GENESIS OF CONTEMPORARY CONCEPT OF METADRAMA

Abstract

This article provides an overview of contemporary literary studies devoted to metadrama category. It is emphasized that metadrama relates to the concepts of postdaramatic theatre (Lehmann) and metatheatre (Able). The last one is the theatre that is oriented on itself. Metadrama as a theoretical term is the heritage of post-structuralism. However, as a literary phenomenon metadrama has a considerably longer history confirmed by numerous studies of Shakespeare texts in this perspective. The focus of the article is given to work Richard Hornby «Drama, Metadrama and Perception» (1986). The author first gives the profound interpretation of the main varieties of metadrama: play within the play, the ceremony within the play, the role within the role, literary and life references, self-reflection theatre etc. The article also defines a range of various approaches to the studying of the metadrama and their representants in the world of literary theory. The main features of this topic in the national literary criticism are figured out. It’s proved that poetics of metadrama had a long period of a genre and conceptual evolution. It is of high importance that certain dramatic texts have an especially heightened sense of the world with its dialogue, absurdity, duality, accented conventions. A distinctive feature of the metadramatic text is self-reflection which is aimed at increasing the number of «realities» of the work by its reflection.