Making an Entrance : : Appearing on the Stage from Racine to Nietzsche / / Juliane Vogel.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter DG Plus DeG Package 2022 Part 1
• VerfasserIn: Vogel, Juliane,
• MitwirkendeR: Taylor, Michael Thomas,
• Place / Publishing House: Berlin ;, Boston : : De Gruyter, , [2022]; ©2022
• Year of Publication: 2022
• Language: English
• Series: Paradigms : Literature and the Human Sciences , 14
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (XXXII, 293 p.)

How does the entrance of a character on the tragic stage affect their visibility and presence? Beginning with the court culture of the seventeenth century and ending with Nietzsche’s Dionysian theater, this monograph explores specific modes of entering the stage and the conditions that make them successful—or cause them to fail. The study argues that tragic entrances ultimately always remain incomplete; that the step figures take into visibility invariably remains precarious. Through close readings of texts by Racine, Goethe, and Kleist, among others, it shows that entrances promise both triumph and tragic exposure; though they appear to be expressions of sovereignty, they are always simultaneously threatened by failure or annihilation. With this analysis, the book thus opens up possibilities for a new theory of dramatic form, one that begins not with the plot itself but with the stage entrance that structures how characters appear and thus determines how the plot advances. By reflecting on acts of entering, this book addresses not only scholars of literature, theater, media, and art but anyone concerned with what it means to appear and be present.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgements -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Translator’s Introduction -- Chapter 1 Introduction -- Chapter 2 Tragedy in the Court Space of Appearance -- Chapter 3 Wavering Shapes: Goethe’s Theater of Entrances -- Chapter 4 Triumph and Rending Movement -- Bibliography -- Index