COLT 202 The World of Drama: Constructing a "Modernist" Tradition

Ursula Lindqvist

We will study plays from Russia, Sweden, Norway, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the United States in the context of the so-called "Modernist" period in literary history, roughly 1890-1945. All plays will be read in English translation. We will also read secondary material, such as correspondence and essays, in order to study how writers and critics of this period sought to construct a new kind of theater. We will examine literary concepts such as realism, naturalism, and expressionism. We will also consider standpoints and representations of gender, race, and class in the construction of "Modernist" theater. Plays to include: The Wild Duck, Henrik Ibsen; Three Sisters, Anton Chekhov; Sacred Blood, Zinaida Gippius; The Ghost Sonata, August Strindberg; True Women, Anne Charlotte Leffler Edgren; Six Characters in Search of an Author, Luigi Pirandello; Mother Courage and Her Children, Bertolt Brecht; Wavering Traces, Hasegawa Shiguré; and The Purple Flower, Marita Bonner.