This book is a comprehensive study of Peer Gynt, a drama that forms the foundation of not only the entire Ibsen canon but also modern drama as a whole. It provides scene-by-scene commentary on the drama, showing how the literature and ideas of the drama resemble, and sometimes duplicate, the literature and philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard. It is the first such study since Henri Logeman's commentary on the drama published in 1917. Although the main focus of the book is Ibsen's drama, Bruce Shapiro's study provides some substantial insights into Kierkegaard. He demonstrates how Ibsen's poem was influenced by Kierkegaard's philosophy and literature. One of the most perplexing questions about Peer Gynt is how the ending of the drama functions as a resolution to the whole. This study formulates an understanding, based upon Kierkegaardian philosophy, that accounts for this scene. Moreover, the revelation of Kierkegaard's influence on Ibsen allows the contemporary reader to experience the essence of the drama within the same intellectual context in which it made its first literary appearance. When Kierkegaard's philosophy is artistically brought back into existence through a reader's experience of Peer Gynt, it is as if that reader is a contemporary of those very thoughts. With Kierkegaardian philosophy as the common horizon of understanding, Peer Gynt may be perceived as a complete and unified drama from its beginning to its conclusion. Shapiro's book is the first comprehensive study of Peer Gynt to be published. It may also be the first study to demonstrate one way in which the entire Kierkegaardian dialetic was understood during the philosopher's lifetime. This unique work will be a valuablebook for scholars and students of drama, Scandinavian studies, modern philosophy, and existentialism.

Dramatic performance involves an intricate process of rehearsal based upon imagery inherent in the dramatic text. A playwright first invents a drama out of mental imagery. The dramatic text presents the drama as a range of verbal imagery. During rehearsal, the actors cultivate this verbal imagery within themselves. The performance triggers this cultivated mental imagery, thereby enabling the actors to reinvent the drama in the presence of an audience. This interplay of dramatic imagery constitutes the heart of the process of iconicity. The premise of iconicity is that in dramatic performance actors use the same neural architecture that people use in their daily lives to execute events. The core of this neural architecture is the brain's capacity for internally generating, reduplicating, storing, and triggering imagery. The process of iconicity draws on the actor's use of this mental capacity. This book explores the principles of iconicity and develops them as a process for acting and staging dramatic performances.

This book draws together critical and literary theories and neuropsychology to provide a new artistic process for dramatic performance called iconicity. The first part of the book provides a theoretical perspective on the principles of iconicity. Included are discussions of the nature of dramatic performance, the ideology and process of acting, and the importance of emotions to drama. This initial exploraton of iconicity sometimes refers to practice; however, the ideas presented in the first part of the book largely provide a foundation for the second part, which is more practically oriented. The second part gives close attention to the various components of the iconicity process. It explains dramatic structure and identifies and defines the four strands of iconicity: events, dialogue, interactions, and performance. Throughout the volume, numerous plays are used to provide examples of how the iconicity process works.