Creating a Database for Theatre criticism in Greek literary journals, 1900-1950: Case Study

Varvara Georgopoulou,Aliki Antonopoulou,Zoi Ververopoulou ,Euangelia Spiropoulou

doi:10.15520/ijcrr.v11i12.866

Abstract

Theatre criticism holds an important place in theatre studies, especially as a tool for studying theatre history and reception - it is one of the three main branches of theatrology along with theatre history and theory. This study aims to present the cataloguing, digitization and interpretive study of a body of theatre reviews published in Greek literary journals in the years 1900-1950. The questions that we attempted to answer in this research concern various characteristics of theatre criticism in Greece in the period we are researching, and more specifically:  The language used, its construction and function Its main representatives Its ideological and aesthetic axes The reception of the plays The connections to the European intellectual currents of the time The ways in which the nature of the publications (literary magazines) affected the thematic and structural organization of the texts, in contrast to the reviews published on the daily press.  As part of the same project, we also created a searchable electronic database, comprising a complete index of theatre criticism published in Greek journals in the years 1900-1950, which offers users access to the full reviews.

Highlights

Apeculiarity of theatre criticism is that, unlike academic writing on theatre and literature, it is directly connected to the periodical and daily press, the history and function of which play a decisive role on its textual identity
It is a fact that in Greek theatre studies there is a distinct lack of a widely accessible, single corpus of theatre criticism for the period 1900-1950, which would be of great use to researchers, especially because until now only a small number of digitized reviews are available online, on the websites of the Greek National Theater and the National Theatre of Northern Greece as part of their extended stage production archives, as well as on the website of the Hellenic Union of Theatre Critics and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s digital library
This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF) through the Operational Programme «Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020» in the context of the project “Discourse, Aesthetics and Ideology of Theatre Criticism in Literary and Art Journals (1900-1950)” (MIS 5048990)

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Apeculiarity of theatre criticism is that, unlike academic writing on theatre and literature, it is directly connected to the periodical and daily press, the history and function of which play a decisive role on its textual identity. It is a fact that in Greek theatre studies there is a distinct lack of a widely accessible, single corpus of theatre criticism for the period 1900-1950, which would be of great use to researchers, especially because until now only a small number of digitized reviews are available online, on the websites of the Greek National Theater and the National Theatre of Northern Greece as part of their extended stage production archives, as well as on the website of the Hellenic Union of Theatre Critics and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki’s digital library All these databases, only include texts published after 1940. This research is co-financed by Greece and the European Union (European Social Fund-ESF) through the Operational Programme «Human Resources Development, Education and Lifelong Learning 2014-2020» in the context of the project “Discourse, Aesthetics and Ideology of Theatre Criticism in Literary and Art Journals (1900-1950)” (MIS 5048990)

METHOD

CONCLUSIONS