Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології
infantile and lyrical solitude
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| infantile and lyrical solitude that discloses the common foundation of individual worldview’s formation.
In its turn the condensed representation of childish imagery is to be found in puppetry. The comprehension of a puppet as an actor capable to represent universally and at the same time as a counterpart or even an incarnation of a godling has been proclaimed still in the famous essay of H. von Kleist. The meaningfulness of puppetry as a missing link towards poetic conventionalities can be proved already with the very fact of special attention paid to it as the support for conventionalities’ formation1328. Another essential puppetry’s property is its attachment to comedy1329. And still one peculiarity consists in its infantile directedness1330. Thus one can say of at least three factors of conventionality – comedy – infantilism united in the phenomenon of puppetry. Besides, one could add the representation of those things as the markers & folders of word that have already been demonstrated in the descriptive lyrics. All it together makes puppetry an outspoken counterpart to prose with its seriousness. It is through puppet that instrumental and verbal mediums, transformation and information display their inherent connection. Puppetry represents a paradoxical case of childish fatalism (as the way of conceiving initiation’s preparation). Kalidasa’s “Shakuntala” and its latest reflections (as that of A.S. Pushkin’s “Water-Mermaid”) can be regarded in this respect as puppet plays. The both heroes (King and Shakuntala) behave as puppets as they have no responsibility. One encounters the utterances of characters that betray the acknowledgement of the fatal inevitability so that the restoration of the total order of the universe is achieved without their participation (the metamorphosis in the mermaid has taken place besides the will of the character). It is also evident that the case exemplifies tragedy unusual for puppetry and at the same time endowed with the concealed bitter humor. This fabulous imagery condensed in puppetry where the tale is represented most vividly can be traced as the theatrical performable experience. It has already been observed that tale exists in reality being retold and transmitted as a scenic performance. This statement may be extended over all folklore that can be conceived as an improvised performance (as far as each speech act is also a performance). The question then remains only whether it goes about the prevalence of productive or reproductive ingredients in this creative activity. As to the childish world it is the moments of spontaneity that attract attention here first of all. The so called supernatural entities arising in fancy & fairy images and referring to folklore demonology are easily recognizable as the spiritual abilities that motivate characters’ deeds. The effect of deus ex machina is then to be conceived as the intrusion of unexplored inexplicable power of one’s soul’s depths. Namely the personified sins and inclinations that are to be recognized in the staged revelations are to be inferred from the hidden appeals of a subconscious level. Such interpretation gives grounds to regard such fairy tales as those appertaining to lyrics. If ballads have overt tendency to epics, it is paradoxical tales’ fancy that makes intermediary link to lyrical poem instead of epics. Miraculous & marvelous events & entities have thus to be explained through psyche and its unknown & unexpected, sudden turns of the flow of deeds. Therefore the task arises for the searches of psychoanalytical interpretation of the so called miracles (and the supernatural generally taken). The importance of fairy play consists in the return to the sources of drama as poetical genus. If a tale demonstrates the initial phase of dramatic play’s historical development (being retold as the interplay of dramatis personae’s cues with the narrated events) the terminal phase could be fond in the fancy story or play. Fairy tale is to be conceived as a lyrical drama inasmuch as it takes imaginary world as if it were genuine reality. The imaginary turned into the genuine within fictitious circumstances betrays also the historical background peculiar for some cases of feminine exhibitionistic behavior. It is within the scenery of exhibitionism that the lack of substantiation of the deeds is compensated with the spontaneity of conventions. This compensatory mission as the genuine feminine property is especially evident in the vogue of dress. Fairy world of imagination displays thus its mutuality with that of convention & exhibition. The lyrical traits are here to be found in conventionality replacing the usual dramatic arrivisme. Respectively arrivisme vs. exhibitionism can be regarded as the classifying features in the opposition of drama vs. fairy play. The exhibitionistic features are traceable in particular in the passages of the so called remplissage (and the special kinds of chatter that’s bavardage) where old improvised speeches were fixed up. As an example of poetical comprehension of childhood as the lyrical world of sincerity comparable to the genuine mysterious world of things one can be take R.M. Rilke’s verses.
The apparent attachment of child, thing, puppet (as a counterpart to mask) and the nocturnal liberty of imagination given here presupposes further elucidation. With the transition from infancy to childhood in the 7th year of life one’s language competence endures decisive transformations. A new person arises and therefore the new personal idiolect is coined. It becomes the necessary premise of initiation that the whole childhood deals with its immediate preparation1331. This extremely dangerous traumatic period of life varies very essentially in various cultures: for instance in Southern Indian tradition one finds one of the ultimate case for liberties1332. It is the permanent state of transition that marks the whole age. Respectively this age is conceived as the age of passage. It is due to such status that this age gives license to playfulness in some cultures1333. It is interesting in this respect that here one finds just the opposite sample for the preceding sample1334. Then the origin of the perverse forms of ritual laughter can be correlated with the age status as its particular behavioral mask and mark – as. for instance, the lower status obliges to constant smile (or to short trousers in dress-code). The newcomer of personality must “translate” into his or her personal tongue the precedent experience, so he or she must respectively coin one’s own concomitant code as a subsystem of language. Obviously the instrumental environment remains primary as the existential condition of personality; meanwhile within the personal developmental map of events it occupies the secondary place as the preparatory circumstances for becoming adult. Of importance is that in this age the concept of constancy appears and therefore the opportunities to deal with counting and other numerical procedures come into play1335. Assimilation and adoption as the leading features of infantile strategy of linguistic behavior is resonant with the known statements of J. Piaget where it is assimilation that becomes the fundament of any habit1336. The initial condition for the ability of semantic transition is the formation of categories and respectively of the division of world. Meanwhile it is only after the 7th tear of age that such ability appears1337 though the first steps towards mastering it began in the first months of life1338. Moreover the first adopted verbal patterns are inseparable from the integral somatic images of a child’s movements1339. It entails the well known phenomenon of childish scansion that paradoxically converges with the scenic manner of pronunciation. Subsequently the effects of homonymy lie beyond the susceptibility of an infant. That is why an infant can associate the same sound complex with different things1340. Alice’s question to the Mock Turtle “why you call him Tortoise” is retorted with the answer: “We call him Tortoise because he taught us”, said the Mock Turtle angrily. “Really you are very dull”. Therefore the inner rhyme (tortoise and taught us) is supposed already to be sufficient for the motivation of a sign’s meaning. The Duchess’ explanation of the origin of mustard is founded upon the homonymy of the word mine: “There’s the large mustard – mine near here. And the moral of that is – “the more there is of mine, the less there is of yours”. In L. Carrol’s “The Hunting of the Snark” there appears the passenger who “was famed for the number of things / He forgot when he entered the ship”, and although the lost things were of no importance because “He had seven coats on when he came” still “the worst of it was, / He had fully forgotten his name”. It is the proper name that becomes here the primary source of wisdom. One can say that just in childhood the first premises for poetry (together with one’s personal idiolect) as such come to being. The personal concomitant code deals with images instead of lexical direct meanings that come into oblivion within one’s consciousness’ scenery – be here G.E. Lessing’s statement reminded. This concomitant epiphenomenon isn’t to be regarded as a metasystem while it deals with visible and palpable individual images instead of abstract descriptors. It is idioms that are coined here. The preparatory state of childhood correlates overtly with the poetics of caprices and scherzo. It is the realm of the humorous and the gracious that the childhood comprises. It is here that the intuition of lateral thinking is developed. The Dadaistic attempts to reduce poetic speech to childish efforts were just an exaggerated confirmation of the renown simile “child - poet”, so the paradoxical statement on infantile sources of poetry is not too extravagant1341. Of a more importance seems to become the mutuality between infantile and scenic speech. One could remind the effects of scenic amnesia of words in favor of deeds (that are to be described as if autonomously) that obviously resembles the formation of childish idiolect. Actor’s behavior is in this respect analogous to the verbal searches of an infant trying to retell the events. In this comparison of childish behavior with scenic play it is still to warn against taking childish confabulations and imagination for ordinary deception. Child doesn’t know to lie or cheat; it always remains sincere, the lie being betrayed very easily with face getting red. It accounts for the phenomena of childish absurdity and the poetry of nonsense as the revelations of childish sincerity. It is still to add that the phonological experimentation at the brims of language betray fetishistic features where words and things intermingle reciprocally. Overtly onomatopoetic effects of adoption new words as reconsidered in attachment to the known sounds become the source for the development of symbolism. Meanwhile such Dadaistic practice is only an episode in much broader sphere of infantile mentality as the inherent property of poetry Childish speech bears traits of incantations and at the same time of “automatism”. Therefore of importance is that the common denominator appears to be the idolatry of puppetry as the most essential feature of infantile age. Puppet as an idol personifies the world of tale. It is the wondrous password that an infant expects with his sincere belief in tale and fabulous miracles. These peculiarities of infantile age account for the known simile between theatre and childish play1342. In its turn these infantile features of idolatry are still more developed in balladry as an essential source for dramatic poetry. Puppetry and balladry have essentially common that they represent the both sides of the fundamental dramatic opposition of fate vs. fortune. Puppet incarnates and personifies alienation as the common property of any action. Father Carlo’s “product” of Buratino becomes the leading character that liberates his own producer. It is well known that there is specific type of drama that is tightly connected to folklore – the so called proverbial drama or staged proverbs known especially due to the works of A. Musset and P. Merimé. There is still another point of interconnections between theatre and folklore – that of the mutual links between drama and ballad. More precisely, such mutuality affords conditions to generate some peculiarities in drama itself that make it nearer to epics. The problem of ballad as a source for theatre and a force of drama’s transformation gains significance especially with respect of the fact that there exists a mighty stream of the so called ballad prose (ballad novel) [Копистянська, 2005, 187 - 248]. Of a special importance this attachment to balladry has in Ukraine where one of the first examples (“Natalia from Poltava” by I. Kotliarevsky) has been conceived as a shepherd play, “The Stolen Happiness” by I.Franko demonstrates a typical ballad situation of rivalry, “The Snowy Storm” (already discussed) by S. Cherkasenko exemplifies a feminine victim sacrificed in vain attempt of reconciling the foes. One can trace certain tracks of ballad model within the narrative tissue of V. Woolf’s dialogic narrative. That “Waves” were conceived in a ballad manner is attested with the words of one of the characters, Bernhard that can be regarded as the writer’s alter ego: «I pass from house to house like the friars in the middle ages who cozened the wives and girls with beads and ballads. I am a traveller, a pedlar, paying for my lodging with a ballad» [Woolf, 123]. In this respect it becomes a certain counterpart to R. Wagner’s “The Flying Dutchman” (especially to Senta’s ballad where the whole opera’s events are summarized). There are to be mentioned first of all manners of the presentation of the narrative stuff, namely that of alternative utterances of the personalities participating within the action, creating thus a predisposal for developing a typical ballad - like structure. Such a prerequisite to reproduce ballad verve reveals its opportunities in the plot of the work that is to be conceived as a kind of confronted confessions or reports of the events of own life. Besides, there are to be shown also apparent parallels and differences between the two cases of suicide – those of R. Wagner’s Senta and of V. Woolf’s Rhoda as feminine outsiders. Both belong to ballad motifs of the examination of truth in love. In the “Waves” such a conjecture is substantiated with special relations between Rhoda and the absent dramatis persona Percival (whose very name and fate of a stranger and wanderer similar to that of the Dutchman betrays hints to R. Wagner’s legacy) that are witnessed namely with the flowers picked and offered by her for his grave after him being perished. As to special ballad aquatic motifs they are to be compared with Percival’s death resulting from his fall from the horse as a counterpart to the wreck, horse being treated as an aquatic being. Another evident mutual motif is attached to the presence of water boundaries separating dramatis personae. To compare here are to be mentioned the lines from “The Water of Tyne” (“The waters of Tyne stand between him and me”). As another sample may serve the perception of water through ears as in the lines “I sing my song … like an old shell murmuring on the beach” (V. Woolf) and “songs of the birds and the sounds of the waves are heard by the wreck” (in the ballad “Wreck of the Julia Dear”). One can discern such derivative images as drops, bubbles, tide (relating to the concept of time as in a proverbial expression), tear (as a kind of an aquatic substance), waterfall (as a designation of a precipice), shade, darkness, sunset that serve to create a special poetical language bearing evident connections to ballad imagery that are outspokenly confessed by the authoress herself (8-th episode). These samples give grounds to acknowledge the essential contribution of fabulous balladic elements in theatrical development. The so called epic theatre by B. Brecht’s was developing as a remake of the old ballad opera (and German ‘Singspiel’ respectively). Meanwhile the role of ballad discourse is much more important for the revelations of the cognate tendencies in theatre – in particular in the appearance of fairy tales and interplay of opera and oratorio. Not to mention the well known samples of the use of ballad plots and compositional schemes in Slavonic cultures (J.Slowacki’s “Balladyna”, L.Staff’s “Godiwa” in Polish, A.S. Pushkin’s and A.S. Dargomyzski’s “Rusalka (The Fairy Mermaid of a River)” and A. A.Block’s “Rose and Cross” in Russian) it is worth indicating numerous attempts to deal with the stage interpretation of ballad in music theatre. Such an epoch-making oeuvre as W.Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” has had old Spanish ballad as its foundation. One can refer to the comparison of the folk versions of the German ballad “Bernauerin” with Fr. Hebbel’s drama and K.Orff’s opera. Therefore it is quite naturally that aphoristic summaries of a proverbial type in B.Brecht’s songs in “Caucasian Chalk Circle” that has a plot of Solomon’s judgment as its foundation become the source for the disclosure of the conflict making and protest oriented core of ballad plots. The notion of epic theatre is associated with the innovations introduced by B. Brecht, especially with the so called songs that have to play a role of narrative similar to those performed by the so called witness (“testo”) in ancient oratorios and mysteries. Such songs betray in essence their ballad origin and thus enable the treatment of them as the continuation of old tradition of “ballad opera” witnessed in particular with B. Brecht’s remake of “The Beggar’s Opera” (as the “Three Pence Opera”). To a certain degree epic theatre overlaps the so called theatre of representation though does not fully coincide with its scope1343. There arises the particular communicative situation where the case of oratorio with its witness enters the borders of drama: respectively a drama’s author participates now in action as the bearer of commentaries1344. It is also to stress that from the prerequisites of this trend the consequences of what could be called “sociological fatalism” ensue that would coincide with the theory of the naturalistic sources of epics. It was just the mask of witness that served for Brecht as a paragon for epic discourse in theatre, and as a pattern for such a play he cited an example of a discussion of a road incident1345. Such an approach to epics explains the role of the category of provocative in Brecht’s aesthetics1346 (that concerns also the so called “political theatre” of Erwin Piscator), so that the presence of epic distance would arise as a kind of a so to say “provocative testimony” documented by the dramatis personae. Such a “testimony”, in its turn, entails irony and grotesque as the chief means for creating epic elements of drama. First of all, it goes about distance that arises when one becomes aware that the flow of events in drama turns out to become void of serious consequences. As an example may serve Eric Bentley who detects the presence of an ancient type of ironical person in such a work of B. Brecht as “Caucasian Chalk Circle”- a typical parable to a known plot of Solomon’s judgment1347. This allegory doesn’t contradict to naturalism as the constant background because the sense of parable is interpreted as the substitution for the actual events1348. Parables that B. Brecht uses in his plays according to his intention bring forth also grotesque as a means of the presentation of reality1349. The same is observable in ballad that also introduces irony with absurdity, for example, through hyperbolic presentation of events. These devices are to be found still in Fr. Villon’s poetry, in using locutions that lies in the field of the so called impossibilia.1350 In a similar manner such locutions are used by G. de Machaut who adapts incredible exaggerations that arouse the impression of purely rhetoric means, that can’t be taken seriously1351. Both in ballad and in drama absurdity (as well as irony and grotesque) destroys the principal feature of dramatics in the sense that the inevitability of the succession of deeds disappears and so the concomitant dramatic risk of these deeds does. Although such a transformation resembles a return of drama from a pure play to premeditated ritual it goes in reality about its approach to epics and not a recurrent development, because the necessity of the reconstruction of hidden sense becomes here obvious, and it is just the narrative presupposition of dramatic events that prevails in such an imaginary reconstruction. In particular mysteries and carnivals that have won their revival in the XX-th century do promote epics and not ritual. In this respect one can refer to the missing link between the Wagnerian tradition of musical drama and that of “epic theatre” that is personified with the work of B. Shaw as the “perfect Wagnerian” and at at the same time the promoter of social criticism (in spite of all weakness of this criticism being void of perspective). The collocation “epic theatre” is known to be a notion concocted by B.Brecht. Meanwhile it presupposes and really bears a much wider field of collocations. In reality thee very origin of realistic drama as the result of the removal of earlier dualistic division into tragedy and comedy is indebted to epic influence. The immediate introduction of epic elements into dramatic space is usually achieved with the appearance of narrative text in ancient dramas (the party of chorus) or in oratorio (the so called witness or testo). The same case takes place in puppet theatre, for instance, in Pocci’s plays where Kasperl informs audience about the events. It was not only B. Brecht either who used ballad devices as a source for inspiration and transformation of drama on the way of getting more tight connections to epics. One should mention first of all expressionistic movement and especially the operas of A. Berg – “Wozzeck” and “Lulu”, written on the works of G. Büchner and F. Wedekind respectively. It goes by far not only about the plots that were used in the operas. Idioms that are peculiar for ballad play even more important role enabling both retardation of action and meditative replicas that approach those of epic narrative. For example in “Wozzeck” the fatal utterance of Mary about knife that is a typical locution of “cruel romances” becomes the key concept of a work and predicts its final conclusion. Wozzeck’s meditative air “Wir arme Leut” (‘We are poor people’) resembles ballad protest-songs’ phraseology. It is significant also that the jester from Büchner’s drama is absent in opera. It is worth mentioning also that ballad discourse is richly represented in Büchner’s dramas through immediate quotations, as in “Wozzeck” in the song of Käthe where the ballad “Auf dieser Welt hab’ ich kein Freund” is quoted [Тараканов, 1976, 98]. It is indicative that in these lines blood is mentioned as the witness of murder that belongs to the genre’s standard locutions1352. In “Lulu” still more the utterances of cruel romance prevail. For instance, the utterances of the chief person are abundantly imbued with the phraseology typical for formulae of the departure and seclusion of lovers («Wir werden uns nirgend treffen!» (‘we’ll never meet again’) [Тараканов, 1976, 298]. Another utterance of Lulu resembles a widespread riddle: «Ich habe nie in der Welt etwas anderes scheinen wollen als wofür man mich genommen hat, und man hat mich nie in der Welt für etwas anderes genommen was ich bin» (‘I have not been in the world ever something other than one imagined me and one has not me something other imagined than I was’) [Тараканов, 1976, 317]. Moreover, F. Wedekind’s own songs sometimes create the background for Berg’s invention (as in the musical insertion after the scene of Dr. Schön’s murder). In F. Schreker’s opera “The Blacksmith of Gent” where one of the Flemish legends of Ch. de Coster is employed the epic retardation of action is evoked due to those elements of folk theatre that were transferred into ballad1353. It is just the grotesque that unites this manner of expression with ballad where the portrayal of a hero also is marked with the juxtaposition of contrast features and a kind of “hyperrealism”. In the same series of works it is worth mentioning “Die Bernauerin” by K. Orff to F. Hebbel’s drama written on the background of well known ballads. Here epic retardations and meditations are achieved through devices of music, especially due to commenting parts. Instead of narrative in epic prose here the commentary becomes the chief vehicle of epic verve. In the place of broad descriptions of the flow events that the dramatis personae present in F. Hebbel’s play the opera delivers devices of commentaries that have an outlook of an amplification of folk text. They get importance the more as the narrative element in a dramatic tissue. All these examples give grounds to the statement that the very approach of drama towards epics as the sequel of the assimilation of ballad discourse (and not of a similarly more natural way of staging or screening a novel itself) includes a paradox that entails at least two questions – or, better to say, a bilateral question. From one side, it is necessary to decide what qualities of an assimilated ballad make drama so to say “more epic” and what properties of ballad itself make it capable to serve as a substitute for a novel and to provide conditions for the penetration of narrative in drama instead of staging / screening a respective novel. In other words it means the necessity to explain why the oblique way of choosing ballad appears to be more preferable than the direct way of staging / screening prosaic works. It is interesting here to admit that B. Brecht himself often regarded his own works as dramas not for play but for the reading (Lesedrama) and used to recommend reread it after a performance1354. From the other side, it is necessary to find out those features of epics that turn out to become the consequence of such an assimilation of ballad (as well as, more widely, of folklore) stuff in drama. One has to trace those epic peculiarities that drama acquires as a result of its connections to folklore. In the first place they include the means of irony and grotesque, of absurdity and juxtaposition that produce incredibility of action and thus estrange action and generate epic distance, as well as the devices of commentary that substitute prosaic narratives. One ought at the same time to take a reservation that it was not only ballad that richly penetrated the theatre in the XX - th century. One dealt with a wide folklore impact that had such branches as tale and the mentioned proverbial drama. For instance, the works of M. Maeterlinck and E. Verhaeren demonstrate even the greater role of a tale as folklore source of theatre, let it be said about K. Gozzi’s “fiabas” (scenic fairy tales). Nevertheless it was ballad that had played an eminent historical role in the development of drama. One has reasons to say that ballad represents for drama folklore stuff in its generalized outlook. Such a generalized representation (or, better to say, image of ballad) gives grounds to widen our “bilateral” problem and to subsume it under universal categories. At the first place one should take into consideration that the relation “drama - ballad” ought to be regarded as a particular case of more general dualistic model “literature - folklore”. Folklore as a counterpart to literature bears epic verve and imparts it to drama which in its turn approaches epic narrative while acquiring folklore stuff. The question thus arises as to the forms of such a narrative in drama. In its turn the relation “drama - epics” is to be correlated with the question on the place of ballad itself within the folklore generology (that is the research of genres). In particular it concerns the relation “ballad – tale”. It would be here appropriate to remind the already mentioned L. Yu. Britsyna’s observations that tale could be regarded as a one actor drama in its actual existence, reproduction and performance [Бріцина, 2006]. The same concerns ballad as far as epic prose of tales exists within folklore as a kind of staged texts, and so does epic poetry of ballads too. Such mutuality and reciprocity of ballad and tale must be supplemented from another side with principal difference between the two genres. As it was already shown by E. Meletinski, if tale presupposes recurrent events and can be reiterated many times for the same audience it is perfectly different case when ballad (as well as novel) is concerned: here novelty and anomalous outstanding phenomena are demanded. Both tale and ballad lie most nearly to drama because they presuppose staging texts for their reproduction. Meanwhile ballad has still one mutual element with drama that lacks for tale: that is novelty and, to quote Eric Bentley again «not imitating but exaggerating nature of dramatic art» [Бентли, 2004, 197] or, in other words, the extremities that unite drama and ballad. Then ritual can be said to occupy the remotest place from them being the origin of dramatic play and at the same time their opposite. The very formation of space for play in drama becomes possible when the overt conflicts and ensuing risks arise that were precluded in the realm of rites. In this respect ballad in its relation to drama may be regarded as a kind of vehicles for penetration of epic element – in full accordance with B. Brecht’s views. Ballad personality in contrast to a tale’s hero does not only abuse an interdiction. The hero of ballad radically opposes the whole order and thus introduces conflict and protest. Deeds of defiance and arrogance get in ballad a much bigger specific weight. Game with risk replaces ritual. The hero challenges the order as a жүктеу/скачать 6.92 Mb. Достарыңызбен бөлісу:
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