Master's Thesis in Theater Direction
Abstract
This research is an attempt to explain Walter Benjamin's opinions and critical thoughts about modern art, and it is also an attempt to reread many of his opinions, which are not directly aimed at the theater category, but in the opinion of the author, the scope of the basics proposed by him is enough to be able to understand the modern theater of the 20th century. Through the theoretical and thought field of this thinker, he tied knots and redefined or re-examined some concepts. First, the idea of ??simulating the rereading of classic plays by contemporary playwrights as a reproducible matter and the reproduction of an artistic object, which results in the deterioration of the historical authenticity of the work and, as a result, the destruction of its aura. Second, recovering the lost experience in the modern era with the help of retesting storytelling in the world of information and technology. Benjamin's goal is not only to reveal the destructive strains of modern instrumental rationality, but to roll in history in the sense of the darkness of the present century as a truly contemporary subject. The dialectic that the modern writer sets up in the capacity of a knowing subject with the identified object; As a result, its originality is lost, its aura is lost, and modern people fearlessly and ancient fear reread its recovered meaning. The goal is to overcome the singularity of the work of art and make it available to the masses. A goal that breaks the border, religious and religious values ??of art and gives art a performance value. A value that, according to Benjamin, modern man is bound to accept.
About the lack of experience in the modern era, Benjamin raises the issue of stories and storytellers. According to him, the decline of experience and the exchange of intersubjective experience of modern mankind was rooted in the decline of storytelling, companionship with the storyteller and true exchange, which is completely subjective (mental) and does not get caught in the cycle of commodity exchanges and the cycle of production. Contrary to the title and the mentality that it evokes, storytelling is not mythic or mythic in any way, but it summons nature and history in the presence of its listener and reader.
Keywords: myth, modern rationality, reproducibility, rereading, Benjamin, experience, modern subject.
First
Overview of the research: chapter introduction
11 Statement of the subject:
"Modern rationality" [1] is a title that comes from the intellectual tradition of Europe after the Renaissance and specifically the 18th century, which is referred to as the "Age of Enlightenment" [2]. Although the desire to rule reason over all aspects of human life is not entirely specific to this period, it was in this period that there was a great will to give superiority and emphasis on reason as the factor of man's sovereignty over his living world. The course of the evolution of reason and the currents involved in it will be described in detail in the upcoming chapters.
The main theme of modern thought emerging from the Enlightenment period, in particular, was the two-way confrontation between myth and reason. In other words, from the point of view of Enlightenment thought, what hinders human progress is myth, or in a more general perspective, the fear resulting from encountering the unknown nature (from which myth is born). The meaning of myth in this period is any concept that stands against the rational explanation of human life. By rejecting the mythological image of the world, the Enlightenment replaced it with a scientific image (thinking) of the world. From the point of view of scientific thinking, the myth is something that cannot be inferred and understood by methodical experience and cannot be verified.
The conflict between reason and myth as two separate and of course intertwined aspects of the human biological and intellectual world goes back to before the Enlightenment, and according to Hans-Georg Gadamer [3]:
If we look at the emergence of Western civilization, it seems like this. It turns out that three waves of enlightenment have passed over this history: [first,] the wave of enlightenment that reached its peak in the extreme sophistic thought of the late fifth century BC in Athens; [Second,] the wave of enlightenment of the 18th century, which reached its peak in the era of rationalism of the French Revolution, and [third,] the wave of enlightenment, perhaps we can call it the enlightenment movement of [our] century, which has reached its peak with ``atheistic religion'' and its institutional establishment in modern atheistic government systems. The problem of myth has a close connection with all three stages of Enlightenment thought.
(Gadamer, 2007: 100)
The process of rationalizing the world and turning reason into a tool to achieve goals such as the advancement of science and liberation from metaphysics by giving unquestionable importance to the place of science, caused the rise of positivism[4] (positivism), empiricism and also pragmatism[5] (authenticity of action); As the romanticism of the 19th century and the critical theories of the 20th century, each of them sought to redeem (rescue) the true form of human rationality.
In this research, the achievements and orientations of the Enlightenment era are tried to compare the position of rationality and myth, raising one (rationality) and lowering the other (myth) through criticisms. The romanticism of the 19th century should be analyzed with the help of the theories of the critical current of the 20th century and especially the opinions of Walter Benjamin[6] (1892-1940). Due to his studies conflicts with historical materialism, romanticism and Jewish theology, Walter Benjamin explained his critical and radical ideas about theology, language, literature (especially the novel and poetry of the 19th century), philosophy of history and art (including theater) with the help of concepts such as the technical reproducibility of the work in the course of modernity, translation and the mission of the translator, experience and its lack of manifestation in the modern era, as well as epic theater[7] was expanding Of course, in some cases, the alignment of Frankfurt school thinkers such as Theodor Aderno[8] and Max Horkheimer[9] with the ideas of Walter Benjamin will be helpful in understanding the coordinates of the modernization process. In the meantime, the involvement of philosophy and myth caused the dramatists of different post-enlightenment periods to reflect the resulting orientations towards myth in the drama system. Meanwhile, Gotthold Abraham Lessing[10] (1729-1781) was taking steps in explaining the theoretical foundations of the Enlightenment period and by writing plays in line with the Enlightenment thinking, and his last and one of his most important achievements in this field is the play Natan Khordmand[11] (1779). On the other hand, the romantic period was influenced by German idealism and the time of the emergence of the first intellectual-oriented criticism of the Enlightenment, which can be found in Johann Wolfgang Goethe [12] (1832 1749) and his play Faust [13]. It intends to examine the relationship between the myth and the theater by considering the rationalized strain of the human biological world through the concepts raised in the Frankfurt school's critical theory system.
The modern theater in the 20th century has experienced periods, currents, different attitudes and different approaches, and among them there have been playwrights and directors who have used the myth as a basis for their theatrical flow. It should be mentioned that the political tensions, the occurrence of world wars, the biological and psychological condition of the 20th century man and the place of science and technology as well as its role as a distinguishing aspect of this era compared to the past eras created the conditions and issues that each of them has been objectified in some way in the world of drama and stage. The theater of the 20th century represents man and the existing conditions of his era. Modern man is influenced by external, historical, political and social conditions. According to the enlightenment and philosophy that emerged from it, he gave his good news; Man was supposed to put an end to the domination of nature and its consequences (of which myth was a part) through his rationalism and his special attention to the place of science and technology, and man would achieve his long-standing dream of ruling the universe and become active and free subjects, but ". Free subjects or agents finally become the same "herd" which, according to Hegel, is the result and fruit of enlightenment" (Adorno and Horkheimer 1389: 45).
According to the conditions described briefly, modern thought adopts different positions in opposition to myth. Enlightenment philosophy takes the approach of "demythologizing" [14] the scene of human existence. In this approach, the Enlightenment puts aside the myth because of the conflicts and contradictions it has with its main foundations, which are reason and science. Romanticism and romantics try to recover, read and restore myths into their biological system. However, the 20th century is a completely different century. On the one hand, the myths of the past are recovered and reread, in other words "repetition"; And of course, the difference in the "readings" allows myths to be revived.