Piero Cavallari                                      cl.4A                                                         15-11-2011

WHAT DOES CATHARSIS MEAN?

From Greek katharsis, from kathairein, to purge, from katharos, pure

1. (Medicine) Purgation, especially for the digestive system.

2. A purifying or figurative cleansing of the emotions, especially pity and fear, described by Aristotle as an effect of tragic drama on its audience.

3. A release of emotional tension, as after an overwhelming experience, that restores or refreshes the spirit.

4a. (Psychology) A technique used to relieve tension and anxiety by bringing repressed feelings and fears to consciousness.

b. The therapeutic result of this process; abreaction.

CATARSI

1.Nella religione greca, periodo di purificazione per il quale l'anima del defunto si libera dall'attaccamento sensibile ai beni terreni che le impedisce la contemplazione del divino. 2.Secondo la dottrina aristotelica, purificazione delle passioni attraverso una rappresentazione tragica che converte le emozioni dolorose in piacevoli. 3 Il richiamo alla soglia della coscienza di un'idea o di un ricordo represso, così da renderlo innocuo, avendolo chiarito (rasserenamento). 4 Termine medico che indica l'evacuazione accelerata di ciò che è contenuto nell'intestino, ottenuta mediante purganti.

Etimologia:

•·        Catarsi, dal greco kàtharsis , deriv. da kathàirein purificare.
                   

•·        Catartico, da greco katharos netto, o athartikos acconcio a purificare. Purgante che in poco tempo senza grande irritazione netta il canale intestinale.

Our lession on 15th November 2011

The word play has two different meanings:

• - a theatre performance;
• - a theatrical text.

A play has two distinctive features: it's a text of words, but it's also meant to be performed on a stage.

Drama, what is it??

It's a play for acting on stage with high emotional content. Drama, like poetry, stirs emotions thanks its own conventions: indeed drama is not made only by words, but of sights and sounds, stillness and motion, noise and silence, relationships and responses. A play creates an interaction between what happens on the stage and the audience who directly witnesses the events acted. The actors can get the audience's feedback from the onstage actions. It's important to note there's no intermediary between the theatre performance and the spectators.

A play can be analyzed from very different points of view, using different tools such as music, the actors' body language or the text analysis; but it is very important to underline all these features are not mutually exclusive, on the contrary a play is brought to life when all those cooperate together in a very tight way.

A play is organized into acts which are organized into scenes. A scene is a tool the playwright can adopt where the time of the performance and the time of the scene is the same (unlike the novel where can be adopted the device of the summary).

The language used creates different effects on the audience's emotions, and by this it's an essential tool of a play.

Dialogue is the more typical kind of text in a theatre, above narration or description, and it reveals the characters' personalities, informs the audience about what is happening on the stage and raises expectations as to what will come next.

A monologue is a speech made by a character to others who do not reply; a soliloquy is made by someone alone, or regardless of any hearers, on the stage; an aside is a comment made by a character for the audience only.

The stage directions are the playwright's instructions for interpreting and staging the play    ( for example the use of voice and body language, lighting or sets).

The plot tells about events set in a storyline. The sequence of facts is the action of the play.

PROP: a movable object on the stage which marks scene changes.

SCENERY: fixed objects (walls, stairways...) which indicate a specific place.