Description:
Frontmatter -- Foreword -- Contents -- Prologue -- Part I: Towards a Transgeneric and Contextual Theory of Narrative in Drama, Or, Reframing ‘Drama’ as a Narrative Genre -- 1 ‘Enter Drama!’ Putting the Genre (Back) Centre Stage in the Study of Literature and Culture -- 2 Rising Action: Towards a Narratology of Drama -- 3 Suggestions for a Peripeteia in Drama and Narrative Theory: A Culturally Sensitive Narratology of Drama and Dramatic Narration -- Part II: The History of Narrative and Narration in British Drama – The Cultural Dynamics and Performative Power of Dramatic Storytelling -- 4 Stories in Conflict and Competition: Alternative Histories, Complementary Tales, and Lies in Early Modern Drama -- 5 The Containment of Different Narratives and of Narratives of Difference in Drama: The Renewal and Self-Definition of a ‘Sleeping’ Genre as well as Theatrical Configurations of Restoration and Early Eighteenth-Century (Drama) Cultures -- 6 From Stage to Page, from the Publicly Politic to the Metaphysically Private: Late Eighteenth-Century and Romantic Drama as a Genre in Transformation, Dramatising Diegetic Storytelling and Narrativising (Revolutionary) Change in Society and Conflict in Selves -- 7 Expanding the Allowances of Drama by Generic Encounters with Narrative in Victorian and Early-Twentieth-Century Plays: Intersecting Drama and Narrative as Means to Fight against Hypocritical Hegemonies as well as to Perform and Forestall Political Change -- 8 From Stories in Drama to the Drama of (Performed) Stories: Late-Twentieth and Early-Twenty-First-Century Dissolutions of Established Generic Traditions and Cultural Histories as Well as the Generation of New, ‘Ex-centric’ Genres and Histories through Narrative -- 9 Conclusion: ‘The Contextual Dynamics of Dramatic Storytelling’ and the ‘Performative Power of Narrative in British Plays’ -- References -- Index
This volume argues against Gérard Genette’s theory that there is an “insurmountable opposition” between drama and narrative and shows that the two forms of storytelling have been productively intertwined throughout literary history. Building on the idea that plays often incorporate elements from other genres, especially narrative ones, the present study theorises drama as a fundamentally narrative genre. Guided by the question of how drama tells stories, the first part of the study delineates the general characteristics of dramatic narration and zooms in on the use of narrative forms in drama. The second part proposes a history of dramatic storytelling from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century that transcends conventional genre boundaries. Close readings of exemplary British plays provide an overview of the dominant narrative modes in each period and point to their impact in the broader cultural and historical context of the plays. Finally, the volume argues that throughout history, highly narrative plays have had a performative power that reached well beyond the stage: dramatic storytelling not only reflects socio-political realities, but also largely shapes them