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Copyright of Etudes Romanes de Brno is the property of Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

La présence des didascalies dans l’œuvre dramatique ne relève pas d’une fantaisie de la part des auteurs. Ces derniers en usent de manière modérée ou par saturation pour accompagner les formes dialogiques à travers les circonstances qui les singularisent ou pour accéder à la psychologie du héros et des autres personnages. Comprendre la plupart des œuvres dramatiques impose au critique d’identifier les didascalies en les déclinant en catégories introductives et intégrées, en définissant un mode de décryptage qui procède par sous catégorie afin d’établir leur fonction. Il ressort de cet article que quelle que soit sa nature, toute didascalie participe du sens. Elle revêt des fonctions d’anticipation, de rythmisation et de ponctuation dissimulées dans les discours et les situations. The presence of didascalies in plays is not a matter of fantasy on the part of the authors. The latter use them in a moderated way or by saturation to go with the dialogic forms through the circumstances that singularize them or to access to the psychology of the hero and the other characters. Understanding most of the dramatic works requires the critic to identify the didascalies by organizing them into introductive and integrated categories, by defining a mode of decodage that proceed by sub-categories in order to establish their function. It emerges from this paper that whatever its nature, any didascalie participates to the meaning. It plays the functions of anticipation, rythmisation and punctuation dissimulated in the discourse and the situations.

Paratext, the most marginal part of a text, has been rarely considered the central focus of any research or literary criticism. Beginning from the title to the back-cover information of a book, Genette dedicated a whole work to this aspect of a text in his “Seuils” (1987). In spite of all the basic theoretical references which this work has provided for literary criticism, it failed to find a fundamental place in the field of practical literary analyses. This article has studied the Paratext of “Death of Yazdgerd”, a historical drama written by Bahram Beyzai. “Title”, “Epigraph” and pre-interactional “Stage direction”, the three outer text elements, have been perused in the mentioned drama. It is postulated that the Paratext of this opus, presents enough aesthetic and ideological elements to inform the reader of the form and contents of the text. Paratext has gone farther than its basic introductive role and has almost created a “cover-all” condensation for the play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Confluente is the property of University of Oradea, Confluente and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Although Die see (The Sea, 2011) depicts a single day in 1795 in the lives of three female slaves, the playwright does not use the words "slave drama" or "slave play" to describe her text. These words do not appear in the published play at all. In spite of the absence of the words "slave drama" or "slave play", I consider the three slaves in the play as representing all slaves. My discussion consequently concerns the marginal position of all slaves and their longing for freedom. In the play, the slaves' anonymous owner and master holds Ou Vrou (Old Woman), Vrou (Woman) and Meisie (Maiden) captive in a dungeon beneath the Castle in Cape Town. Outside, a British naval force approaches the Dutch settlement from the Muizenberg side of the peninsula. The sound of approaching canon can be heard. Oblivious of their impending liberation, the three slaves discuss their experiences of being treated as the property, or sexual objects, of their master. True to her character, each slave expresses in her own way her longing for freedom. For now, all they can do is to escape to an imaginary garden in their dreams or dream of their childhood outside the Castle. Notwithstanding the absence of clear indications that Die see is a slave drama, the didascalies provide hints that this may be the case. Such indications include descriptions of the dramatis personae, references to the time of and the place in which the action occurs, and dedicating the play to Peter Voges for keeping the memories of slaves alive and for showing respect for the role they played in establishing the colony. In the analysis, I address the question whether it is possible to identify Die see as a slave play from the perspective of the didascalies. As a first step, I identify the main features of slave dramas in general, and then I compare Die see from the point of view of the didascalies to these features. If this play could indeed be identified as a slave drama, it is possibly the only play in Afrikaans that deals with classical slavery. The nature of the didascalies in drama in general frames the question. Similar to Genette's notion of the paratext, the didascalies represent the extradiegetic and heterodiegetic voice of the playwright in the text. In Die see, the playwright's voice most clearly relates to De Wet's dedication of the play to Peter Voges. Her dedication shows two sides, in which past (memories of slavery as represented by the three slaves) and present ("liberation" from contemporary, alternative forms of "slavery") supplement each other. Juxtaposing memories of classical slavery (past) and "liberation" from alternative, comtemporary forms of "slavery", enables me to identify narrative and discursive structures, or the playwright's voice, in Die see. One side of the coin relates to information the playwright extracted from historical sources. De Wet does not indicate which source(s) she consulted, and whether they are written or oral. In my discussion, I made use of Robert Shell's Children of bondage, which, for the purpose of this article, proved to be an adequate and reliable source of information on slavery. In this section, I focus on the transposition of the Battle of Muizenberg, the accommodation of slaves in the Slave Lodge, the maltreatment of the three slaves as courtesans, and naming conventions as part of the fictionalised reality presented onstage. As part of the playwright's heterodiegetic voice, the other side of the coin allows for a double interpretation. The first interpretation relates to the playwright's use of metaphors indicating decay. For instance, the cracked dungeon's walls housing rats and lice denote cracks in the existing and soon to be replaced Dutch regime. The second interpretation involves the fashion in which the playwright concludes her play. She provides her play with an open ending during which she suggests that Ou Vrou does not die at that time. De Wet employs sound effects that allow for an interpretation in which the moment of liberation by British forces anticipates the future liberation of all slaves -- men, women and children -- from all kinds of bondage. The playwright relates the slaves' freedom to important dates in South African slave history, namely 1795 (first British occupation of the colony), 1834 (legal liberation of slaves), and 1838 (last slaves set free). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Various literary critics maintain conflicting views regarding the presentation of time in Sesotho drama. Some of the critics maintain that time in Sesotho drama characterises itself as socially based and as a result it reflects the daily pursuits of the Basotho. Some of the critics argue that time in Sesotho drama merely emulates the Western European modern time. The paper intends to explicate the application of time in Sesotho drama with a view to reflect on the said arguments. The paper is based on Maile's Boiphetetso (Revenge), the Sesotho drama based on extra-marital relationship as a social problem. The results reflect that time in Sesotho drama should be analysed within its proper socio-cultural context. One basic observation levelled at this research work is that it is strongly recommended that the European standards should not be forced onto Sesotho drama as it has characteristics exclusive to itself. The fact that time in Sesotho drama lacks an element of precision does not compromise the quality and the integrity of Sesotho drama as it appears to be its inherent feature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]