1st Edition
Poetic Images, Presence, and the Theater of Kenotic Rituals
This book explores the interrelation of contemporary French theatre and poetry.
Using the pictorial turn in the various branches of art and science, its observable features, and the theoretical framework of the conceptual metaphor, this study seeks to gather together the divergent manners in which French poetry and theatre address this turn. Poetry in space and theatricality of poetry are studied alongside theatre, especially to the performative aspect of the originally theological concept of "kenosis". In doing so the author attempts to make use of the theological concept of kenosis, of central importance in Novarina’s oeuvre, for theatrical and dramatological purposes. Within poetic rituals, kenotic rituals are also examined in the book in a few theatrical practices – János Pilinszky and Robert Wilson, Jerzy Grotowski and Eugenio Barba – facilitating a better understanding of Novarina’s works.
Accompanied by new English translations in the appendices, this is the first English language monograph related to the French essayist, dramaturg and director Valère Novarina’s theatre, and will be of great interest to students and scholars in theatre and literature studies.
The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license.
Introduction PART I: Image and presence: two trends in contemporary French poetry 1.Predecessors: Contemporary French poets in the pages of Nyugat and Nouvelle Revue Française (NRF) Between 1909 and 1937 2. Yves Bonnefoy and the poetry of presence 3. The new lyricism 4. Conclusion PART II: Theatrical presence, poetic rituality, and the theater of kenotic rituals 5. Methodological considerations and the Hungarian Context of Reception 6. Kenosis in theology 7. Kenosis in Simone Weil’s mysticism 8. Mysticism in the approach to theater: The "kenotic" theater 9. Figures and Disfigurations of the Human Face 10. On Bearing Witness to a Poetic Ritual. Robert Wilson’s Deafman Glance as seen by János Pilinszky 11. Valère Novarina and János Pilinszky, or the Theater of Unselfed Poetry 12. Sacred or Holy? Dramaturgy in Valère Novarina’s theater 13. Emptiness, Space, and time in Valère Novarina’s theater 14. Rituals in Valère Novarina’s works 15. The Imaginary Animal 16. Novarina’s works produced in Hungary Summary 17. Appendix 1 18. Appendix 2 19. Appendix 3 20. Appendix 4
Biography
Enikő Sepsi is Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Arts Studies and General Humanities at Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary.
