The independence and systematicness of drama as a new discipline. The development of drama art in modern times, on the one hand, is due to the theoretical confusion and changes caused by the ups and downs and conflicts between its various constituent elements, which urgently needs scientific explanation and theoretical discussion in the theoretical circle. On the other hand, drama art is becoming more and more mature, gaining an important position in human social life (including art education) and moving towards discipline consciousness. Since the rise of drama for a hundred years, there have been many research works on this subject, but generally speaking, these works have three characteristics: first, there are many works by western scholars on western drama, while few works by eastern scholars have brought both eastern and western dramas into their research horizons; Second, inheriting the tradition since Aristotle's Poetics, there are many literary dramas as the research objects, and few scientific and complete drama works; Thirdly, there are many factors that make up a drama, such as script, director, actors, audience, theater and stage art, which are all separated from each other, but there are few comprehensive studies on all the factors of drama as a whole. For example, several important works that have a wide influence in the field of drama, On the Art of Drama (by Gordon Clay, UK,191), The Law of Drama (by Archer, UK, 19 12) and Drama Skills. 193 1) and The Theory and Skills of Screenwriting for Drama and Film (written by American Lawson, in which the drama part was written in 1936) were all written by British and American scholars. Among them, Nicole focuses on the basic theory of drama from the perspective of sadness and comedy, while Archer, Baker and Lawson all talk about the principle and screenwriter skills of drama and take drama as the research object. On the one hand, this situation shows the deepening and development of drama research, on the other hand, it also shows the bias and deficiency in drama research.
On Drama by American scholar Stark Young (1927) is the earliest drama work. The most recent works are brocket's Appreciation of World Drama Art (1969) and Kawatake Toshio's Introduction to Drama (1978). As there is no Chinese translation published, On Drama has limited influence in China. Although Appreciation of World Drama Art focuses on the history of world drama, the author pays attention to writing history by combining the script with the stage from the perspective of drama comprehensiveness. In addition, the first part of "Basic Theory of Drama" and the last part of "Elements of Drama" respectively give a comprehensive introduction to modern American drama art, so that although the subtitle of this book is "History of World Drama", the explanation of basic theoretical issues of drama is still too brief, but basically there is. Introduction to Drama is a drama monograph by Japanese scholars who are dissatisfied with the parochialism of European and American drama works and try to study eastern and western drama in the same category. The author thinks that drama has four basic elements: actors, scripts, audiences and theaters. This book closely follows the essence and four elements of drama, plus two parts: the history of world drama and the history of japanese theatre.
This is an overview of the development of world drama in the past hundred years, and China's drama research is even weaker. 1968+in the early 1940s, Mr. Zhang Geng published his lecture titled "An Introduction to Drama Art" in Lu Yi Theatre Department of Yan 'an, which can be regarded as a solid first step taken by domestic scholars to establish a scientific and complete drama discipline. After more than half a century, although some weighty works have been published in the fields of scriptwriting theory, directing performance art, drama aesthetics, drama history, etc., most of these works only discuss a certain element of drama art on the one hand, and only discuss or talk about drama on the other hand, while scientific and complete drama works that comprehensively explore drama art with the drama cultural heritage of all mankind at all times and all over the world have been lacking. Mr. Dong Jian pointed out: "Simplifying and linearizing the relationship between drama and politics, drama and market is an important reason for the poverty of scientific drama. Another reason is that there are serious drawbacks in our drama education system. There is no drama department in a first-class comprehensive university, which makes the scientific' drama' lose its growth foundation. " [1] This is in line with the reality of China's social and drama development in the past century. Only for the latter reason, in 1985, China Drama Literature Research Association appealed to the national education administrative department and the presidents of universities to set up drama majors or courses, but after 20 years, the situation has not changed much. I heard that Peking University had the idea of establishing a drama department, but it didn't seem to be put into action. Nanjing University's drama postgraduate education has a deep foundation and a huge scale, which should be the most qualified to develop drama major. It is said that there are also motions to establish drama department and develop undergraduate education, but this is still just a beautiful dream. Half a year ago, the author planned to offer drama classes at school, but I couldn't find suitable teaching materials, so I could only list some foreign drama works mentioned above as reference. This is not commensurate with the history and present situation of a great drama country, which shows the lag of domestic drama research. As one of the "lectures by famous artists", Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art not only provides an excellent and applicable textbook for drama education in colleges and universities, but also fills the gap in drama research in China and shows the new progress in contemporary drama research. It is a rare masterpiece of scientific drama.
As a self-contained drama work, Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art presents the following characteristics:
First, the content is comprehensive and the style is complete.
Drama is a science that takes drama as the research object. Drama itself is a highly comprehensive art that combines many artistic factors such as literature, music, architecture, art and dance, and is directly performed by actors in a certain place (theater) for the audience to enjoy. Therefore, as far as drama art itself is concerned, its outstanding feature is that it has both literariness and stage, and literariness mainly comes from scripts (playwrights). The stage includes directors, actors, stage art (including lighting, sound, makeup), theater, audience, etc. Only by understanding and grasping the elements that constitute drama as an organic whole can we fully understand the essence of drama and truly understand what drama is, which is the narrow scope of drama research. Drama is inextricably linked with society, times and other disciplines, and drama has its own history and present situation. Therefore, if drama itself and all issues related to drama are brought into the research field of vision, it is drama in a broad sense, which also includes drama history, drama anthropology, drama sociology, drama philosophy, drama psychology, drama morphology, drama philology and drama education. It is impossible for a drama monograph to exhaust all-inclusive contents in a broad sense of drama, and the general drama monograph is only in a narrow sense of drama. Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art absorbs the advantages of previous drama works in content arrangement and style design, and overcomes its shortcomings. In eleven lectures, it made a detailed and in-depth discussion on the basic theory of drama art, and in four lectures, it made a concise discussion on drama and film, drama and education, and a brief history of China and the world drama, all of which are closely related to the drama itself, which not only helps to broaden readers' horizons, but also helps to deepen their understanding. Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art is comprehensive and systematic in content, scientific and complete in style, and thorough in discussion, which pushes drama research to a new height and represents a new height of drama research in China.
Second, communication between ancient and modern, integration of Chinese and western.
Another outstanding aspect of Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art, which is different from many similar works, is that its style is scientific, systematic and complete. Another outstanding aspect is that its author has an open mind and broad vision, "breaking the' Chinese appearance', transcending all cultural barriers, and facing the drama cultural phenomena of all mankind, ancient and modern, Chinese and foreign, and daring to ask and discuss questions." Mr. Dong Jian once quoted Mr. Qian Zhongshu's four words more than once to show his academic belief and pursuit: "Learning from the South and Learning from the North, Taoism has not been cracked". He believes that "human beings have more similarities than differences in cultural creation, and overemphasizing differences is often a manifestation of cultural closed mentality. "However, in the past hundred years, China's cultural academic circles have developed under the guidance of cultural concepts that emphasize differences and opposites between China and foreign countries, which is probably the reason why China's cultural academic research lacks creative spirit and permanent universal value. It is Mr. Dong Jian's consistent proposition to integrate ancient and modern times, integrate Chinese and Western cultures, abandon the utilitarian concept of academic research, and pay attention to the common points and similarities of human spiritual culture. His research on drama is just such a way, which is embodied in the Fifteen Lectures on Drama Art: First, he studies and discusses the drama culture phenomena of all mankind in ancient and modern times, at home and abroad in the same category, focusing on the commonness and universality of human drama culture. In this way, whether discussing the essence of drama, the characteristics of tragedy and comedy, directing performance art, stage art, drama history and drama education, we can focus on the commonness of human drama culture, set foot on the boat of eastern and western drama culture and aim at the other side of the universal law of human drama art. In this way, the author's views on the basic principles of drama art not only avoid the bias and one-sidedness caused by narrow vision, but also make many arguments have distinct modern consciousness and universal theoretical value. For example, the first lecture in the book explains the cultural significance of drama, starting from "people" and taking "people" as the destination. Drama gives people entertainment and aesthetic enjoyment. Drama makes people resonate based on the beauty of human nature, and realizes communication, equality and harmony in the emotional field. Drama satisfies people's transcendence of reality and their needs for spiritual life. Drama is conducive to people's free and independent healthy personality and the development of social democracy. This not only opposes the pragmatism and political utilitarianism of drama function, but also profoundly reveals the more universal cultural significance of drama and gives people more lessons and enlightenment. Secondly, in the discussion of specific issues, we should remove the artificial barrier between drama and opera and examine the ecological situation of drama from the perspective of "drama-opera duality" structure. On the one hand, we should bring drama and opera into the same category of drama art and explore their common universal laws, on the other hand, we can't erase the fundamental differences between drama and opera as two types of drama in drama concept and artistic value system. For example, when it comes to the essential characteristics of drama, it lists China's ancient drama The West Chamber and western modern drama A Doll's House as typical examples; When it comes to tragedy, it ranks King Oedipus, Othello, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Death of a Salesman with Yuan, Orphan of Zhao and Thunderstorm. When talking about comedies, we take the western dramas Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Storm, D'Arthuys Fu and China's plays Saving the Wind, Wangjianglou and The West Chamber as examples. When talking about actors and performing arts, we analyze these two kinds of dramatic arts on the common premise that "people" are both the object and the tool of performance. In addition, when it comes to stage art and other content, there is also an equally wonderful analysis. This comparative study of Chinese and foreign dramas seeking common ground in differences and seeking differences in similarities also makes this work objectively have the value of comparative drama.
Third, highlight academic nature and give consideration to universality.
Fifteen Lectures on Dramatic Art is published in the form of general course materials in universities. Its scientific and complete system, concise and clear exposition, concise and fluent language and informative, interesting and popular content make it an excellent teaching material. For example, with regard to the occurrence and origin of drama, the author takes Li Bai's poem When You, My Love, Ride on a Bamboo Horse, and the children's game Play House as examples, and discusses the two purposes and meanings of "for entertainment" and "for sustenance" from three human instincts and desires, and then draws the conclusion that "this' 3+2' constitutes the whole occurrence of drama art. This expression and language style are basically unified throughout the book, and similar examples are all over the book, and there are countless examples. However, although the popularity of this book as a teaching material is outstanding, it is not a general knowledge introduction teaching material, and its style is "academic lecture". After reading the whole book, you have listened to 15 academic reports on drama. The expression of lectures is easy to understand and understand, but the contents of lectures often involve the most important theoretical and practical issues at the forefront of disciplines. Therefore, I think this book, as a drama monograph with distinctive personality, deserves special attention for its academic value. This is manifested in the following aspects: First, on the basis of inheriting and drawing lessons from previous research results, the scientific drama system has been further developed and improved. For example, regarding the composition of drama, predecessors have said "three elements" and "four elements", and the book thinks that it is inappropriate not to mention the director in the "four elements" theory, so it puts forward the "five elements" theory of script, director, actor, theater and audience, and thinks that "other aspects, such as composition, stage art and sound effects, can be regarded as" subsidiary "elements of drama. (Page 20 of the book) at the same time, it denies the one-sided formulation of "script-centered theory", "director-centered theory" and "actor-centered theory" which are not in line with the laws of drama art. The book consists of the essential characteristics of drama, drama classification, drama genre, drama "noumenon" and "subsidiary" elements, drama appreciation and criticism, drama style and genre, drama history, drama and film, drama and education. This book is the most complete drama I have ever seen. Secondly, in view of some important theoretical issues at the forefront of this discipline, the book puts forward a series of unique academic viewpoints, such as taking "drama" as a concentrated expression of the aesthetic characteristics of drama art, which has always been controversial. This book has special lectures. Based on the duality of drama, the author puts forward the theory of drama at the literary and stage levels, and discusses "drama in literary creation" and "drama in literary creation" respectively. For another example, in the Lecture on Drama Genre, the author systematically discusses the basic characteristics of tragedy and comedy for the first time from the perspective of tragic spirit and comedy spirit, and puts forward the conclusions that "in today's world, comedy spirit is more and more superior to tragic spirit" and "tragicomedy is a comedy". Its perspective and viewpoint are both refreshing and thought-provoking. In addition, the author's views on the importance of playwrights, his criticism of the tendency of "anti-drama", his description of the history of drama, and his discussion of directors and actors, theaters and audiences, and drama education all show his independent academic position and value orientation, and his academic nature is very prominent. Thirdly, the author's broad academic vision, distinct modern consciousness, independent critical spirit, the idea of blending Chinese and Western ideas, the method of comparative research, the style of integrating theory with practice and the vivid and concise language style make this work of universal reference significance in the ultimate value and methodology of academic research, which will undoubtedly be an important aspect of the potential and far-reaching academic value of this work.