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This volume frames the concept of a national play. By analysing a number of European case studies, it addresses the following question: Which play could be regarded as a country's national play, and how does it represent its national identity? The chapters provide an in-depth look at plays in eight different countries: Germany (Die Räuber, Friedrich Schiller), Switzerland (Wilhelm Tell, Friedrich Schiller), Hungary (Bánk Bán, József Katona), Sweden (Gustav Vasa, August Strindberg), Norway (Peer Gynt, Henrik Ibsen), the Netherlands (The Good Hope, Herman Heijermans), France (Tartuffe, Molière), and Ireland. This collection is especially relevant at a time of socio-political flux, when national identity and the future of the nation state is being reconsidered.
List of contents
1. Introduction; Suze van der Poll & Rob van der Zalm.- 2. Schiller's Die Räuber: "Der Ort der Geschichte ist Teutschland"; Kati Röttger.- 3. Schiller's Wilhelm Tell: The National Play of Switzerland?; Elke Huwiler.- 4. Bánk Bán: The Hungarian National Play; Krisztina Lajosi.- 5. August Strindberg's Gustav Vasa - Sweden's National Drama?; Egil Törnqvist & Erik Mattsson.- 6. Peer Gynt - Norway's National Play; Suze van der Poll.- 7. A (Dutch) Tale of the Sea. The Good Hope by Herman Heijermans; Rob van der Zalm.- 8. Molière's Tartuffe and French National Identity: Reconfiguring the King, the People and the Church; Matthijs Engelberts.- 9. Theatre as a Moral Institution: 20th-Century Ireland; Joep Leerssen.- 10. Epilogue; Suze van der Poll & Rob van der Zalm.
About the author
Suze van der Poll is Assistant Professor in the Department of Scandinavian Studies and the Department of Modern European Literature at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She has published on Henrik Ibsen and on contemporary Norwegian literature. She has recently published The Return of the Narrative: the Call for the Novel (co-edited with Sabine van Wesemael, 2015).
Rob van der Zalm is Assistant Professor in the Department of Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. He has published extensively on Dutch theatre history, and written several biographies of Dutch directors and actors. He was affiliated with the Dutch Theatre Museum from 1994 until 2013, where he curated several exhibitions.
Summary
This volume frames the concept of a national play. By analysing a number of European case studies, it addresses the following question: Which play could be regarded as a country's national play, and how does it represent its national identity? The chapters provide an in-depth look at plays in eight different countries: Germany (Die Räuber, Friedrich Schiller), Switzerland (Wilhelm Tell, Friedrich Schiller), Hungary (Bánk Bán, József Katona), Sweden (Gustav Vasa, August Strindberg), Norway (Peer Gynt, Henrik Ibsen), the Netherlands (The Good Hope, Herman Heijermans), France (Tartuffe, Molière), and Ireland. This collection is especially relevant at a time of socio-political flux, when national identity and the future of the nation state is being reconsidered.
