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Intention and Purpose in Rina Yerushalmi's Woyzeck 91
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 January 2009
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I assume that any work of art reflects authorial intention. Its determination, however, is probably one of the most difficult tasks in interpretation. I also assume that accounts by the authors themselves are not necessarily valid, and indeed they are often conspicuously inadequate. Therefore, for the scholar, the work itself essentially remains the only reliable object of research. In the following paragraphs I intend to suggest, apply and eventually formalize a method of research whose main objective is to determine authorial intentions and purposes in a given theatrical performance text.
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References
Notes
1. For further details see Rozik, Eli, ‘Categorization of Speech Acts in Play and Performance Analysis’. Dramatic Theory and Criticism, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1993.Google Scholar
2. For an extended discussion of the difference between play text and performance text see Rozik, Eli, The Language of the Theatre (Glasgow: Theatre Studies Publications, 1992).Google Scholar
3. See Rozik, Eli, ‘Speech Acts and the Theory of Theatrical Communication’. Kodikas/Code, 12, 1–2, 1989Google Scholar; and ‘Plot Analysis and Speech Act Theory’, in Deledalle, G., ed., Signs of Humanity—L'Homme et ses signes (Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1992).Google Scholar
4. On theory of speech activity, see Austin, John, How to Do Things with Words (London: Oxford University Press, 1962)Google Scholar; Searle, John R., Speech Acts (Cambridge University Press, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Expression and Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 1986 [1979]); Levinson, Stephen C., Pragmatics (Cambridge University Press, 1987 [1983]).Google Scholar ‘On Intentional-ity’ in Searle, John R., Intentionality (Cambridge University Press, 1991 [1983]).Google Scholar
I believe that action theory is more appropriate: whereas speech act theory presupposes verbal predominance, action theory stresses the performative aspects of speech activity, i.e., its non-verbal nature. In particular, see Teun A. van Dijk, Text and Context (London: Longman, 1977).
5. Dijk, Van, Text and Context., p. 175Google Scholar In this sense, in Austin terms, ‘intention’ becomes equivalent to ‘force’ and ‘purpose’ to ‘perlocutionary effect’.
6. For detailed discussion see Rozik, Eli, The Language of the Theatre, pp. 48–63.Google Scholar
7. My analysis is based on the Hebrew translation by Sandbank, Shimon, Woyzeck (Tel Aviv: Or Am, 1982).Google Scholar All quotations from the play are from the English translation of Mackendrick, John, Woyzeck (London: Methuen Drama, 1991 [1979]).Google Scholar The performance was video-taped and a copy of the tape is in my possession. All the photos which illustrate this article are reproductions from this tape
8. In contrast to Georg Steiner who sees in Woyzeck a tragedy of language. See The Death of Tragedy (London: Faber & Faber, 1961), p. 280.
9. Washing and purifying Marie is an addition of the translator. See criticism of that addition in the introduction to the English translation.
10. See, for instance, his use of the parable of the poor man's lamb: II Samuel, 12, 1–15.
12. Introduction to the English translation (p. viii).
13. On source H3, see the introduction to the English translation, pp. xxi and xxv.
14. Shakespeare, , Hamlet, I, v.Google Scholar
15. In Beith Tsionei America (the House of American Zionists) in Tel Aviv.