Collecting and revising in 1875 some of his former dramatic writings and reviews, G. H. Lewes prefaced his On Actors and the Art of Acting declaring his intent «to call upon the reflective part of the public to make some attempt at discriminating the sources of theatrical emotion». That statement could be dismisses as a vague aspiration, if it were not grounded on both a long-lasting acquaintance of theatre and a deep interest in physiology and psychology (as well as in philosophy), which gained him a vast renown in the late nineteenth century. Lewes’ criticism of actors and actresses of his time is intended to explain the relation between representation and its effect, in which emotions play an essential part, both in the actor’s performance and in the spectator’s reception. As to his view in the debate on emotionalism, Lewes seems to draw some of his opinions from Diderot’s Paradoxe, but at the same time he goes beyond Diderot, identifying in both in the performer and in the spectator the presence of a form of emotional experience which is quite distinct from similar experiences in ordinary life. The player must feel, but his feelings act like a sort of nervous stimulus to the representation of sublimated, generalized emotions, which each member of an audience perceives as his own, insofar as they are typical of human nature. The player’s task is, as it were, to find in reality what is universal, then to (re)present it distilled in a symbolical form, in which everyone can recognize the essential features of human nature.

La natura reticente. La critica teatrale di G.H. Lewes attraverso i suoi studi psicofisiologici

CARLOTTI, EDOARDO
2012-01-01

Abstract

Collecting and revising in 1875 some of his former dramatic writings and reviews, G. H. Lewes prefaced his On Actors and the Art of Acting declaring his intent «to call upon the reflective part of the public to make some attempt at discriminating the sources of theatrical emotion». That statement could be dismisses as a vague aspiration, if it were not grounded on both a long-lasting acquaintance of theatre and a deep interest in physiology and psychology (as well as in philosophy), which gained him a vast renown in the late nineteenth century. Lewes’ criticism of actors and actresses of his time is intended to explain the relation between representation and its effect, in which emotions play an essential part, both in the actor’s performance and in the spectator’s reception. As to his view in the debate on emotionalism, Lewes seems to draw some of his opinions from Diderot’s Paradoxe, but at the same time he goes beyond Diderot, identifying in both in the performer and in the spectator the presence of a form of emotional experience which is quite distinct from similar experiences in ordinary life. The player must feel, but his feelings act like a sort of nervous stimulus to the representation of sublimated, generalized emotions, which each member of an audience perceives as his own, insofar as they are typical of human nature. The player’s task is, as it were, to find in reality what is universal, then to (re)present it distilled in a symbolical form, in which everyone can recognize the essential features of human nature.
2012
II, 3
41
66
http:/www.actingarchives.unior.it
attore; psicologia; fisiologia; emozione
Edoardo Giovanni, Carlotti
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/2318/105422
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