Національна Академія Мистецтв України Інститут культурології

From here one can see the principal difference of dramatic action from ritual and melodramatic one. The structure of action always entails the problem of motivation and of the character that does it perform. We have seen in particular that dramatic action always implies the inner action that’s the latent mental experiment as the decision-making process. Inner action is perhaps one of the most observable distinctive features of drama. Soliloquy becomes then its external revelation invented in post - Renaissance epoch. It is due to inner action that the implicit contents become comprehensible that has been widely used by H. Ibsen⁷⁶⁴ and entailed the whole reformation of plot’s evolvement: in particular as far as the so called intrigue becomes now represented as the surface of genuine latent implicit action the real tension of drama only begins after the formal intrigue’s exhaustion⁷⁶⁵. As the result one can say of exogenous vs. endogenous approaches to composition so that here the outer “shell” of plot conceals the genuine core of dramatic inner action. These approaches were developed in the contemporary dramatic works where either outer circumstances compel dramatic personas to play counter themselves or their own initiatives do so bringing them to self-destruction⁷⁶⁶. It is to ass that such divergence of inner and outer takes place within the explicit plot, therefore the situation will become much more complicated when the implicit contents is taken into account. Thus the situation of “spiritual duplicity” (the term of Ya. Mamontov applied to the works of I. Karpenko – Kary [Малютіна, 2010, 17]) takes place that reveals the essence of dramatic discourse as such. This duplicity comes back to the old concept of psychodrama as inner psychological contest with one’s own self (). The invention of soliloquy has only given new devices for its representation.

One of the brightest examples of such latent contest in human soul is the passion of love where the vicissitudes of such contest have been artistically explored⁷⁶⁷. Behind this passion the existential problems come in erotic shape so that the playground for artistic experiments has appeared. As the consequence the new opportunity for psychodrama have been discovered and explored so that human mentality has become the genuine stage of dramatic action whereas the external circumstances of plot have turned into its surface⁷⁶⁸. This sample proves the fact that it is not conflict & contest as such that do determine the dramatic quality: there must be deeper processes behind them that flow in human souls. It is not struggle neither competition in their naked forms that make up the dramatic contents: they are determined with the motivation standing behind. For example neither sport nor scientific dispute build up dramatic contents⁷⁶⁹: it will appear when existential motivational reasons are involved.

Further revelations of psychodrama are to be found in the transformation and reevaluation of the very attendance as the state of active inner work, in particular, of expectation that has become also one of the pillars of “modern drama”. Any activity remains seemingly absent; meanwhile the intensive motivational work is then being carried out. It goes abut the optional problems that are to be solved during the act of expectation entailing the changes of the very characters and their attitudes⁷⁷⁰. One can say of virtual work that is done within psychodrama’s contests. In this respect there arises difference between the passages of epic retardations & dramatic expectations. In drama these passages by no means deviate from the principal action, vice versa they do intensify it. In particular it concerns the motif of patience with its ambiguous implications of spiritual strength and endurance at one side and of humility and obedience on the other⁷⁷¹. Moreover the very effect of retardation plays in dramatic text a perfectly different role than that in epics: in particular the portraying of the characters stirs the audience’s expectations⁷⁷². This motif arises in A. P. Chekhov’s works as the inversion of the concept of destructive almighty temporality and becomes comparable to the motif of salvation⁷⁷³. It is not accidentally that one sees “feminine” qualities in such motif as it conceals and spares the inner clandestine contents and provides the ripening as in the state of pregnancy.

One can add that the very effect of attendance necessary for the evolvement of an observer’s interpretative activity can be represented with the very motifs of expectation and patience. Besides, it is stills to stress the consequence concerning the peculiarity of dramatic temporality: as far as expectation becomes the indispensable dramatic element one must acknowledge the correctness of Jean – Paul’s statement who ascribed to drama the attitude towards the future in opposite to epics directed towards the past (the presence belongs to lyrics, according to him)⁷⁷⁴. There exists a very widespread opinion of dramatic actuality that upholds the idea of the prevalence of the present time in drama, the reasons being the necessity of attendance of actually lasting performance. Meanwhile the objection here consists in the fact that this attendance has its sense only as the state of expectation turned towards the future: when there’s nothing to expect the drama will be terminated so there will be no future! One can say there’s no drama without the future. Dramatic actuality means in fact simultaneity, and it is the simultaneity that has been stressed in old rhetoric instructions⁷⁷⁵. Therefore one can say of dramatic actualism as the generic quality that reveals the anticipation & expectation of the dramatic action as the process taking place in actual moment.

Thus a mere pastime (as attendance and expectation) within the dramatic playground becomes filled with the contents of inner action. Such paradoxical patience as action betrays the existence some latent quality that belongs to the virtual world. Therefore it is not bare deeds as such that have meaning for a dramatic work: they are only external exogenous “tracks” of something deeper that must be disclosed and explained⁷⁷⁶. In particular it is the dramatis persona’s character that is revealed in the deed and becomes vestige to be discussed for the decision-making. All deeds are in particular connected with their reciprocal motivation and can be evaluated only with regard to textual motivational net. Then all degrees of inner action from soliloquy of psychodrama till mere attendance and patience are to be conceived as the performance of the dramatic motivational work undertaken in a mere pastime that gives the substantiation of events. There is existential puzzle behind the surface of the deeds that is to be detected and solved. Dramatic genuine reality is this motivational work of inner action dealing with phantoms of virtual world. Even one’s own deeds appear to become deceptive be they taken only as bare facts without particular consideration, so that one must still to disclose their place within the motivational filament of the whole and to decide as to their meaningfulness. It is to encounter with unexpected consequences and the independent results of the deeds that would astonish the doer⁷⁷⁷. Thus one must still realize and comprehend the genuine meaning of one’s own decision not to say of their distant consequences (Oedipus being here the brightest example).

The core of the dramatic is then latent inner action of psychodrama where the textual motivation is disclosed. Externally attested vestiges of disparate cues of direct speeches build the surface of these concealed phantoms of inner actions that build up the essence of drama. One has still to trace the tracks that are observable to detect this dramatic essence. It is the psychodrama of inner action that is to be disclosed behind the surface of external actions. To continue the mentioned feminine images one can say of “pregnancy” as dramatic textual quality (in parallel to the term of the psychology of Gestalt where one says of pregnant shape). Such latent feminine pregnant inner action deals with the virtual playground where the “possible worlds” of drama are exposed to artistic exploration. There arises in this playground the phantom as embryo of opportunities to be explored in mental experiment⁷⁷⁸.

The virtual heart of dramatic contents brings forth the mentioned quality of dramatic extremism as far as the textual existential conditions are concerned. The initial prerequisites of extremism are to be seen in the deviational nature of drama in comparison to epics (to begin with the restrictions of direct speech’s quotations in replicas with the ensuing informational deficit making the attendance of inte4rpretative observer necessary and communicative paradox of dialogues’ partners who address one to another but actually appeal to the observer). Meanwhile deviation as such isn’t still the force that makes dramatic action come to limits. Deviation is not to be a mere madness or a caprice of folly: it is the heroic exploit in its widest meaning⁷⁷⁹. There are heroes and not mere characters in drama, and they commit exploits and not simple deeds. Obviously one must discern heroic sacrifice from ritual victim. As the central element of magic action a victim doesn’t entail existential risk being only a symbolic commerce (as in the Latin proverb do ut des). In contrast to it a heroic action and sacrifice is void of any expectation of benefits and is performed for its own sake as in a game.

The dramatic and the heroic are thus inseparable as is the case in heroic epics too. The difference is that dramatic discourse encounters textual existential problem. The priority of action and its motivation implies the risk of what can be called “textual suicide”. Dramatic text is put on the brim of self-destruction, and it determines its extremism. The already discussed dramatic hazardous qualities (in particular with disparate juxtaposition of cues) entail the priority of motivational filament so that one can’t manage without special motivational interpretation. Heroic exploits are in epics contemplated with distance whereas the dramatic demands all attendant persons to take participation in action so that the passion of sympathy must arise from the effect of attendance⁷⁸⁰. Epics and the dramatic then can be confronted as contemplation vs. action as well as distance vs. participation that acquire different dimensions in different generic species. A mere attendance and pastime in drama presupposes the involvement and participation in action (due to the discussed role of inner action), and it entails existential consequences. The absence of distance (in opposite to epics) entails the anisotropy of dramatic space (inevitability and irrevocability of action), therefore the faults of heroes bring about the necessity of terminating dramatic work (that’s the solution of conflict). The dramatic takes the exclusive even under the mask of routine and finds the heroic even in its slightest outlines. In opposite to heroic epics where exploits are represented with distance it is here the effect of personal participation that results in the priority of volitional action. Therefore the crucial points of action are selected in dramatic text to be examined in personal deeds. Drama as a whole is ultimately the declaration of intentions. All its utterances come finally to the inferences concerning imperative for action. Drama puts the task of disclosing the way to such imperative that represents its conflict in difference to the collision of plot⁷⁸¹. As far as dramatic hero exposes under examination the existent state of affairs it is the existence of dramatic play that becomes exposed to jeopardy. Finally it is the dramatic personality that decides on the existence of play.

Thus dramatic inner action in virtual space with its extremism and motivational priority determine the decisive role of heroic personalities as the ultimate source of textual structure (in difference to the balance of plot and characters in epics). Dramatic extremism results in the priority of personality so that the role of character becomes in drama more important than plot. It is personal intention that determines the evolvement of dramatic events and precedes the evolving plot⁷⁸². It is neither portrayal nor biography in the manner of epics. Drama deals with the communion between personalities that are taken in their extreme revelations. The priority of personality in regard to plot becomes thus dramatic generic quality especially observable in the so called modern drama in particular in A.P. Chekhov’s works⁷⁸³. The last case is demonstrative also as to the paradoxical treatment of heroic qualities where just the features of strong character are absent and the opportunities for the extreme are at hand⁷⁸⁴. In this respect such personalities are to be confronted to the heroes of G. Hauptmann who exert maximal efforts in the manner of the mentioned “arrivisme” as well as to those of B. Shaw who are peculiar for their singularity⁷⁸⁵. Respectively the necessity of experimental extreme conditions for the disclosure of characters latent faculties arises.

This priority of intentions as the motivational ground of dramatic action revealing under extreme conditions is connected with three circumstances. First of them is that no dramatic hero can be situated in solitude. Intentions can be disclosed only through the relations with other personalities. In particular it is the communion between personalities that determines intentional revelations. Dramatic text represents just such communion as the interaction of personalities as the vehicles of intentions. Thus the dramatic is conceived as the exploration of societal communicative processes where the heroes’ exploits become possible, and it is these processes that determine the textual structure. The collisions and problems that a dramatic works deals with are represented as those of such communion so that the heroes undergo examination. Vice versa the heroes are dramatic heroes only inasmuch they participate in the communion, and they aren’t conceivable without the problems drama deals with⁷⁸⁶. The amorous triangle can exemplify it.

The second circumstance is that heroes never can be regarded as the something ready and constant. Therefore drama can in no way become biography or a pure portrayal. Of course the portrayal of characters belongs to indispensable elements of drama; nevertheless character cannot be even identified with the text of its role. There are often cases when the audience learns about the character from the words of other dramatis personae. The paradoxical motivational consequences of chain reaction arising between character and circumstances are often exemplified with the “Romeo and Juliet” scene at balcony⁷⁸⁷. It is therefore the developmental essence of characters that distinguish dramatic heroes: they endure deep changes during the communion and never remain the same in opposite to personified allegories or the co called emploies. Even the dramatis personae of a tale can’t be reduced to the vehicles of the functions of ritualistic origin⁷⁸⁸. At the same time the problem of personal identity of a hero arises so that the very developmental drift discloses its direction predestined with something that is to be found behind the “facial” side of a role. Personification and character have the mutuality in that they both take separate sides of reality: if the first represents the preexistent abstract notion (of passions in particular) the second is based upon the hyperbolic exaggeration of separate details. Therefore they both have occasion to be combined as it is the case in the so called “well dressed plays”⁷⁸⁹ and subsequently the fates of the both are tied so that they disappear simultaneously⁷⁹⁰. How and to what degree does the developing personality retain its identity, it becomes the problem ensuing from the developmental essence of dramatic hero.

The problem of personal identification comes to the third circumstance: it is not personal properties as such that determine the role but the tasks that it performs within the whole. In other words personal identification grows into dramatic integration. Each personality’s intentions and conduct betray some principles standing behind and therefore outer circumstances (in particular societal situation) determining them⁷⁹¹. Each deed is deeply enrooted in societal conditions and can’t be exhausted with the features of character or allegorical abstractions ascribed to a personality⁷⁹². Drama explores such roots and therefore personality represents problem. It doesn’t deal with separate persons in the manner of a portrait gallery or trace the development of their relations (in the manner of amorous triangles) in the exchange of cues. The difference from epics consists just in the detection of enigmatic and problematic essence of dramatis personae as puzzles⁷⁹³. Be hero a social type, so this type betrays the ideal, the “super-ego” standing behind. Thus old devices of personification are retained but it is problems and not ready abstractions that are personified. The exploration of social types represented in heroes is dramatically carried out as the latent contest of ideals that they stand for.

That a situation & scene (together with a role) becomes the chief structural unit of a drama can be proved with the extremely diverse dramatic compositions. Each scene marks a certain decision and respectively a step in action as the consequence of the interchange of utterances. It is this final decision that the dialogue serves to. Arguments and objections both in interrogative and imperative form are all submitted to the decision-making goals. Predicates with complements designate the motifs as the steps towards the decision implying thus a chain of deeds. One encounters within a segment of dramatic text various voices the words are attributed to. Meanwhile the permanency and continuity of a role as the result of identity of these voices that is still to be substantiated imply grounds for the affiliation of a series of utterances to a given role (in the manner of the mentioned cento where the authors of the mixed quotations are to be identified or of soliloquy where roles are personifications). To make a character recognizable one needs efforts in opposite to a scene that is given beforehand. Such functionalism of dramatic text entails the necessity to intensify its motivational filament and to make it recognizable with the words.

The fact that motivation gets priority in drama in comparison to epics has its substantiation in the eminent role of personal deeds and their motives. Actions in drama carried out with characters necessarily are divided into separate operations, and it is these operations that determine the division of dramatic text into units (scenes). Each operation corresponds to the transition from one state to another. Respectively only the immediate aims of such isolated operations can be seen while the “ruling passion” remains the puzzle to be solved. In drama this operational structure acquires bare outlook, and it makes its textual structure especially near to that of the algorithms of the whole narration. Lyrical poetry gives case study based on exemplifying samples depicted with details. Epic narrative presents meaningful events that are explored as the cases of historical and biographical flow. In opposite to such lyrical exempla or to epic cases drama deals with seemingly dismembered operations. Such operational sequence already presents a puzzle to guess the genuine intentions hidden under the visible aims. Actually one has always to deal with the perpetual coexistence of axial (principal) and lateral actions as in W. Shakespeare’s “Much Ado about Nothing” where the fates of Hero and Beatrice demonstrate such coexistence and concurrence of dramatic lines. This sample demonstrates also the distinction of axial vs. lateral from that of central vs. peripheral oppositions: if periphery always depends upon center lateral phenomena develop in spontaneity separated from the centralized system. Within dramatic entity it gives sporadic chain of operations resulting in the results unforeseen for doers (as in the case of Benedick and Beatrice where, as Benedick avows (5.4.91), “here’s our own hands against our hearts”). Thus it goes about operational vs. enigmatic contents peculiar for the comparison of drama and lyrics.

This peculiarity of dramatic text promotes further generalization concerning its plot and composition. To build a plot as a transition from one state to another attained with the means of respective operations one needs at least three persons among which the text must be distributed. Be a dialogue already given, the third person must be supposed. The substantiation of such necessity ensues already from the general prerequisites of conflictology and game theory (such as V.A. Lefebvre’s theory of reflexive regulation⁸⁰⁵). The very communicative interaction presupposes the “enterprises” of one of the partners made to exert impact upon the other’s decision-making⁸⁰⁶. Such “enterprises” can include also such forms of deceit as disguise, the formation of false targets or of the respective doctrines and expectations. Therefore the person as a partner of dialogue (whether as a sincere or a deceitful one) splits the representative mask out from the self and reveals at least a pair of roles, one for the self and another for the communication. Thus the virtual Third appears as a medium of communication⁸⁰⁷, and this medium can become a real one: once generated, the mask (role) begins its autonomous existence! It is why the necessity of a third partner can not be reduced to the plain scheme of arbiter that deals with a couple of a dialogue’s participants. This triangle is built as the consequence of the necessity of a medium or of a person mediating the dialogue between other participants of game (the mask of tertium gaudens or the object of tertium comparationis being only special subspecies of medium). Textual parts are then to be distributed among these three members (“voices”) of such triangular simplex. Personified roles acquire their meaning as the participants of such triangular game, so that their characters reveal themselves within this framework of the game. Here one ought to bear in mind that generally any play can’t be conducted in solitude: in opposite to labor it needs at least an imagined partnership and the respective act of communication involving the Third. The process of play presupposes risk and hazard (the last being the consequence of its autonomous motivation), as well as crucial and critical points of its run.

Each plot attests already with its existence textual perturbation that ensues from a conflict. This textual quality that reveals itself in increasing heterogeneity opposes to “speech about nothing” (commonplaces and rarities concerning routine or “normal” flow of deeds and words) where no conflicts & problems are to be suspected as in tirades and various forms of pleonastic speech. Being a mere abuse of prohibition (taboo) in its simplest form this textual perturbation as the principal element of each plot can coincide with the acceleration of action in opposite to retardation in routine episodes. Of course the very essence of perturbation presupposes the existence of the object that remains disturbed. Besides, one has to take into account the very construction of plot where necessarily the game within the “triangle” of the partners comes into play. To build a plot one needs at least three partners of action, those of protagonist, antagonist and arbiter (or magic assistant in fairy tales).

It is imperative that enables the comparison of drama to the command of program (algorithm). Prescriptions for actions and operations, the choice of strategy and tactics become the tangent points between the newest operations’ research (operational analysis), game theory or the decision making theory and traditional drama. It is choice between alternatives in decision-making procedures that becomes here the key moment. In its turn it presupposes that both dramatic text and game procedure can be represented as a system of alternatives to deal with. In particular due to the decisive role of the choice between alternatives the problem of the textual location (personification) in drama has little to do with the division (partition) of games’ participants’ roles: it is the equilibrium of textual tissue that determines the distribution of the whole between the roles of these participants of dramatic action. The comparability of a program and of a dramatic text (in its relation to an epic narrative) will become especially evident when the well known Critical Path Method (known also in translation as the Network Scheduling) is taken into consideration. Together with the games and operations’ theories one should mention the catastrophes’ theory (as the predecessor of general synergetic theory), the catastrophes as such being the most essential element of dramatic text.

Be catastrophes (triumphs being their inversed case) the key medium of any drama, they enable generalizing dramatic schemes so that one can apply the respective notions to non-verbal works (especially in music). At the same time they necessarily leave verbal vestiges. The peculiarity of dramatic text is the obligatory existence of the turning points (Germ. Wendepunkt) designated with the locutions that could be called passwords. The necessity of the moments of crisis and their verbal designation can be also one of the causes for the prevalence of hyperbole in drama (as the peculiar case of synecdoche) that’s of “demonstrative hyperbolism” [Хализев, 1986, 115] as a known dramatic property. In its essence drama has to deal with the singular points of existence, with the extreme and the ultimate. As far as the expression, the revelation and explanation of a passion makes it weaken and extinguishes it, drama has to pay special attention to extravagant, eccentric, extraordinary behavior. Here one encounters the phenomenon of a particular scenic exhibitionism. The phantom of action must not only exist as something supposed to be, it must be exhibited even with its vestiges. Such vestiges can be attested first of all with the critical points of action. As the result one can suggest to qualify dramatic play with the terms of actualism & exhibitionism that represent not only attachment to the actual present moment but also the extreme & exclusive revelations of the staged “chunk of life”.

Therefore drama also necessarily must acquire gradual evolvement otherwise crisis would be reduced to the effect of deus ex machina. This necessity of gradualness correlates with the textual fractioning. Drama being divided into separate scenes, each scene allows still further fractioning so that the limit may be found perhaps in an interchange of a pair of remarks. Such a fractioning doesn’t concern dialogues only: in Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” monologue one discerns quite clearly at least five sections: after the initial question follows the comparison of death and dream (“To die, - to sleep …”), then emerges the objection (“… ay, there’s the rub: …”) that becomes developed in an anaphoric pair of rhetoric questions (“For who would bear …”), and at last the conclusion is formulated (“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all …”). This famous specimen of rhetoric sermon based on the figure of refutation proves the fundamental meaning of the pair “affirmation - negation” for dramatic text, both monologue and dialogue. Such discrete exposition is proper to homophony and not to polyphony in music. The pairs of utterances of the kind are also outspokenly different to catechism as they are in drama subdued to a general perspective. As an example let the dialogue between prince Metternich and Gentz from E. Rostand’s “L’aiglon” (1.3) be cited. The prince accuses the last of being bribed; meanwhile the words are too innocent to suspect anything of the kind without being instructed in the preceding events: “M.: Mais purquoi cet argent? G.: Pour faire la débauche. M.: Et vous passez pour mon bas droit! G.: Votre main gauche / Doit ignorer que votre droite reçoit”. The catechetic structure discloses its meaning only within the referential net connecting it with action.

In this respect it would become very seductive to identify dialogue and counterpoint in music. Meanwhile such a similarity would turn out a delusion. The counterpoint is marked with homogeneity and monotony proper to epics, at the same time homogeneous features of a dramatic dialogue are subdued to final purposes absent in the counterpoint that can be continued infinitely long. Vice versa all the discussions taking place in a scene have outspoken goals marked with synchronous cadences and conclusions. Each dramatic text is divided into small steps, and the question arises as to the smallest scope of such steps whereas counterpoint with its permanent flow leaves no places for such subdivisions. It is here perhaps that one can see reasons for the formation of musical homophony in operatic stage. These observations allow supporting critics against the known M. Bakhtin’s ideas about the concocted “polyphonic” novels whereas it must go only about dramatic influences on epics⁸⁰⁸. Meanwhile such conjecture has been refuted on the grounds of the structure of Dostoyevsky’s works that betray purely narrative nature⁸⁰⁹. The notional confusion of representing dialogue as counterpoint ensues from the fact that the term of counterpoint as it is used in music presupposes the outspoken homogeneity and even monotonous evolvement in opposite to textual heterogeneity that is meant here. It makes and overt contrast to conversational diversity as well as to its homogeneity arising from external task. Therefore instead of involving incorrectly used musicological terms it would become preferably to apply the dramatic terms referring to the textual turning points.

The scheme of critical points represents also the core of each regulatory scheme (program, algorithm). One can enumerate such points as adventure (unexpected turn, peripethy) vs. recognition, catastrophe (triumph) vs. pathos (catharsis), exposition & initiation of action vs. culmination & cadence (final). Be a catastrophe / triumph the previewed or unexpected result and central event of dramatic action as a whole, then each stage of the action’s development towards this point could be regarded as an imperfect catastrophe / triumph or as a crisis. The whole becomes then a series of such critical points⁸¹⁰. Since Aristotle’s “Poetics” it becomes obvious that there are two principal types of such turning points of crisis or bifurcation in drama determined as perturbation and recognition and that they are proper to narrative process as such⁸¹¹. It is essential that for the moment of perturbation (peripethy) the effect of disillusionment (abused expectations and disappointment) gets special importance⁸¹². In a way it goes about the contradiction between purpose and result so that it resembles “fate’s irony” according to A.A. Anikst [Аникст, 1967, 33]. As to the recognition () it consists in the disclosure of the unknown and the removal of ignorance so that an element of surprise is here present⁸¹³. It would be useful to add here that beside this element this moment has to be the examination that especially was stressed by the Latin grammarian Donat⁸¹⁴. Another form of opposition that intersects with this one is that of initiation / solution ( - ) described also by Aristotle (Poetics, § 18). All it enables the disclosure of dramatic origins in the interpretation of enigmatic texts as the mentioned types of critical moments are easily to correlate with those of puzzle – solution. Such approach is substantiated also with the fact that there are also additional divisions of the mentioned turning points. In particular one separated the so called growth of tension or intensification () that was defined as the initiation of dramatic action with its expectation by J. Dryden⁸¹⁵ and that originates in the Latin sources where also it had been identified with the node of errors as the source of dramatic conflict⁸¹⁶. The perturbation (peripethy) itself is then identified with the so called representation or appointment () defined so by J. Dryden⁸¹⁷. This unexpectedness gives ground to compare dramatic turning points to what is meant as focal points in the operations’ theory⁸¹⁸.

It is in critical moments that the necessity of the mentioned “indispensable scene” has its reason and origin. This scene is to be discerned from culmination though sometimes they can coincide⁸¹⁹. It is the ultimate contradiction between the expectations, intentions and real events, between deeds and results that builds up the framework of indispensable scene where the reevaluation of reality is given whereas culmination is the final examination of deeds. Therefore the indispensable scene is the preparatory step to of the culmination where the real consequences become disclosed⁸²⁰. The difference between the both is that of disappointment of expectations and of real results⁸²¹. In a way this difference can be compared to the similar phases of musical form, that of preliminary or preparatory culmination.

Such critical (catastrophic) moments or points of bifurcations of a plot are usually marked with the words that become also lexical “brands” of the dramatis personae. Such specific dramatic idioms correspond to what had been already depicted in old rhetoric tradition as the so called apices or “peaks” (acumen or concept in baroque tradition). It is essential that such moments were regarded often as the places of unexpectedness⁸²² provoking amazement (the affect of admiratio) similarly to the perturbation in drama. All these features unite texts of drama and those of judicial disputation or rhetorical sermon. In particular it is to stress the coincidence of perturbation (peripethy) in drama and confutation (the refutation of objections) in sermon. It was already in Aristotle’s Rhetoric (1414a.36) where the moment of persuasion had been opposed to exposition in the same way as the initiation of action in drama. Still clearer it is presented in Quintilian’s Rhetoric (3.9) where probation and confutation are mentioned as the chief moments of speech.

The folklore rite of solving riddles can be suggested as the possible source for common features of dramatic and rhetoric text applicable also for the judicial speeches. Cumulative compilation of details and gradational development of action in drama determine the destination of separate replicas as the procedure of riddles’ solutions. Enigmatic verve is respectively always inherent for replicas as the arguments in searches for imperative decision. Each cue is a somehow reticent utterance demanding previous knowledge to be understood and at the same time it serves as a degree in the mentioned cumulative process. Respectively the solution of riddles as the essence of the dialogue of a catechism becomes often the foundation for dramatic or dramatized texts especially in folklore songs with dialogues. Such are, in particular, the earliest records of the Ukrainian folk ballads («Дунаю, чему смутен течеш» (Danube, why doth thou flow so sadly) and «Кулина») that are built as the dialogues of a girl with her seducer or her rescuer. Respectively the final phrase of a dialogue bears the decisive meaning for the solution of preceding cumulative replicas as the formulae of reticence. Thus this phrase may normally become a summary of the whole scene similarly to a sonnet’s conclusive lines.

Such rhetorical roots of dramatic work can be traced also in other fields of knowledge. In particular the common sources for drama and sermon are to be found in the operations researches and catastrophes’ theory. In the same way as in drama one has to find here the critical points obviously resembling the mentioned dramatic catastrophe / triumph / pathos as well as exposition / conflict, culmination / cadence etc. Such resemblance is especially remarkable in comparison of dramatic remplissage (“conversations about nothing”) with the so called “dummies” or fictitious work in the schedules. These crises are not only centers (central moments as opposed to peripheral lateral ones) of a text or of a respective action and operations, they serve as the forces destroying instable equilibrium presupposed with textual regulation and thus initiates textual generative procedures. Meanwhile the Operations Researches’ approach (as well the mentioned related approaches) has the obvious deficiency of reducing dialogue to commerce and human relations to simplified “struggle for existence”. These reductionists’ and simplification’s sides make it inapt for the artistic purposes. In this respect the mentioned economical operational theories can be evaluated as the reduced and simplified derivative versions of playwrights’ creative activity.

The most essential here is that while dealing with alternatives one has to have the criterion for making the choice. For instance as far as judicial decision is concerned the existence of law (or habit) is presupposed first of all. As to a dramatic text the existence of a criterion must be somehow attested in the enunciations uttered by dramatis personae. In particular it goes about the detection of latent moral statement implied in the text. Thus general criteria are to be detected behind the surface of colloquial flow. In particular the exploration of drama with its complicating alternatives’ choice’s problems can become a more general pattern for respective analysis in lyrics. For such analysis each drama is a puzzle to be solved.

It is the existence of the playground of such criteria with its conventions and regulations that builds up the common base of drama and rhetoric sermon. Judicial preparation of decision and respective discussion make up the parallel to dramatic action. Due to such judicial similarities drama acts also as the art of criticism (to mean the primary contents of Greek  ‘court’), “Antigone” attesting these origins. It is why drama selects critical turning points of action and elaborates them at the bifurcations of textual tissue. This rhetoric features explain the reinforced functionalism of dramatic text that mark the dependencies of parts from the whole. Each drama demonstrates process that is very aptly called in French as “procés verbal” to designate judicial investigation presented with verbal testimonies and put under public discussion. Together with the criterion implied in drama for the evaluation of its critical points it is also to remind of the law to be performed that is to be compared to dramatic performance. Both judicial and dramatic phenomena presuppose the act of the performance (in particular of the interpreted law). Subsequently the inherent contradictions of the act of performance uniting reproduction of the pattern and the proper production of responsible deeds stand behind the dramatic and judicial similitude.

Dramatic utterances always criticize and deny each other so that dramatic text coincides with that of discussion and judicial procedure in particular. Crucial points and reciprocal critics determine the outlook of dramatic text thus enabling it to be discerned from the lyrical or the epic one. Drama can be said to be built of alternatives that exclude each other. One can say of the structure of “it-then-else” type that is of the branching (ramification) in algorithm so that drama denudes and discloses epic algorithms making them the target of reflection.

These alternatives must necessarily be somehow designated with words, even when they are paradoxically hidden. Such lexical witnesses are to be observed also in decadent dramas dealing with suicides where the causes of the cases are hidden but the words betray them. Even the preponderant avoidance of mentioning respective words in conversation (as in Ibsen’s or Chekhov’s works) itself serves as the symptomatic feature and the eloquent sign of the importance of the things betrayed with reticence. Such cases give evidences to the statement that elimination becomes one of the principal experimental devices both in the generation and in the exploration of text. One can cite such case of the avoidance of key-words where the selfishness of character is demonstrated in the scene from A.P. Chekhov’s “The Gull” (“Chaika”, 3) interpreted already by K.S. Stanislavski: < Chekhov: «Тригорин: (…) Мною овладели сладкие, дивные мечты … Отпусти … Аркадина (дрожа): (100) Нет, нет … Я обыкновенная женщина, со мной нельзя говорить так …» Stanislavski: «(99) В экстазе (100) Такого лица Аркадина еще не видала у Тригорина. Она испугалась его …»> [Станиславский, 1981, 124 - 125].

In drama the load of what is meant and implied in action always appears as the determining force. Respectively the questions arise as to what things are meant with the words mentioned. One can say the motifs taken in lyrics absolutely become treated relatively in drama. The principal distinction of dramatic interpretation and representation of motif consists in the necessity to show what the words refer to. In dramatic text one deals with attributes of a known (though implied) object of action. In lyrics such implied object is still to be guessed. Thus it is the difference of the ways of textual integration that determines generic distinctions. Respectively drama is integrated round the axis of action supposed to be known. In lyrics such axis remains invisible and unknown. Subsequently one can say of absolute sense purified and refined in lyrical reflection. Lyric (as well as comedy) tends to epigrammatic conciseness. From this it is to be concluded that to extract proverbial summaries from drama, to compress dramatic text one has to make drama approach lyrics. In other words it is the lyrical reflection of a drama that builds up the background of summarizing its text. Lyrical reflection and respective textual transformation becomes than a mediating device in the transition between drama and epic narration. To continue the statement of drama as mediated lyrics (A. Holz) one can say of lyric itself as the mediating medium between dramatic action and its epic proverbial summary.

Drama bears an outlook of a digest of an epic text. It concerns most obviously the register of dramatis personae (especially given together with their short descriptions as in Beaumarchais’ works). Still more important is the disclosure of the functional destinations of separate scenes. This overt functionalism of drama is founded upon the inevitability and irretrievability of events and as the result the divisibility (or separability, to use topological term) of dramatic text. This divisibility can be confronted with the compactness of lyrical tissue where the compression of enunciations ensues from its generic essence. This criterion of divisibility can be traced in the peculiarities of the functions of episodic vs. periodic structures. This peculiarity of dramatic text has attracted attention already as early as in the epoch of Enlightenment. In the modern meaning episode was conceived as fully opposite to its ancient sense when it had been regarded as the place for the development of action within the place of transition where the dialogue with verbal struggle of characters took place (in opposite to the so called stasim where the results where summed up). For H. Home, for instance, episode is an estranged textual segment incapable to serve either for acceleration or retardation of principal action similarly to lyrical digressions⁸²³. Moreover episodes are recommended to be omitted due to their futility for an action’s development⁸²⁴. Meanwhile the same can concern lyrical lines where the versification also excludes the lexical oddity. Thus it is the very fact of the opposition of periods vs. episodes that gains importance independently from ancient or modern (classicistic) comprehension. This opposition is comparable to those of exposition vs. culmination or central vs. terminal compositional phases so that it concerns aspects of centralized semantic space. For G. Hegel episodes in epics are to be regarded as the means of retardation in opposite to action (so that to conceive it as lyrical digressions would become a secondary effect)⁸²⁵. Respectively when such episodic retardations are not only tolerable but also indispensable for epics they impede dramatic action and contradict to dramatic generic peculiarity⁸²⁶.

These controversies concerning the structure of episodes and periods (that’s acts and scenes) in a play have come to very boisterous discussion of the early 1930s where the perspectives of classical dramatic form written in acts were debated⁸²⁷. One can thus confront episodes with acts within the scenic work whereas they oppose to periods in epic narrative. Such epic opposition is inapplicable for drama because there no vacuous place for such digressions and retardations, as far as the transitions evolving initial conflict take place in each scene. Such radical semantic shift of the notion of episode within dramatic art attests also the reconsideration of the art itself (the case brightly revealed in particular in the origin of opera). Be episodes the only places of transition then the ancient choir would correspond to what is called period in epic narration where the results of transition are summed up. Instead of the division and opposition of static and dynamic (transitory) passages one would better say of bigger or lesser density of transitions or of the degree of tension and textual heterogeneity. Such is the case in Shakespeare’s works where episodes serve as the borderlines between the phases of action and become thus interludes inserted to determine dramatic structure⁸²⁸. The productivity of such dramatic approach to episodes as the developmental phases can be attested with the opportunities of its transfer into the realm of musicology where there have been discovered by N.N. Andreyeva the phenomena displaying obvious parallel to dramatic episodes⁸²⁹. It seems of importance that inserted episodes are to be conceived as the inversion of ellipsis promoting expectations in the same manner⁸³⁰.

In its turn the inapplicability of narrative concept of episode to drama and at the same time the importance of its specific dramatic comprehension can be demonstrated with the problem of the terminal parts of dramatic composition that’s of exposition and finale. One can sum up the generally acknowledged viewpoints on exposition as the germ containing the possibility for further expansion and development and especially its connection with culmination as its “summary” so that all elements of action must be “enrooted” there⁸³¹. It is this attachment to action that determines a kind of the natural pulse of exposition, its retardation vs. acceleration or compression vs. expansion. Therefore exposition is not to be regarded as the initial phase of the whole drama only or as the beginning scenes. Rather exposition can be found out in each scene and each phase if dramatic process⁸³². It is the motivational necessity that gives rise to such expository phases in each division of dramatic text. Vice versa, drama as a whole can be opened with the initiative phase and not with exposition as is the case with the device of the so called in media res when the explanatory circumstances are given after the initiation of action. This device is peculiar for the analytical drama of H. Ibsen and his contemporaries⁸³³. At the same time its origins are also to be found in “Macbeth” where Duncan’s decision to appoint Malcolm as his heir determine the further development. Obviously expository phases must always be incomplete enabling thus gradual evolvement of action. Especially it concerns the portrayal of characters that are to reveal from the commencement such properties that would enable their further advancements. Together with exposition the opposite terminal phase of finale is to be regarded as that of demonstrating similar relativity. One knows Scribe’s advice to a writer composing a play to begin with the final scene. At the same time there are often different possibilities to terminate the action that turn out to become equally probable and motivated. It can be exemplified with H. Ibsen’s “Nora” where two versions are known (the heroine leaves the home in one of them and returns in another)⁸³⁴.

Thus the marginal (initial and terminal) moments of text are marked with indispensable properties imparting to dramatic work the outspoken structural definiteness. Therefore the medial points gain here decisive role. Transitory quality with its irretrievability & inevitability marks each moment of dramatic play because of the necessity of action’s development and the restrictions of time. It is here that the peculiar permanent state of instability in drama finds its sources. It is this “fluidity” that entails the mentioned dramatic risk & hazard. In this respect one can find parallels in some epic genera of underdeveloped type that include memorable narrations (memorates), epistles, visions and especially diaries (the so called ephemeridae). Especially meaningful is the fact that they demonstrate ephemeral phenomena as the mediators from epic formulae to details and curiosities with the mission of supporting the verisimilitude. Dramatic triune can be regarded as the genuine origin of this ephemeral quality with the action being limited with a day’s measures. At the same time one can say of the opposite extremity of lapidary properties that’s of the fixation of result with its irretrievable consequences. Both ephemeral and lapidary qualities are endowed with brevity while the difference between them consists in the specific weight of the enunciation within the whole. The opposition in this form is comparable to the above discussed opposition of casual enunciations vs. commonplaces (topos vs. hapax) or colloquialisms vs. conventions. Here it is transferred into compositional plane.

Ephemeral evasiveness is the immanent property of the moments of dramatic text attested with such paragons as “Macbeth” (where witches make the hero act resolutely), “Othello” (with calumny arising from ambiguity of hints) or the mentioned “Much Ado about nothing” (where the act of overhearing the intended hearsay has changed the minds of the dramatis personae). This ephemeral quality entails essential consequences in regard to dramatic phraseology. In drama each phrase as the phase of permanent action can’t be conceived without preceding and succeeding moments. Lyrical poems are nearer to epics in the sense that they are more loosened than dramas so that their parts can become separated as an autonomous enunciation of epigrammatic nature. It is in lyrical poem that separate lines can be quoted as “excerpta” in its absolute sense. In drama each phrase is involved in the stream of action and bears its vestiges in its meaning when quoted. Dramatic inevitability of events means that one deals here with necessity whereas lyrical possibilities admit proper sense of quotation.

In its turn as far as action becomes the fundament of textual integration in drama (as a representation of its plot) it becomes important to reconsider the forms of its verbal revelation. Be action the only aim one wouldn’t need aphoristic statements with generalized meanings serving as arguments in discussions or summing up the completed action. Accordingly one wouldn’t need them if drama were retold by the actors as in improvised comedies. It goes actually about periphrastic transformations of the text, and the variety of such transformations has very strict boundaries. The practice of rehearsals only attests the verbal limitations put upon actors’ speeches⁸³⁵. Meanwhile this practice attesting the variability and interpretability of dramatic text looks out to be included in the text as its latent program. It is permanent interpretative activity that is presupposed with dramatic action and must result in the generation of derivative explanatory statements. In the same way lyrical text needs infinite process of reflection producing derivative corollaries.

Bearing in mind that rehearsals and the manifold of their versions are the constant inalienable “inputs” of each dramatic text one can regard this text as a single specimen within a set of the infinite periphrastic transformations. There must be expostulated the existence of a set of verbal versions that “retell” the identical invariant of action. Accordingly due to the priority of action in dramas and the opportunity of varying cues (in the manner of improvisatory theatre) translations in other languages can be regarded as one of such transformations generating varied version of dramatic text. Consequently translations of drama become comparable to improvisatory versions of the same invariant of actions as varied periphrastic transformations. Paradoxically it is of little importance whether the original or the translation of drama is to be taken into consideration. Translations reveal the potential manifold of periphrastic versions of dramatic text otherwise hidden where the improvisatory theatre is replaced with artistic drama. For instance almost exact translation of Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” (4.1) by A.W. Schlegel in Isabella’s description the words about “garden circummurred with brick” are rendered as “Garten ist umringt mit einer Mauer” so that the detail of the wall of bricks is omitted [Schlegel, 44].

One can say of the oblivion put upon the verbal substance replaced with the non-verbal phantom of imaginary action. Dramatic text retains its identity not only in different translational versions. One can say with equal reasons of the contents’ transfer into non - verbal terrains and of its respective interpretation. Thus one can say of tragedy or comedy reproduced and reinterpreted with choreographic means. It is essential that the possibilities of such transferred interpretation are substantiated with the reproduction of developmental “dramatic line” of the image (that’s actually of functional textual structure)⁸³⁶. At the same time one ought not to overestimate these generalizing opportunities of drama. To return to the already mentioned thoughts of V.I. Nemirovich - Danchenko it would be apt here to remark that the habit of rehearsals without words in non-verbal imaginative space gives rises to serious objections. This habit was substantiated with the statements on the priority of action, the very concept of action being conceived as something void of verbal attachments. Meanwhile together with such attachments there are also the implicit contents that must be deciphered and yet have been lost within such practice. Besides, and it is the most important, there can’t be certitude as to the adequateness of the intention presented by an actor⁸³⁷. That is why one must agree with Fr. Schiller’s words cited by Fr. Grillparzer: “The Nature of Drama does tolerate neither the finger of inexactitude nor the immediate providence”⁸³⁸. All these functional properties of dramatic text let come to conclusion that generic features have only correlating meanings. One can only say about the relations of dramatic metasystem to its epic original without taking it separately and void of attachment to the reinterpreted narration.

2.2.4. Lyrical Abstractions’ as the Background of Dramatic Phantom