 2014 - 2015 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| 0810-5068-01 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| FACULTY OF VISUAL AND PERFORMING ARTS | FACULTY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN THE ARTS | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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University credit hours: 4.0
Course description
This seminar focuses on the structural, thematic, and performative principles of the melo-drama but we will start with reading three tragedies (Euripides, Racine, and Shakespeare) in order to understand the move from tragedy to melodrama. J. V. Cunnigham argues that Shakespeare’s tragedy is defined by the type of action it presents and that its effect is woe and wonder and that this correlates with Aristotle’s analysis. The seminar will also undertake a classic definition of melodrama. It derives from the Victorian theater, emigrates to the screen during the silent era, and remains with us in the Hollywood talkies and later in crime films, romantic dramas and contemporary political thrillers. We will study the emotional burden that both the characters and the viewers suffer in tragedy. Then we will examine the gothic melodrama of Mary Shelley. We will continue reading plays by Boucicault and explain melodrama’s relation to the domestic sphere, the life of crime (apparent in popular journalism of the time), and to sensationalism. In such scenes fire occurs on the stage or the hero is tied to train rails. In every case melodrama is related to democracy and to the elimination of class society. We will then study short stories and novels of the 19th century. Authors such as Balzac, Eliot, Maupassant, and James use melodramatic principles to enhance recognition of the hero’s virtue. We will study filmic melodramas of directors such as Losey, Cukor, Jewison, Pakula, Capra, Pabst, Murnau, Chaplin, and we will watch excerpts of South Korean melodramas of the 60s. We will read articles by Freud, Michael Booth, Barthes, Fried, Brooks, Cavell, Gledhill, Kaplan, Derrida, Hansen, Lacan, Copjec, and Mulvey