Russian Dramatic Theory from Pushkin to the Symbolists
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Laurence P. Senelick
About this book
Although younger than most European theatrical traditions, the Russian professional theater has generated an exciting body of criticism and theory which until recently has remained unknown or nearly inaccessible in the West. This anthology presents a selection of important Russian writing on the aesthetics of drama and the theater from 1828 to 1914.
The focus of these essays, most published here for the first time in English, is on the so-called Crisis in the Theater of 1904 to 1914, a lively debate between the symbolists and the naturalists that evoked brilliant polemic writing from Meyerhold, Bely, Bryusov, and others. Along with Chekhov's amusing critique of Sarah Bernhardt ("monstrously facile!") and Ivanov's abstruse analysis of the essence of tragedy, the essays form a running commentary on the development of the Russian theater: Pushkin on his predecessors, Gogol on his own work, Belinsky on Gogol, Sleptsov on Ostrovsky and Leskov, Bely on Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard ("enervated people, trying to forget the terror of life"), the symbolists on one another.
Each selection is printed in its entirety, with extensive notes, and a lengthy introduction places all the pieces within their historical and cultural contexts to comprise a brief history of Russian dramatic theory before the revolution. This volume is essential reading for all who wish to extend their knowledge of the Russian contribution to theatrical history, theory, and criticism.
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Topics
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Frontmatter
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Contents
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Foreword
xi -
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Introduction
xv - Russian Dramatic Theory from Pushkin to the Symbolists
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My Remarks on the Russian Theater
1 -
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On National-Popular Drama and the Play Martha the Seneschal's Wife
8 -
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Petersburg Notes for 1836
16 -
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A Theater Lets Out after the Performance of a New Comedy
29 -
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Dramatic Poesy
60 -
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A Type of the Current Drama
71 -
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More about Sarah Bernhardt
83 -
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The Cherry Orchard
89 -
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Drama at the Lower Depths
93 -
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On Drama
107 -
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The Theater of a Single Will
132 -
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Theater and Modern Drama
149 -
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Realism and Convention on the Stage
171 -
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Introduction to Monodrama
183 -
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Russian Dramatists
200 -
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The Essence of Tragedy
210 -
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Letters on the Theater
223 -
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Notes
273 -
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Selected Bibliography
305 -
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Index
309
