Define theater of the absurd and its goals as a performance medium
What will be an ideal response?
Theater also sought to capture the alienation and anguish of modern society. The international movement known as theater of the absurdrejected traditional dramatic structure (in which action moves from conflict to resolution), along with traditional modes of character development, inherited from Classical playwrights. The absurdist play, which drew stylistic inspiration from Dada performance art and surrealist film, lacks dramatic progression, direction, and resolution. Its characters undergo little or no change, dialogue contradicts actions, and events follow no logical order. Dramatic action, leavened with gallows humor, may consist of irrational and grotesque situations that remain unresolved at the end of the performance—as is often the case in real life.
The principal figures of absurdist theater reflect the international character of the movement: Samuel Beckett (Irish), Eugène Ionesco (Romanian), Harold Pinter (British), Fernando Arrabal (Spanish), Jean Genet (French), and Edward Albee (American). Taking Beckett's Waiting for Godot (written in 1948 and first staged in 1952) as an example, we observe that the main "action" of the play consists of a running dialogue—terse, repetitious, and often comical—between two tramps as they await the mysterious "Godot" (who, despite their anxious expectations, never arrives). Some find in Godot a symbol of salvation, revelation, or, most commonly, God—an interpretation that Beckett himself rejected. Nevertheless, in some way Godot gives a modicum of meaning to the lives of the central characters. Their longings and delusions, their paralysis and ignorance, are anticipated in the play's opening line, "Nothing to be done."
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Fornarina is an Italian word that means "butcher's wife."
Indicate whether the statement is true or false
The first philosopher to address questions of Christianity such as ex nihilo, evil, and predestination is
a. Martin Luther. b. Carl Sagan. c. Augustine. d. Thomas Aquinas.
What was Ockham's "razor"?
A. a technological breakthrough that allowed for more efficient shaves B. a philosophical method for eliminating superfluous information C. a literary device used by critics to dissect poetry D. a military formation employed during the Hundred Years' War
Who is the author of Utopia, a book about an ideal society?
A. Desiderius Erasmus B. Edmund Spenser C. Philip Sidney D. Thomas More