Research Catalog

Title

Metonymy and drama : essays on language and dramatic strategy / Jutka Dévényi.

Author

Dévényi, Jutka, 1963-

Publication

Lewisburg [Pa.] : Bucknell University Press ; London : Associated University Presses, [1996], ©1996.

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Holdings

Details

Description

120 pages : illustrations; 24 cm

Summary

• Based on various models of metonymy, this book distinguishes metonymic drama structure from the metaphoric, symbolic, and allegorical. It applies Kristeva's theory of the "semiotic" to dramatic texts and Barker's observations on the private body to their potential theatrical representation in order to argue that there is a relationship between fragmented representations of the subject and metonymic drama structure.
• In the four plays this book investigates (Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Racine's Phedre, and Buchner's Danton's Death), the dramatic hero goes through a process that disrupts his or her consciousness, which in turn is reflected and accentuated by dramatic structure. These changes in mind can be isolated on all levels of dramatic representation: aesthetic, linguistic, and dramaturgical.
• The ideology resonating in the dramatic world has a special connection with structure, which manifests itself in unique and different ways in the plays. Nevertheless, despite the uniqueness of representation, it is always metonymic structure that seems to parallel the fragmentation of consciousness.
• .
• Having distinguished the functions of metonymy in drama as a potential focus of structure from those of the other major tropes, the book then examines its variants without evolutionary considerations. The argument differs from prevailing concepts of the two master tropes, formulated by Burke, Lodge, Ricoeur, and Laplanche.
• The book does not focus on their categorical separation, but investigates the possibilities of a creative mind to depict the world in a way that actively involves and challenges the audience.

Subjects

• Drama > History and criticism
• Metonyms

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 115-118) and index.

Contents

1. Figures of Language as Dramatic Strategy -- 2. The Body Is All: Semiotics of the Feminine in The Duchess of Malfi -- 3. "Voyage Infortune": Tokens of Desire in Phedre -- 4. Consciousness and Structure in Danton's Death -- 5. Metonymic Impasse in Troilus and Cressida.

ISBN

0838753132 (alk. paper)

LCCN

96000697

OCLC

ocm34194042

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries