The modern drama in crisis: the inaction in plays by Maurice Maeterlinck

• Grant number: 13/16925-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: November 01, 2013
• End date: October 31, 2014
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Philosophy
• Principal Investigator: Ana Maria Portich
• Grantee: Amanda Oshiro Costa
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia e Ciências (FFC). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Marília. Marília , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research seeks to analyze philosophically plays dealing with two moments of artistic representation of modern subjectivity: human autonomy advocated by French Neoclassicism (17th century) and his reflux, which can be illustrated by Maurice Maeterlinck's plays (late 20th century). Racine's plays are the neoclassic pattern adopted here. These plays illustrate more closely the dramatic working through self-referential, that means 1) not being presented for any external figure (narrator, author), 2) dialogue, and 3) role-playing active in inter-human conflict. Maeterlinck, in turn, to choose death as thematic content, breaks with some of these features, namely the essentially intersubjective relationship conflict and the human capacity by self-determination. In Maeterlinck's drama, the tragedy remains, but not as the outcome of actions. It is a given fact that expresses the predetermined state of helplessness of man before his inscrutable destiny. In this sense, the neoclassical plays, especially from Racine, which consolidated the notion of drama as free human enterprise, will be oppose by Maeterlinck's drama, mainly expressed by the characters' inaction. Therefore, the theoretical approach adopted takes into account changes in the categories of literary genre in correlation with the historical transformations of the human spirit. Authors such as Peter Szondi and Lukács are the conceptual basis of this research. (AU)