EAN: 9783898219822

WORDS AS SWORDS - SILA SENLEN KARTONIERT (TB)

Verbal violence  as a sophisticated means of persuasion and manipulation  is as effective on
the stage as physical violence. Since the destructive effects of verbal violence are less
recognized and long-term  it is a vital instrument for constructing power and authority. Sila
Senlen tackles this subject in Renaissance and contemporary English drama. In Renaissance
tragedies composed in blank-verse such as Marlowe's Tamburlaine  Part I  and Shakespeare's
Richard III  political power is identified and matched with a powerful rhetorical style. Almost
all of the battles in such plays are fought verbally rather than physically on the stage. In
these verbal duels or battles  competent speakers such as Tamburlaine and Richard III exploit
the frontiers of deception  manipulate  abuse and destroy their opponents with low verbal
competence through verbal violence. Thus  a parallel is drawn between rhetorical skills and
military power  and between 'word' and 'sword'. In contemporary English plays  the violence of
daily language not only contributes to the creation of a realistic spectacle  but also -and
more importantly- to the process of replacing free critical thinking by automatically
preconceived patterns of thought and speech. Institutions and related discourses function to
set up norms or standards against which people are defined  categorized  judged and punished.
In Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion  Harold Pinter's The Birthday Party and Anthony Neilson's The
Censor  verbal violence in the form of daily language is not only deployed to construct
authority  dominate and 'standardize' subjects  but also to deconstruct and defy authority.

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