A Concept of Dramatic Genre and the Comedy of a New Type: Chess, Literature, and Film

V. Ulea

ISBN 10: 0809324520 / ISBN 13: 9780809324521

Published by Southern Illinois University Press, 2002

About this Item

As New. Never been read,

Seller Inventory # Yehu0055

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Concept of Dramatic Genre and the Comedy of a New Type: Chess, Literature, and Film
• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication Date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0809324520
• ISBN 13: 9780809324521
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: As New
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine

About this title

Synopsis

Applying systems theory to the comedies of Chekhov, Balzac, Kleist, Moliere, and Shakespeare, A Concept of Dramatic Genre and the Comedy of a New Type: Chess, Literature, and Film approaches dramatic genre from the point of view of the degree of richness and strength of a character’s potential. Its main focus is to establish a methodology for analyzing the potential from multidimensional perspectives, using systems thinking. The whole concept is an alternative to the Aristotelian plot-based approach and is applied to an analysis of western and eastern European authors as well as contemporary American film.

           

This innovative study consists of three parts: The first part is mostly theoretical, proposing a new definition of the dramatic as a category linked to general systems phenomena and offering a new classification of dramatic genre. In the second part, Ulea offers a textual analysis of some works based on this new classification. She analyzes comedies, tragedies, and dramas on the same or similar topics in order to reveal what makes them belong to opposite types of dramatic genre. 

Additionally, she considers the question of fate and chance, with regard to tragedy and comedy, from the point of view of the predispositioning theory. In the third part, Ulea explores an analysis of the comedy of a new type―CNT.  Her emphasis is on the integration of the part and the whole in approaching the protagonist’s potential. She introduces the term quasi-strong potential in order to reveal the illusory strength of protagonists of the CNT and to show the technique of CNT’s analysis and synthesis.

            

Ulea’s research begins with the notion of the comic, traditionally considered synonymous with the laughable, and attempts to approach it as independent from the laughable and laughter. The necessity to do so is dictated by the desire to penetrate the enigmatic nature of Chekhov’s comedy. The result is A Concept of Dramatic Genre and the Comedy of a New Type: Chess, Literature, and Film, a completely new approach to potential and systems thinking―which has never been a focus of dramatic theory before. Such potential is the touchstone of the comic and comedy, their permanent basic characteristic, the heart and axis around which the comedic world spins.

About the Author

V. Ulea is a literary critic, writer, film director, and lecturer of Russian Language and Literature, Comparative Literature, and Literature and Business in the Department of Slavic Languages at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of eleven books of prose, poetry, and literary criticism, among them, About Angels: A Treatise.