Critical Essay | Critical Essay by Egil Törnqvist

Critical Essay by Egil Törnqvist

SOURCE: Törnqvist, Egil. “Verbal and Visual Scenery in Strindberg's Historical Plays: The Opening of Carl XII as Paradigmatic Example.” Scandinavian Studies 62, no. 1 (winter 1990): 76-84.

In the following essay, Törnqvist breaks down Carl XII into its dramatic elements.

The double status of drama as verbal text and visual presentation gives rise to a number of fundamental questions, the consequences of which we only now begin to discover. Keeping in mind that a (Strindbergian) drama may be experienced either by a reader or a spectator, the significance of this circumstance will in the following be discussed with regard to the stage and acting directions, viewed in relation to the dialogue.

Consider, for example, the consequence of the fact that

• (1) the drama text is experienced verbally (by means of linguistic signs), whereas the performance text (seen as an abstraction of the play produced) is experienced audiovisually;
• (2) the stage/acting directions...
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