Document type
Books
Document subtype
Textbook
Title
Sensory Landscapes in Harold Pinter: A Study on Ecocriticism and Symbolist Aesthetics
Participants in the publication
Graça P. Corrêa (Author)
Dep. História e Filosofia das Ciências
CFCUL
Summary
Within the emerging interdisciplinary scope of landscape theory, this book explores the innovative concept of synesthetic landscape in the field of theatre studies, taking as its object of study the work written for the stage by contemporary British playwright Harold Pinter. The artistic concept of synesthesia, denoting an interconnectedness of our sensory perceptions resulting from a direct experience or interaction with the material medium of an artwork, was first underscored by artists and theorists of the fin-de-siècle Symbolist movement, subsequently by Phenomenology, and most recently by Sensory Theory, and Ecocriticism. When applied to theatre, the reading of synesthetic landscapes in a text—be it a play-text or a performance-text—should attempt to go beyond a probing of its visual aspects, and entail additionally an imaginative and embracing phenomenological experience of its many overlapping sensory “scapes” (such as mindscapes, bodyscapes, soundscapes, touchscapes, smell-scapes, and tastescapes). \\\\nThis synesthetic perspective may be particularly productive of new insights in the field of theatre studies: firstly, because in reading drama we inevitably perform it in our “minds,” and therefore any techniques of enhancing this reading may be invaluable for both producing and teaching theatre; and secondly, because theatre is a performing art that involves all of our sensory perceptions, both as performers and spectators, and therefore also an art of space and “scaping,” which intermingles both living and inanimate bodies within a connecting environment. Such an investigation will convey new critical insights and reveal innovative interpretive possibilities for performance of Pinter’s work, as well as unexplored political and environmental aspects of his theatre that specifically relate to our times.
Editor(s)
LAP Academic Publishing
Where published
LAP Academic Publishing
Publication Identifiers
ISBN - 9783846545140
Address
Saarbrücken, Germany
Edition
LAP Academic Publishing
Keywords
Landscape theory
Synesthesia
Ecocriticism
Ecophilosophy
Symbolist Movement
Phenomenology
Sensory theory
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