurrence for his idea of theater and viewed their success as a threat. To serve the Court, drama should not be overly emotional or educative. There was a much discussion about

305-469: A common form of entertainment in Rome, while tragedies were somewhat more restricted to events of the upper classes. Therefore, Horace postulated that tragedies had a higher social and artistic value than comedies. This contrasts Aristotle's view that there are only good and bad characters and plots. Horace view is much discussed in modern times. The work De spectaculis by Tertullian (ca. 150–220 AD) propagated

366-479: A drama. Others work with a specialist, called a dramaturge , to adapt a work for the stage. Dramaturgy may also be broadly defined as "adapting a story to actable form." Dramaturgy gives a performance work foundation and structure . Often the dramaturge's strategy is to manipulate a narrative to reflect the current Zeitgeist through cross-cultural signs, theater- and film-historical references to genre, ideology, questions of gender and racial representation, etc., in

427-406: A dramaturge can claim ownership of a production, as in the case involving the estate of Jonathan Larson , author of the musical Rent and Lynn Thomson, the dramaturge on the production. Thomson claimed that she was a co-author of the work and that she never assigned, licensed or otherwise transferred her rights. She asked that the court declare her a co-author of Rent and grant her 16 per cent of

488-460: A finished plot, comprising a beginning, a main part and an end. Later scholars added the unity of space which is not based on Aristotle ( Classical unities ). Further terms that are derived from Aristotle's Poetics are the recognition in the climax ( anagnorisis ) and peripety , the sudden change from fortune to the catastrophe following the climax. Until the 20th century, many authors tried to legitimize their plays with it being in accordance with

549-473: A guide to create good plays. Modern dramatic theory is based on the idea that drama is a plurimedial form of art. Therefore, a drama cannot be completely comprehended from the text alone. Understanding requires the combination of the text as a substrate and the specific performance of the play. Older theories saw the performance as limited to the interpretation of the text. In the Antiquities and again from

610-431: A non-Aristotelian theater. Nonetheless, his theory is not opposed to Aristotle but mostly to the reception thereof in the 19th century. Brecht's Epic Theater is a contradiction in itself, because it epics is the opposite of drama. It makes sense for him to combine them, because he forbids to imitate the actions displayed in order to create a distance to the audience. The audience should constantly think about whether or not

671-461: A revolutionary, who, after the failure of the German Revolution (1948/49) , was troubled with the political hardship. He postulated his concept of a uniform artwork as a model for the society itself, as a cooperatives of people holding the same opinions fighting against the feudal society. Wagner saw opera and acting as misshapen revitalization of antique dramas. He presented his own operas as

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732-660: A rival to German drama. The bourgeois theater became a reality for Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). There were some noteworthy authors writing drama in German. He did not have to defend theater against the nobility and the church or against the Italian opera and French drama. Instead, he tried to reconcile them. His Weimar Classicism used antique characters and court behavioral rules and remodeled them to fit his ideal. Characters should be natural, without any societal differentiation, to bring bourgeois and nobility together. He rejected

793-458: Is a scientific description of those philosophical and artistic schools of thought which encompass authors such as Eugène Ionesco or Samuel Beckett . Structuralistic approaches had a lot of influence on literature science and linguistics until the 1970's, but was largely ignored in dramatic theory. Nonetheless, some dramaturges included structuralistic analyses into their work and some literature scientists, such as Herta Schmid, tried to develop

854-460: Is disputed. In the Italian tradition from the 15th century on, opera was equivalent to drama. It also became a popular concurrence for acting in other parts of Europe. In the early 19th century, it started to lose ground. This is the basis for Richard Wagners (1813–1883) dramatic theory, which he published in Oper und Drama (1852) and Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft . Wagner, unlike Freytag, saw himself as

915-484: Is no contradiction between the two. He based his dramatic theory on baroque martyr-plays, which exhibit an extremely polarized set of characters: The heroes, who are entirely certain of their salvation, and the villains, who are that evil, that they are immediately recognized as such by the spectators. This polarization led Corneille to the idea, that Aristotle's catharsis means the cleansing of desires, which were regarded as bad. The affects displayed serve as warning for

976-712: Is studied as part of theatre studies . Drama creates a sensory impression in its viewers during the performance . This is the main difference from both poetry and epics, which evoke imagination in the reader. Dramatic theory was already discussed in the Antiquities p.e. by Aristotle ( Poetics ) in Ancient Greek and Bharata Muni ( Natyasastra ) in Ancient India. Some tried to systematize existent plays based on common traits or to justify them compared to other types of plays. Others created schemes for future plays for them to accomplish political or ethical aims or simply as

1037-569: Is to blame and no one wanted it). He concludes that the future of drama is comedy. Tragic elements can be included in comedy, the way to go is grotesque . Martin Esslin (1918–2002) categorized the schools of modern dramatics that developed from the avant garde after 1900 under the term Theatre of the Absurde . They rejected naturalism as well as what they perceived as authoritarian theater, any demand that theater should educate or make sense. Esslin's theory

1098-716: The estates-clause (the idea that bourgeois characters are not apt to be tragic figures) or the Bienséance (the idea that nothing creational, such as fighting, erotics, eating or older age, should be shown on stage). Johann Christoph Gottsched tried to establish his theory based on Boileau in the German speaking theater. Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) formulated his theory in Trois discours sur le poème dramatique (1660). In regard of christian criticism of antique drama, mostly concerning its lack of mercy, Corneille tried to include christian ethics into his theory in order to show, that there

1159-504: The 17th-century French drama . Zeami Motokiyo (c. 1363–1443) was a Japanese actor and author. He wrote several treatise on Noh in order to secure its acceptance as equivalent to other arts. His theory is centered in the concept of 道 michi ('way'). Actors should specialize in a certain role and keep learning about it as a way of achieving artistic perfection. Actions are mostly expressed through singing and dancing and not through mimetic acting ( 物真似 monomane ). Zeami stressed

1220-452: The Renaissance to 1900 drama was the most prestigious form of literature. It was then replaced by epics based on the commercial success of novels. There was constant discussion about the reasons of this prestige and about the differences for drama and other forms of literature. Dramatic theory tried to connect the literary quality of a play with its social standing, especially when it comes to

1281-401: The 17th to the 19th century. Depending on the author, opera or acting was coined the real drama. From the 19th century on, movies were included in dramatic theory as a contemporary alternative to live acting (see Film theory ). In the dramatic theory of the last decades, it was popular to see theater as more than just drama (see Performative utterance , Postdramatic theatre ). At the end of

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1342-656: The 20th century, dramatic theory lost its political and social importance to media theory . At the beginning of the 20th century, dramatic theory turned from a prescriptive doctrine to a descriptive discipline, analyzing the regularities of dramas. The Greek philosopher Plato rejected all types of fictional literature as dangerous for the state in his work Politeia . As drama was politically and religiously important in Athene, his pupil Aristotle ((384–322 BC) tried to justify drama in his Poetics . The surviving part of his work deals with tragedies, which according to him brought

1403-547: The Drama is often considered the blueprint for the first Hollywood screenwriting manuals. The Technique of Play Writing (1915) by Charlton Andrews , refers to European and German traditions of dramaturgy and understanding dramatic composition. A foundational work in the Western theatrical tradition is Poetics by Aristotle (written c. 335 BCE), which analyzes the genre of tragedy . Aristotle considers Oedipus Rex (c. 429 BCE) as

1464-642: The French drama not using choirs or the classical unities ( Über den Gebrauch des Chores in der Tragödie , 1803). Gustav Freytag (1816–1895) understood dramatic theory as a manual for drama. His ideal was a uniformly built, closed drama. He connected this to the idea of a unified Germany. His work Die Technik des Dramas (1863) is a textbook for dramaturges and authors which had an enormous impact as his scheme of drama as rigid and easy to understand. He tried to reconnect to antique and classicist dramatic theory in line with historicism. Especially his pyramidal structure of

1525-430: The French one. Characters speaking in verse, in order for them not to be too close to the common and be closer to poetry, were rather important for him. It is controversial, whether or not he saw the educational as important in drama. In his letter to Goethe from the 24th November 1797 , he stated that he found speaking in verse had more dignity than prose. He also defends the use of choirs in modern theater and criticized

1586-623: The abolition of theater due to it being a symptom of the decadence of antique cultures. During the Loss of books in late antiquity , many antique plays ans treatise on theater were lost. Until Liutprand of Cremona (10th century), drama was rejected, especially by the Western Church. In the High Middle Ages , popular theater developed in the cities based on liturgical drama . There was no parallel development of dramatic theory. This theater tradition

1647-410: The acting of the character does conform tho their (social) feeling of responsibility. Brecht wanted to encourage this through distancing effects . Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921–1990) was influenced by the experience of World War II and the atomic bomb . In his work Theaterprobleme (1955), he discusses the difference between tragedy and comedy and comments on Brecht's Epic Theater. While he supports

1708-626: The actor, according to Lessing, is grey area for a dramaturge. It is important to know that with an actor's performance, the circumstances are a large factor to the performance, whereas, for example, the text itself is easier to judge because it simply involves literary analysis. When analyzing an actor's performance, current events, environment, and mentality of the actor must all be taken into account. When Lessing published his essays, numerous actors from Hamburg plays were upset with Lessing's carelessness and disregard of their talents in his essay. In 1890, Helen Zimmern published an English translation of

1769-489: The advancement of humanistic discourse. In many ways, the Hamburg Dramaturgy defined the new field of dramaturgy , and also introduced the term. During the time Lessing wrote the Hamburg Dramaturgy, there was a new movement of German theatre, based on self-reflection. Actors were beginning to perform the inner and outer lives of their characters at the same time. One of Lessing's most famous and renowned quotes from

1830-627: The author's share of the royalties. Although she made her claim only after the show became a Broadway hit, the case is not without precedent. For instance, 15 per cent of the royalties of Angels in America go to playwright Tony Kushner 's dramaturge. On June 19, 1998, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the original court's ruling that Thomson was not entitled to be credited with co-authorship of Rent and that she

1891-448: The better people to the stage than comedies. His thoughts on comedies are not known. Unlike epics, tragedies should emulate real actions (" mimesis ") in direct speech while the action itself is acted out. It is not limited to describing the characters. It should not be something static or purely narrating but dynamically showing the plot. The scenic performance of a tragic plot should provoke lamenting ("eleos") and shuddering ("phobos") in

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1952-475: The compilation considers the responsibilities of the actor and the playwright: “The great discernment of the drama critic lies in his ability to distinguish, whenever he feels pleasure or displeasure, to what extent that feeling should be credited to the writer or to the actor” The idea of a journal with Lessing as a dramatic critic to reflect on the Hamburg National Theater's efforts was conceived by

2013-534: The context in which the play resides. The dramaturge is tasked to obtain expertise on: the physical, social, political, and economic environment in which the action takes place; the psychological underpinnings of the characters; the various metaphorical expressions in the play of thematic concerns; as well as the technical consideration of the play as a piece of writing (structure, rhythm, flow, and even individual word choices). Institutional dramaturges may participate in many phases of play production including: casting of

2074-512: The courts, as they portrayed the ridiculous not as a human attribute, but as a social one. Gustav Freytag wrote, that Lessing had a national interpretation of the beauty of drama. The term national was meant to bridge the difference in between the drama of the courts and popular theater, and thereby concealing the dimension of social criticism in Lessings work. Furthermore, Freytag tried to position Lessing's theory against French drama, which he saw as

2135-515: The criteria postulated by Aristotle. Even today, most dramatic theories are based on the thoughts of Aristotle. Nonetheless, there are various types of drama which do not conform to Aristotle's theory nor any other dramatic theory. The Roman poet Horace (65–8 BC) writes about drama in his Ars poetica in a time when drama lost the religious dimension the Greeks gave it. Horace wrote that drama needs to connect entertainment and its purpose. Comedies were

2196-468: The distance of the audience from the plot, he disagrees on the ideal of educative drama. Dürrenmatt meant that there is no more tragedy, as noblemen and military figures are no longer representative, "the tragic hero is without name". The contemporary world can only be described with the characters of comedy, the common people. In addition, the classical blame of the tragedy does no longer work: „Alle können nichts dafür und haben es nicht gewollt“ (No one

2257-454: The dramatization. Dramaturgy as a practice-based as well as practice-led discipline was invented by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , in the 18th century. The Theater of Hamburg engaged him for some years for a position today known as a "dramaturge". He was the first to occupy this role in European theater and described his task as that of a "dramatic judge" ("dramatischer Richter"), one who must assess

2318-481: The future of drama, in which music and the choir are thought to assume the role it had in Greek drama. He used the choir as a melodramatic commenting orchestra. The concept of theater should also reconnect to the concept of a festival, as it did in Ancient Greek, where drama were performed for religious reasons. Friedrich Nietzsche supported this in his work Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1872). Wagner

2379-523: The idea that drama has to follow a strict formal scheme. Goethe wanted to overcome the shackles of a formal scheme and follow the example of William Shakespeare, whom he described as a naïve dramatician ( Shakespeare und kein Ende , 1813). When he started to bring his antique characters to the stage, the theatrical world had already moved on from classicist plays. Friedrich Schiller (1759–1805), alike Goethe, wanted that Classicism move closer to antique ideals then

2440-522: The importance of interaction between the play and the audience. The most important dramatic theorist of the French Classicism was Nicolas Boileau (1636–1711) with his L’art poétique (1669–1674), which is entirely written in verse. He formulates the demands of the Court during Absolutism on drama. The result is the baroque Doctrine classique. It served the Court Nobility as a role model and as

2501-628: The most compelling and appropriate means of staging a particular theatrical work. From 1767 to 1770, Lessing published a series of critical commentaries, Hamburg Dramaturgy (Hamburgische Dramaturgie) . These works analyzed, criticized and theorized the current state of German theater, making Lessing the father of modern dramaturgy. Following Lessing's Hamburgische Dramaturgie and Laokoon and Hegel 's Aesthetics (1835–38), many subsequent authors, including Friedrich Hölderlin , Johann von Goethe , Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling , Thornton Wilder , Arthur Miller , and Tennessee Williams , reflected on

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2562-445: The most significant successor to Aristotelian dramaturgy is the Epic theatre developed by the twentieth century German playwright Bertolt Brecht . Many of the innovations associated with Brecht as a theorist and writer for the stage, including the concept of the "estrangement effect" (or Verfremdungseffekt ) and the acting technique known as gestus , were intended as deliberate revisions of

2623-540: The need for a renewal with the political situation of the years preceding the French Revolution . He wrote that the privileges of the nobility in drama have to be revised. Tragedies should no longer be limited to noble characters, while lower classes should no longer be laughed at in comedies. He proposed a bourgeois tragedy (he himself called it genre sérieux ) which he conceptualized as an intermediary between comedy and tragedy. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing (1729–1781)

2684-490: The play; offering in-house criticism of productions-in-progress; and informing the director, the cast, and the audience about a play’s history and its current importance. In America, this type of dramaturgy is sometimes known as Production Dramaturgy. Institutional or production dramaturges may make files of materials about a play's history or social context, prepare program notes, lead post-production discussions, or write study guides for schools and groups. These actions can assist

2745-409: The plot proofed to be popular. He described the plot as consisting of five acts, which he said was the result of the suspense in the play: 'I. Exposure, II. Climactic plot with thrilling momentum, III. Climax and Peripety, IV. Falling plot with retardant momentum, V. Catastrophe. Whether Freytag's description is in deed a role model and whether or not it is applicable to antique or contemporary drama

2806-472: The quintessential dramatic work. He analyzes the relations among character , action, and speech, gives examples of good plots, and considers the role of audience response as an aspect of theatrical form. His "rules" are referred to today as "Aristotelian drama". In Poetics , Aristotle discusses many key concepts of Greek drama, including the moment of tragic recognition ( anagnorisis ) and the purgation of audience feelings of pity and fear ( catharsis ). Perhaps

2867-406: The series of essays include Aristotle's theory of tragedy, acting theory, the role of theater in society, the means by which theater achieves its emotional effects, criticism of the actor and the play, issues of translation, and a nascent theory of the psychology of emotions. Lessing's writings were influential for many German theater artists who came after, notably Bertolt Brecht . The analysis of

2928-432: The spectator a better person by allowing him to feel compassion. Compassion has become socially accepted by that time due to it passing as a christian posture. Lessing wanted to use compassion to revolt against the behavioral rules in the courts. Lessing thought that the purpose of comedy is to help the audience perceive the ridiculous and therewith help them to become morally better people. This contrasts comedies played in

2989-450: The stage language of plays as a distinctive art form. German playwright Gustav Freytag attempted to synthesize the components of modern dramaturgy in his 1863 book The Technique of the Drama , published in English in 1894. Known for its outline of the principles of dramatic structure , including the arc of dramatic tension and resolution referred to as Freytag's Pyramid , The Technique of

3050-454: The text, which was re-published by Dover in 1962. Zimmern's translation omits nearly 30% of the original text. Translators Wendy Arons and Sara Figal, with editor Natalya Baldyga, are producing a new, complete, and fully annotated translation of the text; the essays are being published online at MediaCommons Press and will be published in print form by Routledge . Lessing's collection of essays are still being used as references today for

3111-440: The theatre's founder Johann Friedrich Löwen , and Abel Seyler , "the power behind the throne," who at first reluctantly agreed, but was eventually won over by the journal's success. Because the plays of the new German Bourgeoisie theatre became more detailed and complicated, the audience often felt confused or left out; Lessing’s development of the Hamburg Dramaturgy was in part a reaction to this. Topics covered by Lessing in

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3172-417: The time as flat. He demanded that characters be not stereotypical or polar but show the entire range of human emotions and thoughts. This makes the motives of a character psychologically understandable. Instead of the former focus on the relation of humans, their estates and god, he postulated that drama should focus on the psychological processes guiding the plot. Lessing saw the purpose of tragedies in making

3233-426: The topic of dramaturgy, especially as a reference for art of theatre as an outlet for self-reflection, and how circumstances of the era during which a play was written affects how the audience perceives the work. Dramatic theory Dramatic theory attempts to form theories about theatre and drama . Drama is defined as a form of art in which a written play is used as basis for a performance. Dramatic theory

3294-405: The traditional difference between tragedies and comedies . In the 18th century, the commercial success started to be the reason for a positive or negative assessment of a specific drama. In this context, popular theater, which was privately organized for commercial purposes, started to diverge from the state theaters. Rivalry between opera and acting also played a role in dramatic theory from

3355-461: The values upheld by Aristotle. Poetics is the earliest surviving Western work of dramatic theory . The earliest non-Western dramaturgic work is probably the Sanskrit work Natya Shastra ( The Art of Theatre ), written around 500 BCE to 500 CE , which describes the elements, forms, and narrative elements of the ten major types of ancient Indian drama. Dramaturgy is a comprehensive exploration of

3416-401: The viewer. Aristotle sees this as desirable, as the discharge of pent-up tensions results in a cleansing from strong affects (" catharsis ") leading to inner welfare ("eudamonia"). Thus, theater is helping to maintain public morals instead of destroying them as Plato claimed. He postulated the unity of time (ends within 24 hours) and plot (not many side stories as in epics). It should feature

3477-583: The viewers. The hero can be a villain, which whom the audience will not have compassion, but whom they can fear, or a saint/martyr, whom they have compassion with and adore at the same time. He enriches the classical pair of affects (eleos and phobos) with a third one, adoration. Based on this religious dramatic theory, no suspense or merriness is needed for a good drama. Denis Diderot (1713–1784) published his dramatic theory in Entretiens sur le fils naturel (1757) and De la poésie dramatique (1758). He justified

3538-425: Was again disciplined during the time of Reformation and Counter-Reformation . This is in line with the humanistic theory that contrasts popular theater without rules with theater at the courts that is in accordance with public morals and oriented towards the antique standards. Julius Caesar Scaliger tried to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian poetics with English Renaissance theatre and Jesuit drama , leading to

3599-513: Was heavily criticized for his attempt to include the religious dimension of drama form the Athenian original into his opera. Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) positioned himself against naturalism , which he saw as bourgeois theater closing its eyes before the social and political reality. He read the Aristotelian dramatic theory as close to the dramatic theory of his time, therefore, he wanted to develop

3660-505: Was less concerned with defending drama against christian morality than Corneille. He demanded a bourgeois drama and stressed the importance of positive affects on stage and in the audience. Lessing published his theory in regularly appearing magazine, the Hamburgische Dramaturgie (1767). He defended the emancipation of popular theater to court drama. He wanted to abolish the estate-clause and criticized most dramatic characters of

3721-401: Was not entitled to royalties. The case was ultimately settled out of court with Thomson receiving an undisclosed sum after she threatened to remove her material from the production. Hamburg Dramaturgy The Hamburg Dramaturgy ( German : Hamburgische Dramaturgie ) is a highly influential work on drama by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , written between 1767 and 1769 when he worked as

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