Theatre Arts 1
Great Literature of the Stage
Dr. John Blondell
Place and Time
Phone – 565-6778. E-mail: blondell@westmont.edu
Office Hours TBA
Overview of Course
This course studies some of the masterpieces of the Western dramatic tradition,
covering a nearly 2,500-year period from the ancient Greeks to today. Etymologically,
the term “drama” derives from the Greek term “dran,” which means, “to do.” Today, we
understand Drama to be the literary component of a multi-disciplinary art form that fuses
literature, the plastic arts, and the art of acting in the time-based art we know as “theatre.”
The term “theatre” also has an interesting etymology. It derives from the term
“theatron,” which is where ancient Greeks sat to watch plays, and is translated as “seeing
place.” The derivations of drama and theatre, then, illuminate many important
characteristics of both terms, and bear witness to the fundamental relationship between
them. Drama is a particular kind of literature, one created for the stage, where humans
enact significant (or sometimes frivolous) stories for the enjoyment of other people.
Dramatic literature is meant to be seen, to be incarnated in people speaking and behaving
in three-dimensional space, through the sweep of time. This intentional corporeality
suggests the fundamental wholeness of the theatrical enterprise and the literature that
comprises it. The appeal of drama is to the whole person, to aspects and concerns that
run the gamut of human experience, be they spiritual, emotional, psychological, social,
physical, and so forth.
One way to think about the fundamental corporeality of drama is to draw on the
German critic Wolfgang Izer. If fiction, as he describes it, is literature that “lures the
imaginary into being,” then I would suggest that drama is literature that “lures being into
the imaginary.” Dramatic literature is indeed fictional in that the stories and characters
expressed on stage are products of the human imagination, yet things on stage never fully
give up their own self-identities as things in this world. Their being, their fundamental,
concrete “realness” doesn’t change. Rather, for the purposes of the fictions being spun
out before us, we keep this “knowledge of the real” at abeyance, in a kind of willful
forgetting that the great 19th century critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge calls “the willing
suspension of disbelief.”
The concerns of this course are threefold. We will explore drama as a kind of
artistic representation that emerges from the tendencies and concerns of certain times and
places. Second, we will explore drama as a carrier of meanings that have impact on
many aspects of our humanity. We will study how plays engage the world around us,
provide great pleasure, and offer ways of understanding ourselves, others, and ultimately
God. Third, we will explore the important conventions of dramatic representation in an
effort to understand how things mean in the theatre. The course is intended as an
introduction to the literature of the stage, and is meant to ignite a life-long love affair
with drama and the correlative arts with which it nests.
The heritage of Western Drama is rich and vast, and includes great dramatic
traditions from numerous countries and cultures. We will focus on three: the Classical
tradition of the ancient Greeks, Shakespeare, and the French playwright Moliere; the
Modern tradition of Henrik Ibsen, Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, and George
Bernard Shawl; and the American tradition of Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams,
Arthur Miller, and August Wilson. The plays selected present a great range of style and
form, of subject and theme, of structure and genre. Our study will be cultural, in that we
will explore the plays as expressions and products of cultural tendencies and concerns,
and aesthetic in that we will explore the formal components that make up the individual
plays. By semester’s end it will be difficult to separate the purely cultural from purely
aesthetic. Rather, we will see the complete interdependence on one and another, and bear
witness to the intricate relationship that exists between a culture and the artistic forms
that emerge from it. Ultimately, our study is intended to explore how these plays can
help deepen our faith, and make us more discerning and sensitive Christian people.
Here are some specific goals for the course:
1)
To become conversant with some of the major masterpieces of Western
Drama, identify the forces that contributed to their shaping, and
understand their dominant thematic concerns and patterns of meaning.
2)
To identify the appropriate dramatic conventions dominant in a
particular period and culture, and show their relationship to the formal
components of dramatic literature in an effort to display how plays
manifest their meanings to people.
3)
To learn and use the appropriate vocabulary for the communication of
ideas and concepts relative to the literature of the stage.
4)
To develop deeper awareness of God, yourself, and others through the
literature of the stage.
Assignments and Readings
The Classical Tradition
M September 1
W September 3
F September 5
Introduction to the Course: On Mimesis
The Poetics, Aristotle
The Poetics, continued
M September 8
W September 10
F September 12
Introduction to Greek Tragedy
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
M September 15
W September 17
F September 19
Introduction to Greek Comedy
The Birds, Aristophanes
The Birds, Aristophanes
M September 22
W September 24
F September 26
Introduction to Shakespearean Tragedy
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
M September 29
W October 1
F October 3
Hamlet, William Shakespeare
Introduction to Shakespearean Romance
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
M October 6
W October 8
F October 10
The Tempest, William Shakespeare
Introduction to Shakespearean Romance
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
M October 13
W October 15
F October 17
No Class: Fall Holiday
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, William Shakespeare
The Neoclassicism and the Drama
M October 20
W October 22
F October 24
The Misanthrope, Moliere
The Misanthrope, Moliere
Exam
M October 27
W October 29
F October 31
Introduction to Modern Drama
Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen
Ghosts, Henrik Ibsen
M November 3
W November 5
F November 7
The Seagull, Anton Chekhov
The Seagull, Anton Chekhov
Miss Julie, August Strindberg
M November 10
W November 12
F November 14
Miss Julie, August Strindberg
Misalliance, George Bernard Shaw
Misalliance, George Bernard Shaw
M November 17
W November 19
F November 21
Exam
Introduction to the American Dramatic Tradition
The Hairy Ape, Eugene O’Neill
M November 24
The Hairy Ape
W November 26
F November 28
No Class – Thanksgiving Holiday
No Class – Thanksgiving Holiday
M December 1
W November 3
F December 5
The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
M December 8
W December 10
F December 12
The Crucible, Arthur Miller
Fences, August Wilson
Fences, August Wilson
Note: Note: Westmont has identified six important standards as foundational for
our work as a college. These standards include Christian Orientation, CriticalInterdisciplinary Thinking, Diversity, Active Societal and Intellectual Engagement,
Written and Oral Communication, and Research and Technology. It has also
created a rigorous General Education program that is intended to foster intellectual
vitality, Christian character, and commitment to service that will last a lifetime.
The General Education program is comprised of a range of courses intended to
develop and explore expertise in a variety of different disciplines and methods of
inquiry. This course satisfies what Westmont has described as one of the “Common
Inquires” of its General Education program – Reading Imaginative Literature.
According to the Westmont catalogue, “Courses satisfying this requirement develop
students’ skills in analyzing and understanding the ways of knowing provided by
imaginative literature. Such an approach invites students to see how literature
reveals things we cannot know except by inference or by metaphor. Students in
these courses should recognize how imaginative literature honors the complexity of
human experience. Further, by encouraging the practice of compassion by
imagining the other, the course involves students in ways of knowing that are
inherently ethical.”
Requirements
There are three major requirements for the course. Grade percentages are as follows.
Three Exams
Three Five-page Essays
Class Participation
45%
45%
10%
The exams for the course are essay in nature. For each exam, you will identify various
pieces of dramatic writing, and write essays that display your knowledge of the cultural
and aesthetic issues that relate to it.
There are three separate essays required for the course. The first essay focuses on
Shakespeare’s language, and asks you to paraphrase, using parallel imagery, a speech of
at least 20 lines from Hamlet. After you have paraphrased the speech, you will write an
essay that explores the patterns of imagery of the selected speech as they relate to the
larger patterns of meaning in the play. For the second essay, you will discuss and
describe the ways that one play from the second part of the course illustrates tendencies
and characteristics of the modern movement. For the third essay, you will contrast and
compare the realistic tradition of writing as exemplified by The Crucible and Fences with
the expressionistic tradition of writing presented in The Hairy Ape and The Glass
Menagerie.
Notes and Policies
Students with disabilities are encouraged to discuss requests for reasonable
accommodations with me at the beginning of the semester. In order for accommodations
to be provided, your disability must be verified by Michelle Hardley, director of first year
programs, ext: 6159. Her office is located on the top floor of the Voskuyl library.
Essays are due on the dates indicated. There will be no exceptions to this policy.
Attendance Policy: Students are allowed a total of three (3) unexcused absences
for the semester. 4 unexcused absences will result in failure of the “Class Participation”
portion of your grade. 5 unexcused absences will result in failure in the course.