This module is not currently running in 2024 to 2025.
In this module students will explore the historical context in which Naturalism, as a literary and theatrical movement, developed. They will consider the varied practice of dramatists who sought to represent real life on stage in more accurate and convincing ways. The possibilities and limitations of this specialised mode of representation are investigated. Its legacy is then traced in a selection of subsequent dramatic texts that reflect a Naturalist approach or deal specifically with continuing arguments on life's’ determining and shaping forces and their dramatic representation first contested in the 19th Century.
6 Hours Per Week (1 Hour Lecture / 3 Hour Seminar / 2 Hour Practical Session), plus 228 independent study hours across the module.
DR609 is available as a Wild Module option.
100% Coursework:
• 40% Essay 3,500 words
• 40% Group Practical Project
• 10% Supporting written documentation to accompany Project
• 10% Process mark – workshop contribution and project development
• Benedetti, Jean (2008) Stanislavski: An Introduction, London: Methuen Drama.
• Chothia, Jean (1991) Andre Antoine, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
• Furst, Lillian & Skrine, Peter (1971) Naturalism, London: Methuen.
• Innes, Christopher (ed.) (2000) A Sourcebook on Naturalist Theatre, London: Routledge.
• Miller, Anne (1931) The Independent Theatre in Europe from 1887 to the present, New York: B. Blom.
• Osborne, John (1971) The Naturalist Drama in Germany, Manchester: Manchester University Press.
• Pickering, Kenneth & Thompson, Jayne (2013) Naturalism in Theatre: Its Development and Legacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.
• Schumacher, Claude (ed) (1996) Naturalism and Symbolism in European Theatre 1850-1918, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press
• Styan, J. L. (1981) Modern Drama in Theory and Practice. Vol. 1: Realism and Naturalism, Cambridge & New York: Cambridge University Press.
See the library reading list for this module (Canterbury)
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to demonstrate:
- Knowledge and critical understanding of the emergence and development of Naturalism as a form of theatre representation within a specific historical context.
- Knowledge and critical understanding of key European Naturalist figures, theorists, dramatists and play texts.
- Knowledge and critical understanding of the legacy of the Naturalist form.
- Skills of critical analysis, and the ability to interrogate dramatic and performance texts, debating the limits and possibilities of the Naturalist form of representation.
- Practical knowledge and understanding of Naturalist techniques.
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