Class, Culture and Tragedy in the Plays of Jez Butterworth

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-030-62710-2
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 217 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 413 g

Jez Butterworth is undoubtedly one of the most popular and commercially successful playwrights to have emerged in Britain in the early twenty-first century. This book, only the second so far to have been written on him, argues that the power of his most acclaimed work comes from a reinvigoration of traditional forms of tragedy expressed in a theatricalized working-class language. Butterworth’s most developed tragedies invoke myth and legend as a figurative resistance to the flat and crushing instrumentalism of contemporary British political and economic culture. In doing so they summon older, resonant narratives which are both popular and high-cultural in order to address present cultural crises in a language and in a form which possess wide appeal. Tracing the development of Butterworth’s work chronologically from Mojo (1995) to The Ferryman (2017), each chapter offers detailed critical readings of a single play, exploring how myth and legend become significantin a variety of ways to Butterworth’s presentation of cultural and personal crisis.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Mcevoy, Sean

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Einzelne Autoren: Monographien & Biographien
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Theater- und Filmwissenschaft | Andere Darstellende Künste Theaterwissenschaft
• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Literaturwissenschaft: Dramen und Dramatiker

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1. Introduction.- 2. Yakkety Yak: Mojo (1995).- 3. Exclusion from the Garden: The Night Heron (2002).- 4. Homage: The Winterling (2006).- 5. Drought: Parlour Song (2008).- 6. The Enchanted Wood: Jerusalem (2009).- 7. Time, Myth and Power: The River (2012).- 8. Allusion: The Ferryman (2017).

Über Autor(innen)

Sean McEvoy is a Bye Fellow in English at Murray Edwards College, University of Cambridge, UK. His research specialisms include early modern English theatre and contemporary British and Irish theatre, with a particular interest in tragedy. Previous publications include Hamlet: A Sourcebook (2005), Ben Jonson: Renaissance Dramatist (2007), Theatrical Unrest: Ten Riots in the History of the Stage 1601-2004 (2016), and Tragedy: The Basics (2017).