臺灣博碩士論文加值系統

論文提要 :
經歷過第一次世界大戰的布萊希特認為 , 傳統的戲劇無法將許多大戰後的社會現象給表現出來 , 而且還將觀眾貶低到完全被動的地步 , 因此他提出新的劇場理論 , 並且為他的戲劇命名為「史詩劇場」。 他認為戲劇要能夠不斷的提醒觀眾 , 所有的演出都是假的 , 他希望觀眾能夠保持清醒 , 進而對這齣戲做出批評。
為了達到他所想要的結果 , 布萊希特用了一些特殊的戲劇手法 , 例如 , 在內容方面取材自當代之外的其他時空範圍 ; 每一幕都各自獨立 ; 幕與幕之間沒有明顯的連接 ; 演員的最大功能只是在示範某個角色 , 他們不能讓觀眾覺得自己好像劇中人一樣 ; 偶爾穿插於對話、情節之間的歌唱或敘述 ; 單純的佈景 … 等等 , 這樣一來 , 劇場所呈現的行動就會比較「奇異」。 諸如此類的想法和技巧成為布萊希特的特色 , 而他所用的方法則被稱之為「陌生化效果」。
在了解了布萊希特的史詩劇場理論之後 , 從他的作品中找出實際的例子來印證他的理論便是這本論文的主要目的。 本論文的第三章討論的是布萊希特的主要劇作之一 : 勇氣媽媽。 這部作品一共分為十二幕 , 而劇中那輛貨車所代表的意義更是深長。在劇中眾多「社會姿態」的交集下 , 我們會赫然發現布萊希特在呈現這齣戲的主題時所費盡的一翻心思。 論文第四章探討的是另一部劇作 : 四川好女人。 劇中因神明的出現而讓劇情有如寓言故事一般 , 而透過這種方式來傳達作者的旨意更顯得客觀 , 因為那些外來的故事內容不容易讓觀眾產生移情作用 , 因此觀眾才能夠保持一顆清醒的心來對戲劇內容做出評論。 第五章討論的是布萊希特的最後一部主要劇作 : 高加索灰闌記。 在結構上他採用的是「劇中劇」的技巧 , 如此一來 , 觀眾便明顯地了解到他們是在聽故事 , 即使劇中角色再怎麼另人同情 , 觀眾也不容易入戲。
總而言之 , 透過實際的例證我們可以更清楚地了解布萊希特的戲劇理論 , 也由於他的努力 , 讓原本以為戲劇藝術就要從此陷入瓶頸的大眾 , 重新拾回了對戲劇的興趣。

Abstract
The Germany of the 1920s was chaotic and disillusioned. In both politics and theater old ideas were being questioned and new forms were being tried. After World War I Brecht saw the lines of unemployed, the abortive attempts of labor groups to gain control, the terrible inflation that wiped out all savings, and in the cities corruption, venality, and exploitation. Traditional theater seemed to Brecht incapable of reacting to these problems. Thus, Brecht wanted theater to be a more objective experience for his audiences, and to this end employed methods in his writing and production approach which constantly reminded the audiences that they should not get emotionally involved but think about the meaning of the play. He attempted to de-mystify theater─actors were seen as such, scenery was strictly functional, stage lighting and equipment were not concealed, and scene changes took place in full view of the audience. The play consisted of a series of short, self-contained episodes, and the action was broken up with songs to enable the audiences to reflect on what they had seen. Actors were encouraged not to immerse themselves in the roles they played but to adopt an acting style that was illustrative rather than illusionistic. Brecht often informed the audiences of the outcome of a scene in advance, by means of placards, filmed projections or a singing story-teller.
All these add up to Brecht’s technique and style, which is often called as “alienation effect” or “estrangement.” It is a deliberate, politically motivated method of distancing the audiences to encourage them to take a stand on social issues.
This thesis is divided into six chapters. In Chapter One I point out the aim of my study. Chapter Two is the introduction of Brecht’s theory of theater. After some knowledge about Brecht’s theory of epic theater, knowing that the main element of the epic theater is “alienation” which is implicit in almost all the other elements of Brecht’s theory, the main issue of this thesis is to illustrate his theory by going through his three major plays respectively in Chapters Three, Four, and Five.
Chapter Three deals with Mother Courage and Her Children (1941). As a montage of twelve scenes and a catalogue of gestures, the play is appreciated by its fragmental way of representation─the montage technique─that is capable of revealing the objective relations between the surface appearance of life and the reality of hidden social currents beneath. The many songs, instead of giving charm to the piece, increase our ironic awareness of the senselessness of the war. Every scene contains a lot of gestures and interruptions, both of which are pregnant with specific meanings. The narrative function can perceive the coherence of the events of the play.
Chapter Four is about The Good Woman of Setzuan(1943), which takes the form of a parable, in that it can offer simplicity and indirect, easy assimilation. Because parables are distanced through the remoteness of its setting in time and space, the need for realism is reduced. Technically speaking, this is the most complex and systematically structured play among the three plays in this thesis. The apparently exotic context, the using of mask, the interruption of the songs sung by the characters, the poetry-like way of talking from time to time, the narrator’s (who is also one of the characters) and the other characters’ direct addresses to the audiences, the changing suits directly in front of the audiences, the captions, the fairy-tale elements, … all these means are parts of Brecht’s theatrical techniques which aim at keeping the audiences conscious of the inauthenticity of what happened on the stage.
In Chapter Five, The Caucasian Chalk Circle(1945) is the last of Brecht’s masterpieces. In structure, it employs the traditional device of the play within the play. The rather crudely didactic framework involves a dispute over land rights. The central action, the play within the play, is offered to the disputing parties as a model, a guide to what their decision means. The climatic scene, the test of the circle, is a reworking of a traditional story. It is typical of Brecht that he twists the moral of this familiar tale to suit his own purposes. The greatness of the play lies in its narrative structure and philosophical implications, and moreover, the unforgettable vitality of the characters. The meaning of the play is summed up through his Singer in the last four lines of the play.
In conclusion, through the discussion of Brecht three major plays, I want to provide with some examples that successfully illustarte his theory of theater. Brecht’s greatness, as I recommend, lies in his unconventional way of production. Out of question, his ideas and practice are stimulating and instructive for an understanding of the theater. He offered us a new kind of theater as an alternative to the traditional ones. The term “Brechtian” has now entered theater vocabulary to indicate this epic or narrative style of writing and production, even when detached from any political message.

Table of Contents
Abstract . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . i
Acknowledgements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . x
Chapter One :Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Chapter Two : Brecht's Theory of Theater . . . . . . . . 10
Chapter Three : Mother Courage and Her Children . . . . 36
Chapter Four : The Good Woman of Setzuan . . . . . . . .55
Chapter Five : The Caucasian Chalk Circle . . . . . .. . 80
Chapter Six : Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .106
Works Cited. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116

Allen, John. eds. Drama and Religion. Cambridge: Cambridge U P,
1983.
Barfoot, C. C., and Cobi Bordewijk, eds. Theatre Intercontinental: Forms,
Functions, Correspondences. Amsterdam-Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1993.
Barthes, Roland. Image-Music-Text. London: Fontana, 1977.
Bartram, Graham and Anthony Waine, eds. Brecht in Perspective. London:
Longman, 1982.
Benjamin, Walter. Understanding Brecht. Trans. Anna Bostock. London:
NLB, 1973.
Bennett, Benjamin. Modern Drama and German Classicism: Renaissance
from Lessing to Brecht. London: Cornell U P, 1979.
Bentley, Eric. “From Strindberg to Bertolt Brecht.” The Playwright as
Thinker. San Diego: HBJ, 1987.
---. “The Stagecraft of Brecht.” In Search of Theatre. New York:
Atheneum, 1953.
“Bertolt Brecht” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 35. Ed. Paula
Kepos. London: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
“Bertolt Brecht” Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Vol. 1. Ed. Paula
Kepos. London: Gale Research Inc., 1990.
Bloch, Ernst, Georg Lukacs, Bertolt Brecht, Walter Benjamin and
Theodor Adorno. Aesthetics and Politics. Ed. Ronald Taylor. London:
Verso, 1980.
Bradby, David, Philip Thomas and Kenneth Pickering. Studying Drama.
London & Canberra: Croom Helm, 1983.
Brandt, George W. Modern Theories of Drama. Oxford: Clarendon P,
1998.
Braun, Edward. The Director and the Stage: From Naturalism to Grotowski.
London: Methuen, 1982.
Brecht, Bertolt. Mother Courage and Her Children: A Chronicle of the Thirty
Years' War. Trans. Eric Bentley. Taipei: Bookman Books, Ltd., 1955.
---. Parables for the Theater: The Good Woman of Setzuan and The
Caucasian Chalk Circle. Trans. Eric Bentley. Taipei: Bookman Books,
1947.
---. The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Trans. James and Tania Stern and
W.H.Auden. London: Methuen London, Ltd., 1984.
---. Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic. Trans. and ed.
John Willett. London: Methuen, 1964.
---. “Mother Courage Model.” Drama & Discussion. Ed. Stanley A. Clayes.
Taipei: Crane, 1967.
---. “Short Description of a New Technique of Acting Which Produces an
Alienation Effect.” Drama & Discussion. Ed. Stanley A. Clayes. Taipei: Crane, 1967, 320-8.
---. “Theatre for Pleasure or Theatre for Instruction.” Drama & Discussion.
Ed. Stanley A. Clayes. Taipei: Crane, 1967.
Brockett, Oscar G. History of the Theatre. Boston: Avenue, 1974.
Brooker, Peter. Bertolt Brecht: Dialectics, Poetry, Politics. London: Croom
Helm, 1988.
Brown, Hilda Meldrum. Leitmotiv and Drama. New York: Oxford U
P, 1991.
Bull, John. Stage Right: Crisis and Recovery in British Contemporary
Mainstream Theatre. London: Macmillan, 1994.
Cima, Gay Gibson. Performing Women: Female Characters, Male
Playwrights, and the Modern Stage. New York: Cornell U P,
1993.
Clark, Barrett H. European Theories of the Drama. New York: Crown,
1965.
Clayes, Stanley A, ed. Drama & Discussion. Taipei: Crane, 1967.
Clurman, Harold. “Bertolt Brecht.” Essays in the Modern Drama. Ed.
Morris Freedman. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1964, 151-59.
Cook, Bruce. Brecht in Exile. New York: Holt, 1983.
Davidson, Clifford, ed. Drama in the Twentieth Century. New York: AMS
P, 1984.
Dukore, Bernard Frank. Money & Politics in Ibsen, Shaw, and Brecht.
Missouri: U of Missouri P, 1980.
Eagleton, Terry. “Brecht and Rhetoric.” Against the Grain: Essays 1975-
1985. London & New York: Verso, 1991.
---. Marxism and Literary Criticism. Berkeley: U of California P, 1976.
Eddershaw, Margaret. Performing Brecht: Forty Years of British Performance.
London & New York: Routledge, 1996.
Esslin, Martin. Brecht: A Choice of Evil: A Critical Study of the Man, His
Work,and His Opinions. 4th ed. London: Methuen, 1984.
---. Bertolt Brecht. New York & London: Columbia U P, 1969.
---. Brecht: the Man and His Works. New York: Doubleday & Company
Inc., 1961.
Fuegi, John. Bertolt Brecht: Chaos, According to Plan. Cambridge:
Cambridge U P, 1987.
Gilman, Richard. The Making of Modern Drama. Toronto: McGraw-Hill
Ryerson Ltd., 1974.
Grace, Matthew. A Reader’s Guide to 50 European Plays. New York:
Washington Square P, 1973.
Gray, Ronald. Brecht: the Dramatist. London: Cambridge U P,
1976.
Gronemeyer, Andrea. Theater. New York: Barron's Educational Series,
1996.
Grossvogel, David I. "Bertolt Brecht: The Difficulty of Witnessing." Four
Playwrights and a Postscript. New York: Cornell U P, 1962.
Hardin, James ed. German Fiction Writers, 1914-1945. Dictionary of
Literary Biography. Vol.56. Detroit: Gale Research Co., 1987.
Harrop, John and Sabin R. Epstein. Acting with Style. 2nd ed. New Jersey:
Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1990.
Hilton, Julian. Performance. London: Macmillian, 1987.
Holderness, Graham. The Politics of Theatre and Drama. London:
Macmillan, 1992.
Israel, Joachim. Alienation: From Marx to Modern Sociology. New Jersey:
Humanities P, 1979.
Kepos, Paula, ed. Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. London: Gale
Research Inc., 1990.
Kernodle, George, Portia Kernodle and Edward Pixley, eds. Invitation to the
Theatre. 3rd ed. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985.
Kleber, Pia, and Colin Visser, eds. Re-interpreting Brecht: His Influence on
Contemporary Drama. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1990.
Lewis, Allan. The Contemporary Theatre: The Significant Playwrights of Our
Time. New York: Crown., 1971.
Lunn, Eugene. Marxism and Modernism: An Historical Study of Lukacs,
Brecht, Benjamin and Adorno. Berkeley: U of California P, 1982.
Merchant, Paul. The Epic. London: Methuen, 1970.
Mews, Siegfried, ed. Critical Essays on Bertolt Brecht. Boston: G. K. Hall,
1989.
Quigley, Austin E. The Modern Stage and Other Worlds. New York:
Methuen, 1985.
Redmond, James. Themes in Drama: The Theatrical Space. Vol. 9.
Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1987.
---. Themes in Drama: Drama, Dance and Music. Vol. 3. Cambridge:
Cambridge U P, 1981.
Roose-Evans, James. Experimental Theatre. 4th ed. London: Routledge;
1989.
Rorrison, Hugh. The Caucasian Chalk Circle: Commentary and Notes.
London: Methuen., 1984.
Schwarz, Alfred. From Buchner to Buckett: Dramatic Theory and The Modes
of Tragic Drama. Ohio: Ohio U P, 1978.
Speirs, Ronald. Bertolt Brecht. London: Macmillan, 1987.
---. “The Theatre of Bertolt Brecht: Theory and Practice.”
Twentieth Century European Drama. Ed. Docherty, Brian. London:
Macmillan P, 1994.
Styan, J. L. Modern Drama in Theory and Practice: Expressionism and Epic
Theatre. Vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1981.
Suvin, Darko. To Brecht and Beyond: Soundings in Modern Dramaturgy.
New Jersey: Harvester, 1984.
Thomson, Peter, and Clendyr Sacks, eds. The Cambridge Companion to
Brecht. Cambridge: Cambridge U P, 1994.
Trudeau, Lawrence J., ed. Drama Criticism: Criticism of the Most Significant
and Widely Studied Dramatic Works from All the World’s Literature.
Vol.3. Detroit: Gale Research Inc., 1993.
Tynan, Keneth. “Bertolt Brecht.” Essays in the Modern Drama. Morris
Freedman, ed. Boston: D.C. Heath and Company, 1964.
Watson, George J. Drama: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin’s P, 1983.
Weber, Betty Nance and Hubert Heinen, eds. Bertolt Brecht: Political Theory
and Literary Practices. Athens, GA: U of Georgia P, 1980.
Whitaker, Thomas R. Fields of Play in Modern Drama. Princeton: Princeton
U P, 1977.
Willett, John, and Ralph Manbeim, eds. Collected Plays: Five. London:
Methuen Drama, 1995.
---. Bertolt Brecht Collected Plays. London: Eyre Methuen, 1977.
William, Kenney. The Plays of Bertolt Brecht. New York: Monarch P, 1965.
Wright, Elizabeth. Postmodern Brecht: A Re-Presentation. London:
Routledge, 1989.
Wulbern, Julia H. Brecht and Ionesco Commitment in Context. Urbana:
U of Illinois P, 1993.