Irony in the Drama: an Essay on Impersonation, Shock, and Catharsis
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Irony In The Drama Irony in the Drama: An Essay on Impersonation, Shock, and Catharsis. Contributors: Robert Boies Sharpe - author. Publisher: Greenwood Press. Place of Publication: Westport, CT. Publication Year: 1975 IRONY IN THE DRAMA An Essay on Impersonation, Shock and Catharsis By ROBERT BOIES SHARPE GREENWOOD PRESS, PUBLISHERS WESTPORT, CONNECTICUT -iii- Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sharpe, Robert Boies, 1897Irony in the drama. Reprint of the ed. published by the University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill. 1. English drama -- History and criticism. 2. Irony in literature. 3. Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Criticism and interpretation. 4. American drama -- 20th century -- History and criticism. 5. Catharsis. I. Title. [ PR635.I7S5 1974 ] 822'.009 74-8121 ISBN 0-8371-7552-6 Copyright, 1959, by The University of North Carolina Press Originally published in 1959 by The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill Reprinted with the permission of The University of North Carolina Press Reprinted in 1975 by Greenwood Press, a division of Williamhouse-Regency Inc. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 74-8121 ISBN 0-8371-7552-6 Printed in the United States of America -iv- CONTENTS Introduction vii I. What Is a Drama? 3 II. Irony and Impersonation 18 III. The Levels of Impersonation 30 IV. Forms of Irony in Drama 42 V. William Shakespeare, Ironist 52 VI. The Cathartic Process, Shock, and Classical Tragedy 82 VII. The Cathartic Process from the Middle Ages to the Present 104 VIII. A Theory of Comic Shock 121 1 Irony In The Drama IX. Comic Shock and Comic Catharsis in Practice 135 answers, or at least right enough to be useful ones. Mr. Purdom's is a very welcome X. Modern Trends in Comedy 153 statement of the need for a working solution of a problem which has been wrongly considered XI. Modern Trends in Tragedy 180 academic. XII. Conclusion 204 Index 217 Drama is impersonation. This is our answer, in a nutshell. Any play's being is not a stasis but a functioning. If we come out of this investigation with this finding, that the heart of drama is -v- impersonation -- the actor's playing of a role -- this surely is a beating heart, not a dead one. Hence, drama is an especially active form of artistic imitation. I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the University Research Council for generous aid in the publication of this book, and to the Ford Foundation for a grant under its program for In the minds of playwright, director, actor, and audience (all must co-operate to make a assisting American university presses in the publication of works in the humanities and the play), the drama is perceived by the senses and felt in the emotions as art, that is, as reality social sciences. or "nature" heightened for beauty by human means. This is a mixed, complicated, even somewhat sophisticated perceptive state or mood. It is a mood which we call ironic, because of its simultaneous perception of the two concepts art and nature as at the same time R. B. S. contradictory and harmonious, untrue and true. In the ironic mood one is conscious of contradictions but is above being frustrated by them; rather, one includes them in a single -vi- perception of living beauty. Working with these two terms, impersonation and irony, singly or in combination, we may INTRODUCTION hope to discover the artistic reasonableness of such phenomena of the world's drama as dramatic irony, "convoluted" impersonation, and the employment of the horrible and the shocking, not only in melodrama, satire, and low comedy but in the highest, most dignified What is drama? What, essentially, is a play? tragedy, and to find a reasonable relation between some or all of these phenomena and the mysterious psychological process Aristotle called dramatic catharsis. And having discovered Critics are unpopularly supposed by the criticized to bring up this question on only two sorts reasonableness in artistic principles fundamental to the drama, of occasions: either when they wish to destroy some hopeful creative enterprise in the theater by the conclusion that it is "not a play," or when they retire into their ivory towers for a -viii- season of decadently useless critical metaphysics and semantics. we may achieve a dearer and more useful vision of their practicability for dramatic artists. Yet a worker of distinction in the British theater recently bade the critics rouse themselves and do their duty by the drama -- not only to ask this question again, but this time to answer it for the practical benefit of the stage: The actor's form of impersonation (not a swindling in the street but a playing on the stage) is inherently ironic, as we see by its paralleling the verbal or "straight" form of irony we often call sarcasm. Ironic praise is not meant to deceive or to flatter, but to be seen through and to . in my experience the shortage of good plays is due not so much to the lack of theatrical gain its abrasive effect by the artistic contradiction of word by meaning; similarly, the actor technique, nor to the absence of ideas or themes, but to insufficient knowledge of what a play does not wish us to believe that he is Hamlet, but to admire his artistic imitation of Hamlet. essentially is. Every writer knows that a play is a highly concentrated work designed for The sarcastic man's irony is not a lie; the actor's impersonation is not a fraud. severely restricted conditions, and he knows too that the work must contain characters, tension, and conflict, but that is all. The would-be dramatist gets no further help from the critics. When Mr. Eliot advises writers of poetic plays that poetic drama must be dramatic It will be shown that there are levels of impersonation to be distinguished, ranging from even at the expense of poetry, he does not say what "dramatic" is, and his own practice does "straight" roles to roles containing disguises and other pretenses which demand not indicate that he knows. Of the 22 straight plays at present running in London impersonation convoluted within impersonation. And it will appear that the values of these (excluding Shakespeare) I doubt if there are half a dozen that show any sign of it. I suggest levels for dramatic purposes can be assessed by valuing the ironies an actor playing on them that this accounts for the poverty of our drama; and for this ignorance should not the critics employs and appeals to. For irony, at least as it permeates the art of drama, is two things: (I) of drama be held responsible? a view of life, a mood, a psychological state (brief or sustained), which in the theater is communicated from playwright, by way of director and actor, to audience; and (2) the artistic means to the communication of that mood of irony, the techniques used by playwright, Thus says Mr. C. B. Purdorn in The Times Literary Supplement for September 5, 1952. He director, and actor to put the audience into that psychological state. suggests, apparently, H. M. Chevalier The Ironic Temper: Anatole France and His Time ( 1932) contains the best -vii- available bibliography of critical works dealing with irony, although several important books have come out since: G. C. Sedgewick Of Irony, Especially in Drama ( University of Toronto that he has some of the answers, though I do not know what they may be. We believe that lectures, 1934, published in book form in 1949); David Worcester The Art of Satire ( 1940), some answers can be offered too, in the present essay, much of which was already written with its two chapters on irony, "The Ally of Comedy" and "The Ally of Tragedy"; and Alan R. and laid aside to mellow when his letter appeared. I hope that they may prove to be the right Thompson's The Anatomy of Drama ( 2nd ed., 1946), containing conclusions about irony which, as the author says, "are developed at length" 2 Irony In The Drama -ix- I. I. Ironies of artistic device, or technical ironies A. A. Verbal irony, including sarcasm, B. B. Dramatic (or situational) irony in The Dry Mock: A Study of Irony in Drama, 1948. All these books contain useful definitions C. C. "Ismic" ironies, such as expressionism and symbolism. of such types of irony as verbal or direct irony, irony of fate or events, irony of character or II. II. Ironies of philosophical theme, or cosmic ironies pretense, dramatic irony, and Socratic irony. Perhaps those given by Worcester and A. R. A. A. Irony of fate Thompson are the most complete. B. B. Man as ironic paradox C. C. Recoiling or "boomerang" irony My own justification for writing in a field apparently covered by so many good recent books is D. D. Circular or recurring irony threefold: I am especially interested in the matter of impersonation, its relation to drama in III. III. Ironies of psychological process, or subconscious ironies its essence on the one hand and to irony on the other. I hope to develop critical concepts A. A. Minor "steps to catharsis," such as hypnosis and hybris which apply impartially to all Western drama, whereas these books I have listed all seem to me to be specialized in their applications. And, as is perfectly normal in a critic, I do not -xi- exactly agree with any one of these other critics, much as I admire and appropriate from them all. B. Shock -- the stirring up of suppressed emotions for more complete discharge in catharsis It may be helpful to others, as well as fair dealing on my own part, if I specify the way in C.