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University Microrilms Ifiternational 300 N, ZEES ROAD, ANN ARBOR, Ml 48106 18 BEDFORD ROW, LONDON WC1R 4EJ, ENGLAND SCHWAMBERGER, JEFFREY ALAN THE NATURE OF DRAMATIC CHARACTER The Ohio State University Ph.D. 1980 University Microfiims I n tern et io n ei 300 N. Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor, M I 48105 Copyright 1980 by Sch warn berger, Jeffrey Alan All Rights Reserved THE NATURE OF DRAMATIC CHARACTER DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State Uhiversity By Jeffrey Alan Schwamberger, B.A., M.A. The Ohio State Uhiversity 1980 Reading Committee Approved By Donald R. Glancy John A. Walker Russell T. Hastings Adviser a Department of Theatre (J For my Father "One last thing, my son, be warned that writing books involves endless hard work, and that much study wearies the body." Ecclesiastes 12:12 ti ACKNOWLEDGEMENT )îy thanks to ray adviser, Donald R. Glancy, whose countless hours of advice «md attention have been of inestiraable value in completing this study. 27 August 1950 ............... B o m — Cincinnati, Ohio 197 1 ......................... B.A., Communication Arts, Magna cum laude, university of Dayton, Dayton Ohio 1972 - 1975; 1978 ........... Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of Theatre, Tl^e Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1972 - 1976 ................. university Fellow, The Ohio State Uhiversity 1974 ......................... M.A., Theatre, cum laude. The Ohio State university 1980 ......................... Teacher, Division of Continuing Education, The Ohio State university CONVENTION PRESENTATION "Needs Must He Goe that Divels Drive % The Ethos of Hieronimo." Ohio Theatre Association. 17 March 1978. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field : Dramatic Theory and criticism Classical Theory and Criticism. Professor Donald R. Glancy. Modem Theory and Criticism. Professor John C. Morrow, iv Dramatic Literature. Professors Donald R. Glancy and John C. Morrow, Theatre History. Professors Alfred Golding, Richard Nichols, Charles c. Ritter, amd Alan Woods. Acting and Directing. Professor Donald R. Glancy. Design. Professors Michelle Guillot and Russell Hastings. table of contents Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENT................................... iii VITA ............................................ iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS..................... viii CHAPTER O N E ............... 1 A Survey of Theories and Opinions of Dramatic Character CHAPTER T W O ...................................... 82 Ethics and Teleology: The End of Man as the Cause of Ethical Action CHAPTER TH R E E .................................... 100 Perception and Rational Apprehension of the End: The Function of Cognition In Human Action CHAPTER FOUR ............................... 163 The Nature of Desire CHAPTER F I V E .................................... 198 Volition and Virtue: Their Natures euid InterrelatlonshIp CHAPTER S I X ...................................... 262 The Nature of Proalresls and Its Relation­ ship to Human Conduct CHAPTER SEVEN .................................... 354 The Nature of Dramatic Character vl Page GLOSSART 428 BIBLIOGRAPHY Vli LIST OP ABBREVIATIONS cat. The Categories. Aristotle CMA commentary on the Metaphysics of Aristotle (In duodecim lihros Metaphvsicorum expositio), Saint Thomas Aquinas commentary on the Nicomachesm Ethics (In decem libros Ethicorum expositio), Saint Thomas Aquinas DA De Anima (On the Soul), Aristotle DMA De Motu Animalum (Movement of Animals), Aristotle De Memoria (O n Memory and Recollection), the second part of Parva Naturalia, Aristotle De Sensu (On Sense and Sensible Objects), the first part of Parva Naturalia, Aristotle De Sorano (On Sleep and Waking), the third part of Parva Naturalia, Aristotle PTC Dramatic Theory and Criticism; Greeks to Grotowski. Bernard F. Dukore Meta. Metaphysics, Aristotle m Nicomachean Ethics. Aristotle Phys. Physics, Aristotle Poet. Poetics. Aristotle Phet. Rhetoric, Aristotle TPA The Pocket Aguinas viii CHAPTER ONE A Survey of Theories and Opinions of Dramatic Character The first recorded definition of dramatic character*,^ which appeared In Aristotle's Poetics (c. 335 B.C.), states simply that character In a play Is that which reveals the moral purpose of the agents, I.e., the sort of thing they seek or avoid.^ Although Aristotle's definition Is brief. It Is not as a consequence superficial, because it assumes a knowledge and understanding of the treatment of human character that Aristotle presented In the Nicomachean Ethics. The two key terms of the definition, 'character' and 'moral purpose,' show the connection; first, ethos.* the word that Is translated above by 'character,' Is the same term that Aristotle used in the Nicomachean Ethics to signify the moral character of a human being; second, Aristotle's conception of moral purpose Is not only central to the ^An asterisk Indicates that a terra may be found In the glossary. ^Poet. l450b8. All citations from the Poetics are from Aristotle: Rhetoric; Poetics, trans, W. Rhys Roberts and Ingram Bywater, respectively. The Modern Library (New York: Random House, Inc., 1954). 2 Nicomachean Ethics. it is developed to such an extent in the latter work that any reference to it, such as that in the Poetics, is understandable only in the terms in which it is expressed in the Ethics. The definition of dramatic character found in the Poetics is, thus, properly understood only in the context of the theory of human character that Aristotle articulated in the Nicomachean Ethics. At the same time, however, because the definition functions as part of a theory of drama, whatever part of it derived from a theory of the character of human beings is transformed by the understanding of dramatic action that Aristotle articulated in the Poetics. In Aristotle*s dramatic theory, character is but one of the six elements that constitute a drama. Four of those elements are the materials from which character is fashioned and to which it gives shape: opsis.* or •spectacle,’* (anything that is seen in the course of the action of a drama); melopoiia.* or ’music,’* (anything that is heard in the course of the drama’s action); lexis,* or ’diction,’* (the elements of language that are part of the action of the drama); and dianoia.* or ’thought,’* (the expression of whatever can be said in the course of the action of the drama). Character, on the other hand, is the material for and is given shape by the remaining element, mythos.* or ’plot,’* which is the shape of the action of the drama as a whole. The character of a 3 personage,* according to Aristotle, does not, then, control the shape of the action; rather, the action of the drama as a whole determines the choices that are made, the point at which each Is made, and the personage by which each Is made. Furthermore, character Is only one of any number of traits that serve to make one personage distinct from another: for example, the physical appearance of a personage, the sound of Its voice, the dialect It speaks, and the emotions It expresses are not elements of character, but of spectacle, music, diction, and thought respectively. In Aristotle's theory, as a consequence, a personage Is not properly referred to as a character because 'character' is used exclusively as a designation of those elements of the action of a drama that reveal the moral purpose of an agent. Aristotle concerned himself In his dramatic theory not Just with a play's parts, but also with Its proper con­ struction, which Is necessary If a work Is to be aestheti­ cally pleasing. The attributes of beauty, according to Aristotle, are size and order.3 To be an ordered whole, a thing must have a beginning, a middle,