New messengers : short narratives in plays by Michael Frayn, Tom Stoppard and August Wilson

Intro -- Contents -- 1 Introduction -- 1.1 Structure of the Book -- 2 Why Mainstream -- 3 The Old Messenger -- 3.1 The Messenger as a Convention -- 4 The Poetic Tradition -- 4.1 Historical Development -- 4.2 Aristotelian Poetics -- 5 The Prague School Theory of Theatre and Drama -- 5.1 The Prague School Heritage -- 5.2 The Aesthetic Function -- 5.3 The Referential Function -- 6 Morphology and the Theory of Actants -- 6.1 The Propp Inspiration -- 6.2 The Messenger as Character-Function -- 7 Brecht's Heritage -- 8 Reportage -- 9 Introducing New Messengers -- 10 New Messengers on the Stage -- 10.1 A Remark Concerning the Case Studies -- 11 Pushing the Action Forward -- 11.1 The Voice from the Gadget -- 12 Interpreting for Others -- 12.1 The Eye-Witness Testifies -- 12.2 New Messengers as Political Agents -- 13 Informing (about) the Actual World -- 13.1 New Messengers as Teaching Agents -- 14 The New Messenger's Applications: a Conclusion -- 15 Epilogue -- Works Cited -- Index.;The publication introduces the "new messenger" as a specific type of dramatic character, a follower of the conventional „messenger" whose presence in traditional drama serves several purposes, which the new messenger also fulfils. What makes it different is the fact that it is not an independent character, but the role it has is assumed by major characters in contemporary mainstream drama, such as journalists and reporters, politicians and their assistants, scientists and teachers, detectives and police officers, historical characters, philosophers and literary scholars, etc. The publication p.

The publication introduces the "new messenger" as a specific type of dramatic character, a follower of the conventional "messenger" whose presence in traditional drama serves several purposes, which the new messenger also fulfils. What makes it different is the fact that it is not an independent character, but the role it has is assumed by major characters in contemporary mainstream drama, such as journalists and reporters, politicians and their assistants, scientists and teachers, detectives and police officers, historical characters, philosophers and literary scholars, etc. The publication provides examples of the use of this type in a series of case studies of plays by two British playwrights Michael Frayn and Tom Stoppard, and an African-American playwright August Wilson.