Blok Drama

Blok's plays not only represent the summit of Russian symbolic drama, but also constitute an important part of European symbolic theatre. Drama is an essential genre in Blok's writings and he bestowed on it the function of approaching life. A study of Blok's plays can help the reader gain a deeper insight into his aesthetical and artistic ideas. This dissertation attempts to explore Blok's plays within the background of Russian and European symbolic drama. It will try to make a comprehensive study of his plays from the following aspects: his career as a playwright, his dramatic ideas, dramatic personae and dramatic features, so as to improve domestic readers'understanding of Russian symbolic drama as well as Russian drama.The dissertation is made up of the Introduction, the Body, Conclusion and Bibliography.The Introduction first gives a survey of both the history and current situation in Russian and China's Blok studies, especially the study of his plays, then, it will illustrate the significance, tasks, methodology and contribution of the present study.The Body consists of five chapters. Chapter One summarizes the main theories of symbolic drama, make comments upon some representative playwrights of European symbolic theatre, and thus provides a wider perspective for the following study of Blok's plays.Chapter Two retraces the development of Russian symbolic drama, studies Blok's dramatic career and comes to the conclusion that Blok's play-writing is the summit of Russian symbolic dramatic creation, an extension of Blok's creative genres and a summary of his artistic ideas.Chapter Three lists the basic theories and viewpoints of Russian symbolic drama, and traces the source of Blok's symbolic ideas. Based on his commentary upon contemporary drama, this chapter also illustrates Blok's dramatic ideas, asserting that Blok agreed to the"Representation Theory"of symbolic drama, yet he had his own unique ideas about the way of its realization.Chapter Four analyzes the main characters in Blok's plays, including eternal women figures, Element characters, eternal questers and future new men, expounding their significance in both Blok's play-writing and his aesthetic ideas.Chapter Five concerns the artistic innovation in Blok's symbolic drama. He expesses the tragic nature of the symbolic drama of his age, develops the genre of lyrical verse drama, and brings about a rejuvenation of square drama elements in 20th Century Russian theatre.The Conclusion makes a summary of ideas in the whole dissertation and points out the direction of possible future researches.