MAURICE MAETERLINCK AND THE MAKING OF MODERN THEATRE by Patrick McGuinness ( 9780198159773 )

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Title:

MAURICE MAETERLINCK AND THE MAKING OF MODERN THEATRE

By:

Patrick McGuinness

Format:

Hardback

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ISBN 10:

0198159773

ISBN 13:

9780198159773

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Publisher:

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

6 January, 2000

Pages:

280

Description:

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) has been called the prodigal father of modern theatre. Admired by such diverse writers as Mallarme and Yeats, Artaud and Strindberg, Chekhov and Jarry, Maeterlinck gave theatre a new set of bearings: 'static theatre', 'the theatre of the unexpressed', and 'the tragic of the everyday'. As Rilke put it, he shifted theatre's centre of gravity, replacing action with inaction, events with the eventless, and dialogue with a semantics ofsilence as expressive as any of Symbolism's most sophisticated poetic constructions. This study, the first book on Maeterlinck in English for more than a decade, traces the development of a dramatic vision of extraordinary originality and depth. Its scope of reference is broad (revealing Maeterlinck's relations with, and influences on, Artaud, Jarry, Mallarme, and Yeats), and its critical approach both historical and theoretical, testing theories of theatricality from Symbolism to Roland Barthes against Maeterlinck's own theory and practice.

Synopsis:

This is a study of one of theatre's quietest but most radical innovators. The playwright, poet, and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949) has been called the prodigal father of the Theatre of the Absurd. Admired by writers as diverse as Mallarme and Yeats, Artaud and Strindberg, Chekhov and Jarry, Maeterlinck was the most celebrated avant-garde playwright of his day. By 1900 he had given theatre a new set of bearings: 'static theatre', 'the theatre of the unexpressed', and 'the tragic of the everyday'. He had, according to Rilke, relocated theatre's centre of gravity, replacing action with inaction, events with the eventless, and dialogue with a semantics of silence as expressive as any of Symbolism's most sophisticated poetic constructions. The author of the supreme Symbolist play, Pelleas and Melisande, and of haunting, minimalist dramas of waiting (L'Intruse, Les Aveugles, Interieur), Maeterlinck laid the foundations for the most revolutionary theatre of the twentieth century.Opening with a chapter on Maeterlinck's Symbolist and decadent beginnings, and proceeding by way of comparative readings of Maeterlinck and contemporary Symbolist dramatic theory (with particular attention to Mallarme), Maurice Maeterlinck and the Making of Modern Theatre provides close readings of the one-act plays, and his seminal theories of static theatre and the theatre of waiting.

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Oxford University Press

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