The quality of television dramatic criticism
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Abstract
Nature and Purpose of the Study:
This thesis is a critical evaluation of television dramatic criticism. Its purpose
is to discover whether the methods of television critics enable them to produce
criticism comparable in quality with the work of literary and dramatic critics,
and further to suggest, where necessary, possible devices for improving the practice
of television critics.
Scope and Method of the Thesis:
The research covers four related areas, each in a separate chapter and each
chapter stating its own conclusions. The first is a history of literary criticism
offered as a background for evaluating modern critical methods. The main schools
of criticism are explored beginning with Classicism and continuing through
Neo-Classicism, Humanism, and Romanticism to the present with Scientific Method
and textual criticism. The history traces major critical problems stressing not
the problems but the methods and theories employed in solving them. The advantages
of each school are analyzed but the chapter concludes that Scientific Method,
employing description and evaluation of the work of art itself, and incorporating
the application of all relevant knowledge, is the most efficient method.
The second chapter examines theatre criticism in order to supply
an understanding of the special problems not only of criticizing
drama but of writing such criticism in the daily papers. The chapter
is constructed around recommendations from Shaw, Huneker, Mencken,
Eric Bentley, George Jean Nathan, Stark Young and Walter Kerr, among
others. Their methods are discussed in themselves and as they are
related to methods in literary criticism. It is concluded that an
adequate theatre criticism must describe and evaluate at least two
elements in the play: subject matter, and production: including
directing, individual performances and significant technical problems.
In this way, the criticism treats the work itself and considers relevant areas.[TRUNCATED]
Description
Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University
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