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The Symbol of the Knife in Büchner's Woyzeck
Author(s) -
Larsen Svend Erik
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.1985.tb00837.x
Subject(s) - symbol (formal) , transformational leadership , interpretation (philosophy) , ideal (ethics) , relevance (law) , order (exchange) , character (mathematics) , relation (database) , computer science , process (computing) , selection (genetic algorithm) , psychology , artificial intelligence , epistemology , social psychology , philosophy , mathematics , political science , law , data mining , geometry , finance , programming language , economics , operating system
In this article I discuss different aspects of the transformation of the written dramatic text to the staged performance text, in order to reveal some features of the reception embedded in the performance. I stress four aspects of the transformational process: the multimediality, the hic‐et‐nunc character, the relation to older dramatic texts, and the problem of fragments. An analysis of Biichner's Woyzeck , focusing the possible role in a performance of the element of the knife, leads me to the following conclusions: an adequate analysis of a dramatic text must emphasize the elements which articulate the transformational process; an adequate analysis must give priority to the relevance for a topical audience and thus allow a performance a certain freedom of interpretation and selection of the dramatic text; a dramatic text does not have one ideal audience and, consequently, a performance should be created for several addressees.