Sublime Drama - British Theatre of the 1990s

Acknowledgements

1 Introduction

1.1 Thesis

1.2 Overview of Chapters

1.3 Previous Research

2 Theory of the Sublime

2.1 Longinus

2.1.1 “The echo of a great soul”

2.1.2 Sappho and the Threatened Subject

2.1.3 The Turn of the Sublime

2.2 Edmund Burke

2.2.1 Towards an Aesthetic of Shocks: Burke

2.2.2 The Beautiful and the Sublime

2.3 Immanuel Kant

2.3.1 Characteristics of the Aesthetic Feeling

2.3.2 The Beautiful and the Sublime

2.4 Jean-François Lyotard

2.4.1 Lyotard and Kantian Reflective Aesthetic Judgement

2.4.2 Adjusting Kantian Sublime to the Postmodern Context

2.4.3 Realism

2.4.4 The Inhuman

2.4.5 The Threat of Privation

2.4.6 The Ungraspable Presence

2.5 Summary

2.6 Theorizing the Sublime for Drama Analysis

3 Case Studies

3.1 Patrick Marber’s Closer

3.1.1 The Beautiful, the Agreeable and the Sublime

3.1.2 Synopsis

3.1.3 Internal Analysis: Moments of (In)Hospitality

3.1.4 External Analysis: Moments of the (Un)Familiar

3.2 Anthony Neilson’s Normal

3.2.1 Synopsis

3.2.2 Bataille, Eros and Thanatos, and the Evil Inside

3.2.3 Internal Analysis: Wehner’s Sublime Encounter with Eros and Thanatos

3.2.4 The External Level: Ecstasy of Minds

3.3 Mark Ravenhill’s Faust Is Dead

3.3.1 Synopsis

3.3.2 Seduction in Realism and in Sublime

3.3.3 Internal Analysis: Consumerist Seduction of the Characters

3.3.4 External Analysis: Sublime Seduction of the Audience

3.4 Sarah Kane’s 4.48 Psychosis

3.4.1 The Impossible Synopsis

3.4.2 Internal Analysis: Singing on the Boundary

3.4.3 External Analysis: the Influence of the Parergonal Language on the Audience

4 Conclusion

5 Works Cited