No abstract

No abstract

That Elizabethan plays, and particularly Shakespeare's history plays, had a great influence on "epic" drama is by now a commonplace of Brecht criticism; but no one seems to have worked out exactly how close the two dramaturgies are. This essay, therefore, aims to do three things. First, to interpret the dramaturgical theories and practice of Brecht, noting that his ideas changed towards the end of his career and that there was sometimes a gap between his theory and practice. Second, to suggest parallel theories or practices in the Elizabethan drama. And, finally, to reverse the normal process of historical criticism, and, instead of assessing the influence of Shakespeare on Brecht, to investigate whether the clear statements of intention by Brecht, when he uses certain devices, may not occasionally throw new light on Shakespeare's use of similar devices—light normally obscured for us by our predominately classical-realist training. There is a tendency in Shakespearian criticism, I think, to treat Elizabethan departures from realism solely as conventions, that is, as an agreed-on, accepted simplification of reality, a dramatic shorthand. But may they not sometimes be deliberate ruptures of the dramatic illusion as in Brecht—intended to prevent our application of everyday attitudes, our too easy sympathies, our tendency to abstract and unify into familiar patterns? At least, there can be no harm in trying such an approach. We shall thus be following T. S. Eliot's advice: using the new genius to re-interpret the old tradition. Moreover, it seems to me that several of the most recent critics and producers of Shakespeare are already moving in this direction—though, as far as I know, their tendency has not so far been associated with the influence of Brecht.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. Folger ShakespeareIn this essay I use the term mise-en-scene as it is employed in the cinema rather than the theater in order to emphasize that in each of the three films of King Lear I shall examine-Peter Brook's version in 1971, Grigori Kozintsev's in 1970 (which the West did not see until 1972), and Akira Kurosawa's adaptation Ran, meaning literally "chaos," in 1985-the scenery, props, and costumes are not mere aids or background but provide a semiology of their own that comments independently on the dramatic action. They function, in Kozintzev's words, "like the chorus of a Greek tragedy,"' and they impose themselves so powerfully at times that they effectively determine interpretation. This happens because the very nature of the film medium requires that the correspondences between natural, social, domestic, and mental planes that Shakespeare establishes through language must be represented by strong visual images if they are to have a comparable effect upon the screen.Each of the three directors was well aware of this requirement, and the interpretative differences between them focus particularly on the relationship that their visual presentations suggest between non-human Nature on the one hand and human nature on the other-understanding by "human nature" both the institutions that mankind creates in order to transform Nature (at least partially) into a "home," and, more trickily, the nature of human consciousness per se, the way the mind perceives realities outside itself. From Brook through Kozintsev to Kurosawa, the perceptual balance swings from almost solipsistic subjectivity to a sad, aloof neutrality. Brook's film is existentialist in outlook and frequently expressionist (or surrealist) in mode and presents a Nature that is savagely inimical to human life and values; Kozintsev's Lear has a much more ethical focus on the play's social and domestic planes, with Nature reflecting, rather than causing, man's inhumanities to man; while Kurosawa's emphasis is on the cyclical repetitiveness of human history, with Nature as beautiful but benignly aloof from man's self-punishing folly. Brook's film is philosophical and pessimistic; Kozintsev's is ethical and tentatively optimistic; and Kurosawa's mixes a retributive view of history with Buddhism to produce an enigmatic effect that eludes both simplifications. II Despite these basic differences of interpretation, all three directors admired and were influenced by each other's work (both positively and negatively), and it is worth considering these general interactions before looking at each film in detail. In both his books on Shakespeare, Kozintsev had generous praise for Brook's 1962 stage version of the play, calling Brook ...