The contribution of George Bernard Shaw to the development of New English Drama.
Theoretical questions
1. The particularity of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, the frame-story, system of images, satiric elements and variety of genres.
1) the frame-story - Scholars label as frame tales literary works that present a story (or stories) within another story. The inner story is like a painting on a canvas; the outer story is like the frame of the painting. In The Canterbury Tales, the inner stories told by the pilgrims form the images on the canvas; the outer story told by Chaucer forms the frame.
2) satiric elements - In Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Chaucer satirizes the Medieval Church and those associated with the church. Medieval society was centered largely around the Church. Ideally, the people were expected to understand that earthly possessions were meaningless when compared to the prospect of closeness with God. Man was expected to work until he died, at which time he would receive eternal salvation. This eternal salvation was achieved by obeying God's commandments. This theory, however, was becoming progressively corrupted as hypocrisy began to pollute the Church, particularly at the higher levels. Chaucer recognized this degradation of religious ideals. He exposes this in his prologue by skillfully and subtly satirizing the religious figures. Using a unique view of ‘Chaucer the Pilgrim' to describe them, he points out that certain characters are not as they should be. The characters that Chaucer uses to satirize the Church are the Monk, the Friar, and the Pardoner. Chaucer does not criticize them openly, however. Chaucer simply emphasizes qualities that, although favorable to the character's general personality, are not consistent with the expectations of their position. Chaucer highlights characteristics in these figures that portray them as good people, but calls attention to the fact that they do not act in a religious manner. Chaucer does respect the fact, however, that some degree of virtue remains in the church. This is represented by the Parson, who was "a holy-minded man of good renown," "first following the word before he taught it." It is clear that Chaucer saw the problem of the Church as being hypocritical. Chaucer clearly presents the corruption and hypocrisy in the Church through his descriptions of the Monk, Friar, and Pardoner.
3) variety of genres - Fabliau
…….Five of the tales that the pilgrims tell are fabliaux. The fabliau was a short verse tale with coarse humor and earthy, realistic, and sometimes obscene descriptions that present an episode in the life of contemporary middle- and lower-class people. The fabliau uses satire and cynicism, along with vulgar comedy, to mock one or several of its characters. Not infrequently, the ridiculed character is a jealous husband, a wayward wife, a braggart, a lover, a proud or greedy tradesman, a doltish peasant, or a lustful or greedy clergyman. Plot development often depends on a prank, a pun, a mistaken identity, or an incident involving the characters in intrigue. The fabliau was popular in France from 1100 to 1300, then went out of fashion. Chaucer revived the format in The Canterbury Tales to write “The Miller’s Tale,” “The Reeve’s Tale,” “The Cook’s Tale,” “The Shipman’s Tale,” and The Summoner’s Tale.” It is not entirely clear whether the fabliau was a pastime of the upper classes as a means to ridicule their social inferiors or of the middle and lower classes as a means to poke fun at themselves.
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Chivalric Romance (or Courtly Love)
“The Knight’s Tale” is an example of a chivalric romance, or a tale of courtly love. In such tales, the knights exhibit nobility, courage, and respect for their ladies fair, and the ladies exhibit elegance, modesty, and fidelity. Although knights and ladies may fall passionately in love, they eschew immoral behavior. In conflicts between good and evil, justice prevails.
Exemplum
“The Pardoner’s Tale” is an example of an exemplum (plural, exempla), a short narrative in verse or prose that teaches a moral lesson or reinforces a doctrine or religious belief. Other tales can be regarded as exempla or contain elements of the exemplum in that they present examples of right or wrong living that teach moral precepts.
Arthurian Romance
“The Wife of Bath’s Tale” is an example of an Arthurian romance, a type of work in which a knight in the age of the legendary King Arthur goes on a quest.
Beast Fable
“The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” is an example of a beast fable, a short story in verse or prose in which animals are the main characters. They exhibit human qualities, and their activities underscore a universal truth.
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Satire
A satire is a literary work or technique that attacks or pokes fun at vices and imperfections. Many of the prologues and tales contain satire that ridicules people who exhibit hypocrisy, greed, false humility, stupidity, self-importance, and other flaws.
Burlesque
A burlesque is a literary work or technique that mocks a person, a place, a thing, or an idea by using wit, irony, hyperbole, sarcasm, and/or understatement. For example, a burlesque may turn a supposedly respected person—such as old John in “The Miller’s Tale”—into a buffoon. A hallmark of burlesque is its thoroughgoing exaggeration, often to the point of the absurd.
Low Comedy
A type of comedy that is generally physical rather than verbal, relying on slapstick and horseplay as in “The Miller’s Tale.” Low comedy usually focuses on ordinary folk.
Breton Lay
“The Franklin’s Tale” is an example of a Breton lay, a Fourteenth Century English narrative poem in rhyme about courtly love that contains elements of the supernatural The English borrowed the Breton-lay format from the French. A lay is a medieval narrative poem originally intended to be sung. Breton is an adjective describing anyone or anything from Brittany, France.
Allegory
An allegory is a literary work or technique that ascribes secondary or symbolic meaning to characters, events, objects, and ideas, as in “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale.” The pilgrims’ journey to Canterbury may also be regarded as an allegory in that it can be viewed as a representation of the journey through life or the journey toward the ultimate destination, heaven.
The contribution of George Bernard Shaw to the development of New English Drama.
https://mykonspekts.ru/1-147562.html
Shaw George Bernard (1856-1950). At the beginning of his career he actively promoted G. Ibsen's plays as an example of "new drama" or "drama of ideas" (article "Quintessence of ibsenism"). Late and Mature stage - from " drama of ideas "to" farce of ideas " (extravaganza). The Creator of the drama is a discussion in the center of which is a clash of hostile ideologies, social and ethical problems: "the widower's House "(1892)," Mrs. Warren's Profession "(1894)," the Cart with apples " (1929). At the heart of the artistic method of Show – paradox as a means of Subversion of dogmatism and bias - ("Androcles and Leo", 1913, "Pygmalion", 1913),the traditionality of representations (historical plays"Caesar and Cleopatra", 1901, pentalogy or "Pentateuch" "Back to Methuselah", 1918-20, "high tragedy" "St. John", 1923).
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The master of "social drama", the Creator of the genre of" extravaganza "(synthesis of philosophical and satirical farce)," reenactor "genre of" utopia", recreator of the genre of" high tragedy", B. Shaw before B. Brecht solved the problem of philosophical simplicity – "concreteness in abstraction", standing in the center of the theory of" epic theater "(the ability to mobilize human forces," without resorting to pathos, which is very problematic, because it is superficial " – in Brecht's expression).
The creative method and the leading way of building drama in the Show – the speech of the characters, the creation of a "modernized" language environment "first plan" through the vocabulary and phraseology of the XX century, with the aim of organizing a "second plan" – philosophical and symbolic. And the characters of historical plays speak the language of modernity, which allows the Show to organically connect the internal and external action plans (analyticism and tragedy with the life-affirming idea of the tragic genre activity). The leading actor is a hero-ideologist.
Ideology plays: the idea of "creative evolution" (vitalism) and the ideas of socialism (the genre of utopia), the formula of Lamarck, "the body tends to progress" (faith development). The Central philosophical problem is the relationship between" mind "and" life " (as defined by A. S. Romm). The tragic theme – the tragedy of beauty, ugliness fatally generating and attracting violence ("the Simpleton of the Unexpected with Islands").
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The design of the drama (stages): at the turn of the century –a strict analyticity in the construction of dialogue-discussion (techniques "well – made play"); early XX century.-disappointment in the ideas of "intellectuals", a dramatic parody of the dispute – dispute (extravaganza); postwar drama and late drama-incompleteness of storylines, unexpected transitions from the real to the fantastic, grotesque, fragmentary. General in the structure of the show play-mandatory elements of the comic game ("weeding the garden"). Formulation of the actual social problem as a structure-forming factor (in the "social" dramas of Ibsen, Shaw, Galsworthy).
The play-discussion, which the Show considered to be the only truly modern dramatic form, could represent both a Comedy of manners, and a pamphlet addressed to the topical theme, and a grotesque satirical review ("extravaganza", in the terminology of the Show itself), and a "high Comedy" with carefully designed characters, as in "Pygmalion" (1913), and "fantasy in the Russian style" with clear echoes of Chekhov's motives (written during the First world war, perceived them as disaster, "house, where are broken hearts" (1919, called into 1920)ahhh!
The genre diversity of the Show's drama corresponds to its wide emotional spectrum – from sarcasm and irony to elegiac reflection on the fate of people who are victims of ugly social institutions. However, the original aesthetic idea of the Show remains unchanged, convinced that"a play without a dispute and without a subject of dispute is no longer quoted as a serious drama".
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