European Theater

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Since the 1880s, a profound change has been taking place in European theater culture. The new authors not only rebel against rigid formal ideals, but also bring the rapid structural changes in society and the associated social conflicts to the stage. Drama opens up to new milieus and heroes and finds a different language through and for them. In a foray across European national literatures, we study the astonishing synchronicity of this development. We discuss dramas by Henrik Ibsen, August Strindberg, Oscar Wilde, Anton Chekhov as well as by Gerhart Hauptmann, Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal. We are concerned with the intrusion of historical reality into the play in all of these works, which makes traditional dramatic forms problematic and generates new forms.