Drama -Basic Bibliography (for those interested)
(compiled by Géza Kállay)
General works on the theory of drama:
Auerbach, Erich. Scenes from the drama of European literature. Theory and history of
literature; v. 9. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c1984.
Birch, David (David Ian). The language of drama: critical theory and practice. The Language
of literature. Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1991.
Brownstein, Oscar Lee. Analytical sourcebook of concepts in dramatic theory. Westport,
Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.
Burke, Kenneth. Dramatism and development. Heinz Werner lectures, 1971. Barre, Mass.,
Clark University Press, 1972.
Clark, Barrett Harper. European theories of the drama, with a supplement on the American
drama; an anthology of dramatic theory and criticism from Aristotle to the present
day, in a series of selected texts, with commentaries, biographies, and bibliographies.
Newly rev. by Henry Popkin. New York, Crown Publishers [1965].
Courtney, Richard. Drama and feeling: an aesthetic theory. Montreal: McGill -Queen's
University Press, c1995.
Courtney, Richard. Drama and intelligence: a cognitive theory. Montreal; Buffalo: McGillQueen's University Press, c1990.
Creative expression, The. Croton-on-Hudson, N.Y.: North River Press, c1976.
Deane, Cecil Victor. Dramatic theory and the rhymed heroic play. [1st ed.] new impression.
London, Cass, 1967.
Dukore, Bernard Frank, comp. Dramatic theory and criticism: Greeks to Grotowski. New
York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston [1974].
Durrenmatt, Friedrich. Writings on theatre and drama. London: J. Cape, 1976.
English dramatic theories. English texts, 13. Tubingen, M. Niemeyer, 1972Goldman, Michael. The actor's freedom: toward a theory of drama. New York: Viking Press,
1975.
Goldman, Michael. On drama: boundaries of genre, borders of self. Theater
theory/text/performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c2000.
Gross, Roger. Understanding playscripts: theory and method. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling
Green University Press, c1974.
Hill, Knox C. Interpreting literature; history, drama and fiction, philosophy, rhetoric.
Chicago, University of Chicago Press [1966].
Jourdain, Eleanor F. (Eleanor Frances). The drama in Europe in theory and practice. New
York, Holt, 1924.
Malekin, Peter. Consciousness, literature, and theatre: theory and beyond. Basingstoke:
Macmillan Press; New York, N.Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1997.
Mallinson, J. D. Evidence of time. Salzburg studies in English literature. Poetic drama &
poetic theory; 185. Salzburg, Austria: University of Salzburg, 1997.
Maranda, Pierre. Structural analysis of oral tradition. University of Pennsylvania publications
in folklore and folklife, no. 3. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press [1971].
Marcel, Gabriel. Gabriel Marcel's perspectives on the broken world: The broken world, a
four-act play, followed by Concrete approaches to investigating the ontological
mystery. Marquette studies in philosophy; no. 18. Milwaukee Marquette University
Press, c1998.
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Murray, Edward. Varieties of dramatic structure: a study of theory and practice. Lanham,
Md.: University Press of America, c1990.
Nicoll, Allardyce. The theatre and dramatic theory. London, George G. Harrap & Co. [1962].
Nicoll, Allardyce. The theory of drama. New York, B. Blom [1966].
On referring in literature. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1987.
Pearce, Howard. Human shadows bright as glass: drama as speculation and transformation.
Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press; London; Cranbury, NJ: Associated
University Presses, c1997.
Pfister, Manfred. The theory and analysis of drama. European studies in English literature.
Cambridge [Cambridgeshire]; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Quinn, Michael L.. The semiotic stage: Prague school theatre theory Pittsburgh studies in
theatre and culture; vol. 1. New York: P. Lang, c1995.
Rayner, Alice. To act, to do, to perform: drama and the phenomenology of action. Theater-theory/text/performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1994.
Salzburg studies in English literature. Poetic drama & poetic theory. 1- Salzburg: Institut fur
Anglistik und Amerikanistik Univ. Salzburg, 1972Schlueter, June. Dramatic closure: reading the end. Madison [N.J.]: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press; London; Cranbury, NJ: Associated University Presses, c1995.
Semiotics of drama and theatre: new perspectives in the theory of drama and theatre.
Linguistic & literary studies in Eastern Europe, v. 10. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J.
Benjamins, 1984.
Sources of dramatic theory. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge University Press,
1991Related especially to tragedy:
Davis, James Herbert. Tragic theory and the eighteenth-century French critics. University of
North Carolina studies in the Romance languages and literatures, no. 68. Chapel Hill,
University of North Carolina Press [1967].
Kintz, Linda. The subject's tragedy: political poetics, feminist theory, and drama. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press, c1992.
Olson, Elder. Tragedy and the theory of drama. Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1961.
Sallis, John. Crossings: Nietzsche and the space of tragedy. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1991.
Schlesinger, Alfred Cary. Boundaries of Dionysus; Athenian foundations for the theory of
tragedy. Martin classical lectures, v. 17. Cambridge, Mass., Published for Oberlin
College by Harvard University Press, 1963.
Tragedy and philosophy. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993.
Related especially to comedy:
Felheim, Marvin, ed. Comedy: plays, theory, and criticism. Harbrace sourcebooks. New York,
Harcourt, Brace & World [1962].
Levin, Harry. Playboys and killjoys: an essay on the theory and practice of comedy. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Nelson, T. G. A. Comedy: an introduction to the theory of comedy in literature, drama, and
cinema. Oxford [England]; New York: Oxford University Press, 1990.
Sutton, Dana Ferrin. The catharsis of comedy. Greek studies. Lanham, Md.: Rowman &
Littlefield Publishers, c1994.
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Related to Ancient Greek Drama:
Alford, C. Fred. The psychoanalytic theory of Greek tragedy. New Haven: Yale University
Press, c1992.
“The Language of the Cave”. Apeiron; v. 25, no. 4 (Dec. 1992). Edmonton: Academic
Printing & Publishing, [1993], c1992.
Cornford, Francis Macdonald. The origin of Attic comedy. Ann Arbor paperbacks. 1st ed. as an
Ann Arbor paperback. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 1993.
Csapo, Eric. The context of ancient drama. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1995.
Gould, Thomas. The ancient quarrel between poetry and philosophy. Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, c1990.
Vernant, Jean Pierre. Tragedy and myth in ancient Greece. European philosophy and the
human sciences; 7. Sussex, Eng.: Harvester Press; Atlantic Highlands, N.J.:
Humanities Press, 1981.
(See also Sutton in previous section!)
Related to the Renaissance:
A Reader in the language of Shakespearean drama: essays. Amsterdam studies in the theory
and history of linguistic science. Series III, Studies in the history of the language
sciences, v. 35. Benjamins paperbacks; 7. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Pub.
Co., 1987.
Adams, Barry B.. Coming-to-know: recognition and the complex plot in Shakespeare. Studies
in Shakespeare; vol. 10. New York: Peter Lang, c2000.
Daileader, Celia R. Eroticism on the Renaissance stage: transcendence, desire, and the limits
of the visible. Cambridge studies in Renaissance literature and culture; 30. Cambridge,
U.K.; New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Davis, Philip (Philip Maurice). Sudden Shakespeare: the shaping of Shakespeare's creative
thought. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996.
Gatti, Hilary. The Renaissance drama of knowledge: Giordano Bruno in England. London;
New York: Routledge, 1989.
Kiernan, Pauline. Shakespeare's theory of drama. Cambridge; New York Cambridge
University Press, 1996.
Mackinnon, Lachlan. Shakespeare the aesthete: an exploration of literary theory.
Contemporary interpretations of Shakespeare. London: Macmillan, 1988.
Marra, G. (Giulio). Shakespeare and this "imperfect" world: dramatic form and the nature of
knowing. Studies in Shakespeare, vol. 5. New York: P. Lang, c1997.
Maus, Katharine Eisaman. Inwardness and theatre in the English Renaissance. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Mousley, Andy. Renaissance drama and contemporary literary theory. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 2000.
Pavel, Thomas G.. The poetics of plot: the case of English Renaissance drama. Theory and
history of literature; v. 18. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c1985.
Pechter, Edward. What was Shakespeare?: Renaissance plays and changing critical practice.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995
Postmodern Shakespeare. Shakespeare, the critical complex; 10. New York: Garland
Publishing, 1999.
Shakespeare and the question of theory. New York: Routledge, 1990.
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Related especially to 17th c. drama:
Calder, Andrew. Moliére: the theory and practice of comedy. London; Atlantic Highlands:
Athlone Press, 1993.
Cook, John Alfred. Neo-classic drama in Spain, theory and practice. Dallas, Southern
Methodist University Press, 1959.
Lyons, John D.. Kingdom of disorder: the theory of tragedy in Classical France. Purdue
studies in Romance literatures; v. 18. West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press,
c1999.
The Golden Age comedia: text, theory, and performance. West Lafayette, Indiana: Purdue
University Press, 1994.
Thompson, James. Language in Wycherley's plays: seventeenth-century language theory and
drama. University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, c1984.
Related to 18th-19th century drama:
Baum, Joan. The theatrical compositions of the major English romantic poets. Salzburg
studies in English literature. Poetic drama & poetic theory; 57. Salzburg, Austria:
Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, Universitat Salzburg; Atlantic Highlands,
N.J.: Humanities Press [distributor], 1980.
Burwick, Frederick. Illusion and the drama: critical theory of the Enlightenment and
romantic era. University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press, c1991.
Carlson, Julie Ann. In the theater of Romanticism: Coleridge, nationalism, women .
Cambridge studies in Romanticism; 5. Cambridge [England]; New York: Cambridge
University Press, 1994.
Ellis, Frank H. (Frank Hale). Sentimental comedy: theory & practice. Cambridge studies in
eighteenth-century English literature and thought; 10. Cambridge; New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Robertson, John George. Lessing's dramatic theory, being an introduction to & commentary
on his Hamburgische Dramaturgie. [Bronx, N. Y.] B. Blom [1965].
Singh, Sarup. The theory of drama in the Restoration period. Bombay, Orient Longmans
[1963].
Stahl, E. L. (Ernest Ludwig). Friedrich Schiller's drama; theory and practice. Oxford,
Clarendon Press, 1954.
Related to modern drama:
Bentley, Eric. The theory of the modern stage: an introduction to modern theatre and drama.
Reprinted with revisions. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1976, c1968.
Birringer, Johannes H. Theatre, theory, postmodernism. Drama and performance etudies.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, c1991.
Chaudhuri, Una. Staging place: the geography of modern drama. Theatretheory/text/performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1995.
Lutterbie, John Harry. Hearing voices: modern drama and the problem of subjectivity.
Theater--theory/text/performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1997.
Misra, K. S. Modern tragedies and Aristotle's theory. Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities
Press, 1983, c1981.
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Rogowski, Christian. Implied dramaturgy: Robert Musil and the crisis of modern drama.
Studies in Austrian literature, culture, and thought. Riverside, CA: Ariadne Press,
1993.
Szondi, Peter. Theory of the modern drama: a critical edition. Theory and history of
literature; v. 29. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, c1987.
The Death of the playwright?: modern British drama and literary theory. Insights. London:
Macmillan, 1992.
Watt, Stephen. Postmodern/drama: reading the contemporary stage. Theatre- theory/text/performance. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, c1998.
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