Georg Kaisers Dramenwerk vor dem ersten Weltkrieg: Forminnovation und Heldenbild im Fruehexpressionismus.

Format:

Book

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Klee, Siegbert.

Contributor:

University of Pennsylvania.

Language:

German

Subjects (All):

Theater.

Germanic literature.

Literature, Modern.

0298.

0311.

0465.

Local Subjects:

0298.

0311.

0465.

Physical Description:

341 pages

Contained In:

Dissertation Abstracts International 57-11A.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

text file

Summary:

The early phase of the canonized German Expressionism between 1911 and 1916 is still being viewed as the renewal of modernity. Early Expressionism, however, is based on artistic forms which had already been developed in the years prior to this period. Nowhere can this be better seen than in the work of Georg Kaiser, the most celebrated dramatist of the Expressionist movement. Until now, research on Kaiser has concentrated almost entirely on the works written during the Expressionist era, while Kaiser's early work, which begins in 1895 with the grotesque comedy Schellenkonig and comprises about thirty dramas, has been generally dismissed as erratic, eclectic, and unoriginal. However, Kaiser the Expressionist cannot be understood without recourse to the Kaiser of this earlier period. The thesis analyzes in depth new aesthetic forms as well as innovative performance styles and stage forms in Kaiser's early dramas: geometrical representation of space, abstract exhibition and stylization of dramatic characters, visualization of spiritual and idealistic concepts, and missionary zeal to educate and save man by re-creations of myth. Kaiser places the individual in the center of his texts. Using three-dimensional space, he elevates the individual spiritually and metaphysically by positioning him spatially. Non-verbal communication such as gestures, mimic art, pantomime, and dance gain increasing independence of poetic diction and lend to the individual once more a greatness unachieved in real life. Theater becomes a place for man's aesthetic and ethical edification and Kaiser's own spiritual exaltation as a poetic genius. However, salvation, elevation, and resurrection presuppose man's prior renunciation and destruction. The price for such elevation is mostly a stylized, rigid pose, and thus finally the extinction of the original and essential individuality altogether. The sublime ideal sought by Kaiser can only be presented in a distorted manner, as grotesque, which is combined with both the tragic and comic gesture. The grotesque is an aesthetic form, but at the same time the product of society. The simultaneity of that which is temporally distinct, of forms of dissociation and renewal, is characteristic of the entire Expressionist period, but is already in use by Kaiser in his early work.

Notes:

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 57-11, Section: A, page: 4759.

Supervisor: Frank Trommler.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1996.

Local Notes:

School code: 0175.

ISBN:

9780591204803

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.