Author: Wise, Jennifer
Hardback; Book; 6 Drawings
280 pages
Published: August 1998
Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801434599

What is the nature of theatre's uneasy alliance with literature? Theatre historian and drama theorist Jennifer Wise believes that a comparison of the performance style of oral epic with that of drama as it emerged in 6th-century Greece shows the extent to which theatre was influenced by literate activities relatively new to the ancient world.What is the nature of theatre's uneasy alliance with literature? Should theatre be viewed as preliterate and ritualistic, or grouped with other literary arts as essentially textual. The author of this study reconstructs the historical context from which Western theatre first emerged.