Dramatic Sketches Research Articles

The First Days of the Soviet Theatre: Stanislav Vinaver’s Dramatic Testimonies

Stanislav Vinaver witnessed October Revolution. In April 1917, he was sent to Russia on a diplomatic mission and stayed there until the autumn of 1919. After returning to Serbia, he published articles about Russia (ideology, revolution, war, life, theatre, art, music) in Politika and Republika, Belgrade daily newspapers, and in Kritika, a Zagreb magazine, which, in their form, resembled dramatic sketches, stories, reports, and travel essays. This paper discusses Vinaver’s articles on theatre issues in Bolshevik Russia, primarily the Kamerny Theatre and the Moscow Drama Theatre. Vinaver’s ideas about the repertoire and aesthetic searches of the two Moscow theatres are interpreted in the context of the time of their emergence, together with the context of artistic assessment, which is by no means inferior to today’s interpretations of the role of the Kamerny and Moscow Drama Theatres in the development of the Soviet experimental theatre.

Philip Larkin'in Ambulances ve Harold Pinter'in Victoria Station adlı eserlerinin biçembilim açısından değerlendirilmesi

Stylistics can be defined as analysing literary texts by employing some linguistic tools. Thus, there is a powerful relationship between stylistics and literary criticism and combining them while doing literary analysis helps literary critics to be more aware of the process of the interpretating literary texts. In this context, this study sets out to examine two significant works in 20th-century English literature within the framework of concepts and theories introduced in the studies of stylistics. The study first analyses Ambulances (1961) by Philip Larkin, a prominent author in post-war England and a nationally favourite poet. While doing so, it focuses on Larkin’s repeating themes and subjects, involving pessimism, death, and fatalism. Then, the present study examines Harold Pinter's Victoria Station (1982). An English playwright and eminent British dramatist who has won many awards, Pinter has written a lot of plays and dramatic sketches. In his plays, one can mostly see complex ambiguities, elegiac mysteries, and comic uncertainties. Therefore, this study is centred on Pinter's authorial and textual styles in Victoria Station by often referring to his explicitly political critiques. In both cases, the study employs Mick Short's stylistics toolkit, a methodology provided as an online course at Lancaster University (2005).

무슈제트 텍스트 연구

This paper is devoted to study the text without plot: M. Saltykov-Shchedrin’s one-act play “Morning at Khreptyugin” and I. Turgenev's one-act play “Conversation on the High Road” are analyzed. Saltykov-Schedrin described the genre of “Morning at Khreptyugin” as dramatic sketch. It suggests that he made the depiction of social conditions as his intention. There is no motif in “Morning at Khreptyugin”; the relationship between the episodes is very loose, and each scene is independent of each other. There is no coherent subject in the dialogue, what leads to the absence of conflicts and events: “Morning at Khreptyugin” belongs to the text without plot. The characters gather in one space and talk, and in this respect, Saltykov-Schedrin’s one-act play belongs to the discussion model. In Turgenev's one-act play “Conversation on the High Road”, the dialogues of the characters are oriented neither towards motive and plan, nor towards a purpose or goal. There are no intrigue, conflict or event to achieve personal interests between the master, the servant and the coachman: This one-act play is the text without plot. The content of the play consists entirely of dialogues between the characters on the carriage; “Dialogue on the Main Road” belongs to a discussion model.

“It was a mistake”: Abolitionism, Revision, and Mark Twain's “A Scrap of Curious History”

Abstract Mark Twain did not publish any significant reflections on abolitionism in his lifetime, yet he did leave in his papers “A Scrap of Curious History,” an unfinished attempt to write fiction about abolitionist activity in antebellum Missouri that was initiated not by memory but by his witnessing a backlash to anarchist uprisings in France in 1894. His biographer Albert Bigelow Paine published a revised and expurgated version of “A Scrap of Curious History” in Harper's Monthly a few years after Clemens's death, but existing commentary on the sketch has been minimal and has relied on Paine's bowdlerized text, not on the surviving manuscript. Paine's changes—including his writing a conclusion to the piece—deviated from Mark Twain's intentions to write a dramatic sketch, ponderously open-ended and blunt, that examined the anxieties underlying radical politics and their relation to justice, terrorism, and social progress.

МОРАЛЬНІ ЦІННОСТІ У ТВОРЧІЙ КОНЦЕПЦІЇЗОФІЇ КОССАК-ЩУЦЬКОЇ

Historical and national imperatives of choice of moral values in creative conception of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka are analysed in the article. The authoress by means of literary characters and reasons presents a large historical fresco, realizing thus idea of Christian humanism. Except texts from the cycle of stories about the hikes of crusaders (“Krzyżowcy”, “Król Trędowaty”, “Bez oręża”), considerable popularity stories purchased also about XVI-XVII century (“Złota wolność”) and plots, built on historical legends closely casebound with hagiography (“Beatum scelus”, “Błogosławionа winа”, “Z miłości”, “Warna”, “Legnickie pole”, “Suknia Dejaniry”). An addition to Z. Kossak’s epic work is her dramatic sketch “Kielich krwi”, dedicated to the conflict between Bishop St. Stanislav and King Boleslav Bold. For the complete opening of historical problems and comparison of them with theological and public Zofia Kossak gave mind on a figure and creative achievement of Piotr Skarga. On the basis of his labours she entered in a literary environment the phenomenon of “scandal of faith” that was independent of historical pre-conditions, overpeered above psychological and public spheres. In works of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka we can see the connection of national ideas, in the wide understanding of this word, with looks to literature that hatched from romantic traditions the authoress stepped back from understanding of this concept in the categories of thoughtless attachment to the national association and predisposed to the concept of citizenship that is fixed in basis of the modern nationalism, shown in active vital position, public consciousness, practical patriotism but not selfish radical denial of rights for other nations. To the authoress mind, the force that combines the nation is a history, the elements of it are kept in public memory and acquire a mythological value. Thus authoress came to the conclusion about sacral of folk traditions. National conception is proclaimed in works of Zofia Kossak-Szczucka deep in bases of origin and maintenance of the state system. Completer in all pass patriotic position of Zofia Kossak “Ten commandments of Polish” is nationally saturated.

A sin in dramatic art by Lesya Ukrainka: from primary literature to the art version

The article represents an attempt to provide an interpretation of notion “sin” based on dramatic poems and dramatic sketches on early Christianity by Lesya Ukrainka. Choosing such an aspect is determined by lack of attention from literary critics who up to now either avoided it in spite of the evident need for interpretation or interpreted it from atheistic positions or treated this problem as one of the many factors not emphasizing it on purpose. The main attention in the present research is paid to the interpretation of a central notion “sin” based on the Bible, the Law of God, special reference books such as encyclopedias and dictionaries on the Bible. Since the analyzed works represent a monotheistic and polytheistic ideology we considered it necessary to compare the understating of a sin in Christianity and paganism, using for this material collected by F. Zelinsky, G. Lozko, S. Sviridova and others. The analysis of fiction books is done on content-creative and shape-creative levels taking into account problematic and thematic complexes, peculiarities of building an image system (opposition of religion, age, social status), plot and composition structures (type of conflict, peculiarities of its development, solution, role of remarks, structure-creative role of a sin etc.) poetics of character creation (gradation, contrast). The importance of sin in understanding the works by Lesya Ukrainka has been concluded: we are convinced that it is about the synthesis of philosophical and esthetic and philosophical and psychological levels of understanding human nature ambivalent by its essence, whose display depends of understanding the priorities in the dyad material / spiritual which means either seduction and a sin or conservation of internal beauty. The perspective of further research has been determined: general analysis of works by Ukrainian writer (lyrics, lyrico-epos, drama, prose in particular fragmentary); deeper, more persuasive understanding of a literary contribution to the literary context at the beginning of the XX century and in further periods; an ability to appeal to archetype origins, cultural codes.

GENRE-FORMING FUNCTION OF SOCIO-POLITICAL CONFLICT IN SCIENCE FICTION DRAMAS WRITTEN BY BRUSOV IN 1920S

In Brusov’s dramas of the post-October period the revolutionary epoch is reflected with varying degrees of relevance of its presentation. The dramatic sketch «Pythagoreans» and a drama «The World of Seven Generations» recreate some principles of the governance under the laws of the community «democracy» in the genre of the science-fiction drama. We refer the tragedy «The Dictator», where the conflict is built on the futurological anticipation of the consequences of the proletarian dictatorship, based on the principles of the democratic centralism, to the genre form of the drama dystopia.

Hugo von Hofmannsthal. « Notices pour un Xenodoxus » (1920-1925). Du néobaroque à la crise de la modernité

Hugo von Hofmannsthal expressed his wish to adapt the neo-Latin Tragicomedy Cenodoxus (1602-1609) by the Jesuit playwright Jacob Bidermann on the very day his new version of the morality play Jedermann (Everyman) was staged, on 26 August 1920. Hofmannsthal did not use the original Latin version, but the German translation (1635) by Joachim Meichel. From early on, Hofmannsthal set his work in the vicinity of 16th-century historical/literary figures, in particular Agrippa and Faust. However, his reading of the Judgment play of Radstadt, of Styrian origin, inspired him to give the Christian tragedy an optimistic ending, in the tradition of the late-medieval miracle plays.Josef Nadler’s theses on Catholic Baroque literature in Southern Germany and Austria had a great impact on Hofmannsthal’s choice of subject. However, he intended to tackle once again, and in a novel way, the crisis that his country and the European continent as a whole were going through in the wake of the First World War. In his play, Hofmannsthal makes withering comments about the harmful impact of technological development on the moral values of the community, hence his warnings against interventions on the human body. The distinction, which in his view is absolute, between true and false science, is based on E. Hello’s philosophical and theological views and on H. G. Wells’ Science Fiction Novel The Island of Dr. Moreau, which reflects the entanglement of man and animal. Thus, Hofmannsthal expresses his anguish at the sight of a world spiralling “out of joint”. The reason why his dramatic sketch remained unfinished lies first and foremost in the almost unlimited number of gathered Notes. But even more crucial was Hofmannsthal’s renunciation to produce a relatively clear plot line at an early stage of the work, because of his use of the Benjaminian melancholy. The “laziness of the heart”, consubstantial with acedia, is indeed contrary to the vital impulse that pushes the protagonist to act without any rest. It is the diametrically opposite of Benjamin’s postulate of the sovereign as a character unfit for action.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THE PLOT OF V.BRUSOV’S DRAMATIC SKETCH “THE PYTHAGOREANS”

The article is devoted to the implications of V.Brusov’s dramatic sketch entitled “The Pythagoreans”. The work is harmonized with the sacral code of the symbolic drama. via the plot’s subtext Brusov appeals to the mysterial roots of drama’s nature, including the way of initiation, and incorporates the author’s philosophical prisma.

THE SYMBOLISM OF THE STAGE SPACE IN ANDREY BELY’S EARLY PLAYS

In his comparison of the notes for the unfinished mystery play Antichrist (both those published and those archived at the manuscripts department of the Russian State Library) with dramatic sketches He Who Has Come [ Prishedshiy ] and The Night’s Jaws [ Past’ nochi ], the author discusses the peculiarities of Bely’s arrangement of the acting space. The problem of dramatic convention is examined through text analysis and with a direct reference to the mystery play: a genre that experienced revival in the period between the 19th and 20th centuries. The symbolism of the stage space in Bely’s shelved project Antichrist is in many ways determined by the very nature of the genre: many writers of the time were drawn to its paradigm, the universal model , realized in various forms. Notably, Bely’s early plays feature the metaphorical leaning towards unitotality, typical of mystery plays in general and eagerly embraced by the Russian symbolists.

La revolución española de 1820 en la escena británica: Ferdinand the Seventh; or, A Dramatic Sketch of the Recent Revolution in Spain (1823)

This paper analyses the drama Ferdinand the Seventh; or, A Dramatic Sketch of the Recent Revolution in Spain. Published in London in 1823, this play explores the reactions to the coup led by Rafael de Riego in the court of Ferdinand VII. The author clearly supports the liberal cause and portrays the King as a weak and changeable individual, who first tries to repress the rebellion, but eventually proclaims the Constitution of 1812. Although the work is presented as the English translation of a Spanish manuscript by Manuel de Sarratea, the image of Spain and of the liberal revolution of 1820 contained in the text is in tune with the vision of the political situation in Spain that dominated public opinion in Britain.

Hans Weigel: "Ich war einmal…" Eine Biographie by Wolff A. Greinert

Reviewed by: Hans Weigel: "Ich war einmal…" Eine Biographie by Wolff A. Greinert Joseph McVeigh Wolff A. Greinert, Hans Weigel: "Ich war einmal…" Eine Biographie. Vienna: Styria, 2015. 415 pp. Those familiar with Austrian literary culture after 1945 will have encountered the name Hans Weigel (1908–1991) primarily in the context of his work as a mentor of young writers such as Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann, and Milo Dor; as a Cold Warrior who, with Friedrich Torberg and others, advocated a boycott of plays by Bertolt Brecht on Viennese stages for roughly a decade beginning in 1953; or as a cultural critic, especially in the areas of theater and music. There was, however, much more to his creative endeavors, as he was also a writer of novels, plays, poetry, libretti, song texts, and cabaret skits as well as a prolific translator from the French, including most of Molière's plays and a radio personality. Sadly, scholarship on Hans Weigel has been spotty at best, especially since his death in 1991. A scholarly conference organized by Dr. Wolfgang Straub in Vienna and Krems in 2013 and the resulting book, Hans Weigel: Kabarettist, Kritiker, Romancier, Literaturmanager (2014), did much to correct this but still left many areas untouched. With the appearance in late 2015 of Wolff Greinert's biography of Hans Weigel, however, scholars, cultural historians, and even a general public interested in Austrian history and culture now have a more comprehensive picture of one of the most influential and dynamic figures of Austrian culture in the mid-twentieth century. As an authorized biography with a foreword by Weigel's third wife, Elfriede Ott, and a chapter about their professional and personal relationship, this book has in some parts a rather congratulatory tone, especially in the final chapter, which goes through the praise he received on the occasion of his round-numbered birthdays. The reader might thus expect to find here a rather stilted portrayal of Weigel and the controversies in which he was often embroiled. That is, happily, not the case. This volume strikes an admirable balance between sympathy and criticism, not overlooking Weigel's many flaws in his personal and professional undertakings but convincingly pointing out that his contribution to Austrian culture since the 1930s was much more than just his Cold War polemics or his support of young writers. Greinert explores in some detail why Weigel was viewed in many circles as a polarizing figure in Austrian literary culture after 1945. Certainly, he never shied away from a good polemic or blunt criticism in his many writings on political and cultural topics. And his "erzählende Biographie" of the actor [End Page 180] Werner Krauß, of Jud Süß infamy, which was published in 1958, as well as his numerous campaigns against the Austrian PEN Club and other organizations only served to reinforced his image as the "Gott-sei-bei-uns" of Austrian culture of the time. Similarly, his advocacy for the Brecht boycott cemented his image for some as Austria's Cold Warrior par excellence. As Greinert points out, however, Weigel greatly admired Brecht's poetry and short dramatic sketches and appeared himself—in a non-speaking role—in a 1932 staging of Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in the Raimund Theater in Vienna. Among the more fascinating chapters of Weigel's life was his extensive effort to convince both Jewish and non-Jewish émigrés to return to Austria after the war, arguing, unconvincingly for the former group for the most part, that anti-Semitism had been swept away with the NS regime. During his trip to the United States in 1948 to visit his parents, who had emigrated to New York before the war, Weigel met with many of them as part of this effort. Insightful, too, are his long letters from the US to his friends back in Vienna about his experiences in that country in which he strongly criticized, among other things, the American "Herrschaft der Dilettanten" where "Analphabeten bestimmen, was Kunst ist." Weigel's strained perception of his Jewish identity is examined in its own chapter ("Jude oder Österreicher") and offers some interesting insights into the connection between his self...

“Highly Superior ‘Variety Turns’”: The Orthodox Roots of Suffrage Theatre

Abstract This paper locates the origins of the forms and practices of Edwardian suffrage theatre in a late-Victorian middle-class entertainment culture with which it shared many of its distinguishing features, if not its politics. Suffrage theatre has long been lauded for its radical embracing of alternative performance spaces and a democratic blurring of the lines between amateur and professional. However, these features were already present in the 1890s, in a theatrical scene which emerged from nineteenth-century enthusiasm for private theatricals and which offered women authors important artistic opportunities. “Dramatic recitals,” which combined the performance of short plays and dramatic sketches with recitation and music, developed independently of both the West End and the music hall, drawing instead on the traditions of home performance. This genteel variety theatre was written and performed by women and clearly directed at primarily female audiences, laying the foundation for suffrage theatre in spite of its own conservative gender politics.

Dreaming of Michelangelo: Jewish Variations on a Modern Theme by Asher D. Biemann (review)

DREAMING OF MICHELANGELO: JEWISH VARIATIONS ON A MODERN THEME By Asher D. Biemann. Stanford, California: Stanford UP, 2012. 180 pp. 3 illustrations.How can religion tolerate art? What is the value of art compared to the simple truth, to the justice of plain religion?It is customary to regard the European Jewish enthusiasm for art as Bildung: the and intellectual education through which Jews became citizens of the world. What if this intense connection with art-expressed through collecting, scholarship, travel, and all forms of production-was not just a way into secular culture, a distraction from Jewishness, but an empowering and ennobling form of religiosity? The premise of Asher D. Biemann's study is that cultural eroticism has something essential in common with the religious experience. Religion not only tolerates art; it is, as Hermann Cohen wrote, always nurtured by art. But can modern Judaism, undergirded by the second commandment and the prophets' rebukes, embrace something called statue-love? It ultimately depends on what is meant by love.The widespread Jewish fascination with Michelangelo's in the Church of San Pietro in Vincoli in Rome forms the heart of this imaginatively composed inquiry. The primal scene is of course Sigmund Freud's experience visiting and writing about this statue between 1901-1914 (The of Michelangelo, 1914), which has spawned volumes of commentary. Yet Freud's obsession was not sui generis. From the nineteenth century on, pictures, replicas, and literary impressions of the seated Hebrew lawgiver with his ominous gaze and horned head were omnipresent in Jewish society; figured in belles lettres, injournalism, in Jewish living rooms. In effect, by the time Freud wrote his essay, and even earlier, when Tchernichovski wrote the famous Hebrew poem Before a Statue of Apollo (1899), confronting a statue [had become] a modern Jewish genre.But what was the nature of this fascination? Freud was not alone in finding Michelangelo's to be more awesome, complex, and genuine, than his scriptural counterpart. Biemann discusses in detail the responses of Guiseppe Revere, a Triestene Jewish poet, and the writer Salomon Steinheim, who moved to Rome in 1849. Most unforgettable is Steinheim's dramatic sketch, in which the prophet actually takes the artist to task for his decisions (what evil demon, what buffoon . . . gave you the idea of these horns?) before shattering the statue with a lightening bolt: ('You shall not make a graven image'... 'and yet you have sculpted one of ') Biemann argues, however, that Freud, Steinheim, and others were not aesthetic idolaters but Jewish Pygmalians: they beheld the statue as an uncanny Other and dreamed of its awakening. The statue was ambiguously alive, revelatory, at once a symbol of origins and of mortality; it returned their gaze and created them. Jews did not love the statue as much as they wanted it to love them back. The Jewish dream of a moving Moses was of a kind with the plastic aesthetics of Winckelmann, Lessing, Heine and others, but Biemann identifies something more: a type of statue-love that was unchristian, unromantic, unmodern, unrequited-a love known firsthand by the people whose God commands them, Love me! (Rosenzweig).The theater of Jewish statue love is, of course, Italy. Biemann's first chapter gives account of modernjewish Italophilia as expressed in the works of numerous Jewish German thinkers and poets. …

The Child in Chekhov

The focus of my research is on representation of childhood in Chekhov's stories. In this article I look at two stories (“Grisha” and “At Home”) published at the height of Chekhov's interest in children in the mid‐1880s. I have chosen this material because one of the stories appears on Leo Tolstoy's list of known favorites, both stories are written in the form of a dramatic sketch, and both narratives address two crucial stages in the development of the child protagonist. My aim is to sketch the literary and extraliterary background on the topic, and to identify the salient features of Chekhov's model through a careful reading of the stories. A close reading of Chekhov's texts provides an opportunity to see the outlines of Chekhov's model in its dialogical relationship with the prevalent discourses of the time.

Catechesis, Socialization and Play in a Catholic Household,c.1660: the ‘Children’s Exercises’ from the Blundell Papers

Among the papers of the Blundell family of Little Crosby, Lancashire, are two dramatic sketches entitled ‘An Exercise to Embolden the Children in Speaking’ and ‘Children Emboldened to Speak. By an Exercise’. They were written by William Blundell, recusant, royalist and Lancashire gentleman, in 1663 and 1665 for his daughters and their cousins to perform, probably at Christmas family gatherings. Humorously mingling Catholic catechesis, social education, the exercise of parental authority and childish misbehaviour, these sketches open a rare window onto the life of a Catholic household in the Restoration era. They offer an opportunity to explore the household as the location for the practice and appropriation of religion.

‘Tire trouble’: Mules and Men and automobiles

Cars were important to Zora Neale Hurston, whose extensive folklore-collecting trips in the US South in the 1920s and 1930s would have been impossible without them. The book in which she presented this research, Mules and Men (1935), has often been praised for the way that it describes her own practice as a college-educated anthropological fieldworker as well as recording the vernacular culture of African Americans in Florida, Alabama and Louisiana. Accordingly, her Chevrolet figures prominently in her account, but its significance has been largely overlooked by critics. Those who have paid it attention tend to find in Hurston's references to her car signs of an ambivalent relation to the people she studied. She sometimes gave rides to her informants, and the car brought her closer to them but marked her distance from them as well. Drawing on related, recently published, material including her letters, folk-tale transcriptions, and a dramatic sketch entitled ‘Filling Station’, this essay tries to extend these reflections. If the way the car functions in Hurston's text tells us something about the social relations of her fieldwork, then her fieldwork uncovers a number of conflicting responses to the car, at a time when the automobile was securing its dominance as the main form of transport in all areas of the country. Celebrated for the freedom it offered from the indignities of segregation and male patronage, the car was an object of desire for both Hurston and her informants. But cars were not valued uncritically. The essay closes by examining one folk-tale in particular which points us towards the darker – dangerous, anti-social – side of automobility that Hurston's passion does not quite manage to conceal.

The New World Order and the Unmasking of the Neo-Colonial Present

In his dramatic sketch The New World Order Pinter exposes practices of psychological and physical abuse targeted at local people who resist neo-colonial advancements in territories directly occupied or indirectly controlled by Western hegemonic powers. Through the deployment of Pinteresque double-layered meanings conveyed through seemingly ordinary, everyday language, the drama unveils the ideological premises and operating principles of neo-colonial discourse. The paper discusses the way Pinter blasts apart a seemingly neutral Western rhetoric of humanitarian militarism, focusing on the discursive strategies by means of which neo-imperial violence, torture and massive dispossession of local populations are justified and naturalized.

A Study on Romanian Historical Dramas

Created in the early 20th century, almost all of Romanian historical dramas, were conceived under the influence of Al. Davila's drama Vlaicu-Vodă. Namely, writers such as Barbu Ş;tefănescu-Delavrancea, Mihail Sorbul, Nicolae Iorga -who is considered as the greatest Romanian historian-, Mircea Dem. Radulescu, Victor Eftimiu and A. de Herz described in their works the conflict between a lord and the nobility, a symptomatic medieval theme. Barbu Ştefanescu-Delavrancea published a trilogy The sunset (Apus de soare, 1909), The snowstorm (Viforul, 1910) and Venus (Luceafărul, 1910). In addition, he created Irinel (1911) and Hagi-Tudose (1912) and The Second conscience (A doua conştiinţă). The first two works, were written on the basis of the short stories he wrote as a young writer, but they were not aesthetically well received by literary critics of the period. Delavrancea wrote an historical trilogy as well. The first part, The sunset, was evaluated as his most successful literary work. This historical work has a strong romantic feature having as background the year of 1504, last year of reign of the glorious prince Stephen the Great, Ruler of Moldova. The sunset is an historical drama that connects three other Romanian historical dramas: Hasdeu's Ravan gi Vidra, Alexandri's Despot-Voda and Davila's Vlaicu-Voda. The plot of Venus, the last part of Delanvrancea's trilogy, is in progress at the beginning of Petru Rareg's reign, the lord of Principality of Moldova. Mihail Sorbul's creation in drama contains ‘dramatic sketches (schiţe dramatice)’ and ‘tragic comedy(comedii tragice)’ centered on some real historical figures. Sorbul's representative work, The chronicles, is a historical drama and it's made up a total of five chapters. In this work, we can also see the ‘classic’ conflict of Romanian historical drama between a lord and nobles. The snowstorm is a romantic historical drama, composed of four chapters with the main character of this work being the lord of the Principality of Moldova. The main feature of Romanian historical drama, the constant tension between the lord and the nobles, is centered this time around the figure of Luca Arbore. Even though Mihail Sorbul, died at the age of 80 in 1966 he created a total of 20 dramas, but only three among them are considered successful literary works: The chronicles (Letopiseţi), Red Passion (Patima roşe) and The deserters (Dezertorul) Sorbul's representative work, The chronicles, is a historical drama and it's made up a total of five chapters. In this work, we can also see the ‘classic’ conflict of Romanian historical drama between a lord and nobles.

Freedom's Call: The Persuasive Power of Mercy Otis Warren's Dramatic Sketches, 1772–1775

Freedom's Call:The Persuasive Power of Mercy Otis Warren's Dramatic Sketches, 1772–1775 Sandra J. Sarkela (bio) Oh! My poor country!. . .—When will it be,When high-soul'd honor beats within our bosoms,And calls to action—when thy sons like heroes,Shall dare assert thy rights, and with their swordsLike men, like freemen, force a way to conquestOr on thy ruins gloriously expire.— —Cassius, from The Adulateur, in The Massachusetts Spy, April 23, 1772 In this excerpt from a fictitious theatrical production, Patriot writer Mercy Otis Warren created a unique persuasive message that helped polarize attitudes toward royal government in Massachusetts and energize support among those who were tired of protest. It was the second of five such pieces that appeared in Boston newspapers between 1772 and 1775. The first was couched as an advertisement in The Massachusetts Spy and mimicked the format of other reports and advertisements for concerts and entertainments at home and abroad that commonly appeared in the newspapers. The ad, however, included a novel feature: "As a specimen of the work, we have extracted the following passages" (March 26, 1772). Readers were treated to a sneak preview, something like today's movie trailers, including two scenes from a hypothetical performance, which featured the main villain, Rapatio, and his key aide, Hazlerod, in one scene, followed by an excerpted speech by the hero, Cassius. In this sketch and the others to follow the characters and events directly reference the newspaper content in which they are embedded. Fictitious characters with obvious real-life counterparts engage in fictitious speech acts that explain and amplify "real" events reported by the newspaper. As a result, a radical narrative of villains and heroes is created that becomes nearly impossible for opponents to refute. In this essay, I analyze Warren's "dramatic sketches" [End Page 541] (Mercy Warren Papers) from the perspective of her intended audience of newspaper readers, arguing that these distinctive rhetorical texts are best understood and appreciated if read within the context of their newspaper publication.1 Over the past thirty years or so, a fair amount of attention has been paid to the life and works of Mercy Otis Warren. One of a handful of women who can claim the label "Founding Mother" (Roberts 37), she was at the center of the radical anti-British movement in Massachusetts.2 Scholars have noted Warren's fine intellect and wide-ranging correspondence, commended her work as poet and historian, speculated and theorized about her authorial status. Warren's dramatic literature, however, with the exception of two tragedies written toward the end of her career, is generally considered more propaganda than art.3 Given this assessment, it is curious that there is little, if any, serious and sustained rhetorical analysis of Warren's work. Although Carol Berkin concludes that "Mercy Otis Warren was among the most famous and effective propagandists of the prewar period" (First Generations 171), she does not offer any systematic rhetorical analysis in support of this claim. More specifically, no one has considered all five dramatic sketches in sequence as they would have been read by her newspaper audience, as advertisements or previews. As a result, the power and significance of these dramatic sketches has been misunderstood and often underestimated. However, if we approach the sketches from a rhetorical standpoint, that is, if we read them from the perspective of her intended audience within the specific context of their newspaper publication, we begin to understand how Warren's appropriation of the dramatic form advanced a radical narrative that mobilized support for their cause.4 The series began with two sketches from The Adulateur published in March and April 1772 in The Massachusetts Spy. They were followed by two sketches from The Defeat published in May and July 1773 in The Boston Gazette. Both newspapers published a two-act farce, The Group, in January 1775. Looking at the sketches in hindsight, outside their newspaper context, readers see texts that announce themselves as dramatic literature excerpted from a larger play script. Their purpose, however, is clearly persuasive. Evaluation of the sketches' merit often reflects the problematic relationship between form and function. For example, Maud Hutcheson...