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7

Journal of Theater Studies


2011 1 151-172

The Melodramatic Imagination


Peter Brooks

97-2410-H-002-131-MY2
1971
33
Peter Brooks, The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode
of Excess (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

vii
-151-

Raymond
Williamsstructure of feeling

excess
5

more is more

5
6
7

3
20091193-216
Brooks4
ix

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escapist theatre
light
entertainment
Q


post-sacred era
hyperdramatization

1907-1975

10

9
10

2009
Brooksviii
1971
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11

12

11
12

1
2
1-2
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13

14

15

16

13

14
15

16

1970
393-394
413-414
1971
192
268
-155-

17

17

157-289
-156-

18

19

20

21
22

18
19
20
21
22

291-406

407-582
580-581
583-6891956
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23

24

25

23
24
25

33
409-410
450
-158-

manichaeism
26

27

Owen Davis
the obvious
28

26
27
28

Brooks28-36
205
Michael R. Booth, English Melodrama (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1965), p. 15.
-159-

political dramapolitics of drama

29

30

31

32

29
30
31
32

34
34
34
35
-160-

-161-

comic relief

pornography
pornography
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erotica
pornography
pornography

33

34

35

33
34
35

689
594
595
-163-

36
37

38

Mikhail Bakhtincentrifugal force

39

40


41

36
37
38

39
40
41

594
594
1971
153-154
104
105
211
-164-

42

43

ambivalence

42
43

104
250
-165-

44

Henrik Ibsen, 18281906Anton Chekhov, 1860-1904


parody
Bernard Shaw,
1856-19501894-1955189844

486-488
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19681889-19621892-1978

45

1910-1996

Eric
Bentley

dramatic sense

46

47

cultural specificity

48

45
46
47
48

1970
Eric Bentley, The Life of the Drama (London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1965), p. 216.
Brooksxv
43
-167-

49


50

Michael Booth

51

52

49
50
51
52

34
34
Michael R. Booth, English Melodrama (London: Herbert Jenkins, 1965), p. 14.
582
-168-

masochism

Marianne Noble
sentimental literaturedisempowerment
53

empowerment

54

53

Marianne Noble, The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental

54

Brooks205

Literature (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2000).


-169-

post-sacred era
hyperdramatization

-170-

Manichaeism and Its Deviations:


Study of Anti-Communist Drama in Taiwan
Wei-jan CHI
Professor, Department of Drama and Theatre, National Taiwan University

The study of anti-communist drama of 1950s is important in the sense that it


offers a better understanding of the structure of feeling in Taiwan after 1949. The anticommunist drama is undoubtedly escapist, embracing the Ah Q-like spiritual victory
in great hysteria. If the driving force of contemporary theatre in Taiwan is the market,
the impetus behind the emergence of anti-communist drama was the state apparatus.
The anti-communist drama was the product of a post-sacred era; it was a kind of
crisis drama that cried out the agony and pain of diaspora. To be sure, it shamelessly
served as an instrument of ideological warfare in the feud between KMT and the Red
China. Yet, by posing itself as art, it could not totally ignore other concerns such as
artistic merits, entertainment factors, and market value. The paper demonstrates that
in the process of making itself presentable, entertaining, and marketable, the anticommunist drama was consequently and perhaps unintentionally imbued with elements
that deviated from the strict code of manichaeism and thus, to a certain extent,
deconstructed itself.
Key words: Anti-communist drama
politics of drama

melodrama

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manichaeism

political drama

1971

1971

______1971

1970

____1971

____1971

____1971

2009
3
20091193-216

1971
1971

1970
1971
Bentley, Eric. The Life of the Drama. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1965.
Booth, Michael R. English Melodrama. London: Herbert Jenkins, 1965.
Brooks, Peter. The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of
Excess. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995.
Noble, Marianne. The Masochistic Pleasures of Sentimental Literature. New Jersey: Princeton
University Press, 2000.

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