Staged history: Concept of theatricality in the modern utopia (England, England by Julian Barnes)

IF 0.2 0 LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS
A. P. Filimonova, S. Mazhitayeva
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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The work explores the concept of theatre and the role of theatrical conventions in Julian Barnes’s utopian novel England, England. This article discusses theatricality as the principal artistic strategy of the novel, heavily influencing its formal and thematic structure. It outlines the main characteristics of the theatrical chronotope, and considers the similarities between theatricality and the conventions of the utopian novel per se. It examines closely the way Barnes exploits the various semantic implications of the chronotope in his critique of contemporary society. Methodologically the article is based on the findings of theatre semiotics and employs them as its theoretical framework (Alter, Fischer-Lichte, Pavis), while also considering sociological (Debord), anthropological (Milton Singer, Geertz Clifford), and psychological (Erving Goffman) approaches to the phenomena of theatre. Tightly intertwined with actual cultural and social strategies, theatre has always been an essential integrative part of social life. The author uses theatricality to take a reflective attitude towards the contemporary culture, to examine and display the political and social strategies which are considered as immanently theatrical. Under the theory of theatrical semiotics, the decisive aspects of theatre as an aesthetic system are theatrical space and time. The main characteristics of the theater are conceptualized primarily in the theatrical chronotope. On this ground, it can be argued that the significant structural element through which theatricality is incorporated in novelistic discourse is that of the artistic chronotope. The specific enclosure of the theatre universe manifested within the typical utopian locus serves to arrange it as the space of utopian social experiment perfecting the latent tendencies of the culture and exposing them to critical observation. Theatrical “a-temporality” correlates with utopian “a-historicity” and unfolds the rupture with the historical continuum which gives free rein to its purposeful reconstructions. Theatrical images are subjected to regrouping in eclectic totality and re-combinations of disrupted elements of the historical continuum. The cyclicity of the performances representing historical and mythical figures and the re-enacting events essential for national identity involves the spectators in pseudo-communication. It actually deprives them of experiencing real time and space, replacing it with the comfortable pseudoexperience of consuming surrogate images. Thus, the main characteristics of theatrical chronotope are employed to develop the novel’s essential concerns with such issues as reconstruction of individual and national identity and their subjection to distorting speculations. Theatricality reveals the nature of a forward-looking industrial society as a commercial spectacle turning national culture and history into a manipulated commodity.
舞台历史:现代乌托邦中的戏剧性概念(英国,朱利安·巴恩斯著)
本研究探讨了戏剧的概念和戏剧惯例在朱利安·巴恩斯的乌托邦小说《英格兰,英格兰》中的作用。本文论述了戏剧性作为小说的主要艺术策略,对其形式结构和主题结构产生了重大影响。它概述了戏剧年表的主要特征,并考虑了戏剧性和乌托邦小说本身的惯例之间的相似之处。它仔细研究了巴恩斯在他对当代社会的批判中利用计时表的各种语义含义的方式。在方法上,本文以戏剧符号学的发现为基础,并将其作为理论框架(Alter, Fischer-Lichte, Pavis),同时也考虑了社会学(Debord),人类学(Milton Singer, Geertz Clifford)和心理学(Erving Goffman)对戏剧现象的研究方法。戏剧与实际的文化和社会战略紧密交织在一起,一直是社会生活不可或缺的组成部分。作者运用戏剧性对当代文化采取反思的态度,审视和展示被认为具有内在戏剧性的政治和社会策略。在戏剧符号学理论下,戏剧作为一个美学系统的决定性方面是戏剧空间和戏剧时间。戏剧的主要特征主要在戏剧时表中被概念化。在此基础上,可以认为,戏剧性被纳入小说话语的重要结构元素是艺术时表。在典型的乌托邦轨迹中表现出来的戏剧宇宙的特定圈地,使其成为乌托邦社会实验的空间,完善了文化的潜在倾向,并使其暴露于批判的观察之下。戏剧的“临时性”与乌托邦的“历史性”相关联,并展现了与历史连续体的断裂,从而使其有目的的重建得以自由发挥。戏剧形象在折衷的整体中重新组合,并将历史连续体的中断元素重新组合。再现历史和神话人物的表演的循环性,以及对国家身份至关重要的事件的重演,使观众参与到伪传播中。它实际上剥夺了他们对真实时间和空间的体验,取而代之的是消费替代图像的舒适的虚假体验。因此,戏剧时表的主要特征被用来发展小说对个人和国家身份的重建以及他们对扭曲猜测的服从等问题的基本关注。戏剧性揭示了前瞻性工业社会作为商业奇观的本质,将民族文化和历史变成了被操纵的商品。
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来源期刊
CiteScore
0.40
自引率
50.00%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: Tomsk State University Journal of Philology was established with the aim of: - publishing the papers and reviews on the topical issues of modern philology: linguistics, literary studies, communication studies; - promoting the development of theoretical and practical research in the field of socio-humanitarian knowledge; - forging links among scholars from different regions of Russia and other countries. Tomsk State University Journal of Philology is an independent research journal that welcomes submissions from across the world.
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