“The Same Place” for “Eagles and Mosquitos of the Parnassus,” or What Drama (and What Theater for That Drama) Our Enlighteners Envisioned

PUBLISHED ONLINE 2023

Dobrochna Ratajczakowa


Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań (Poland)
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8073-4869

Abstract

The intent of the article has been to demonstrate how goals set by Polish Enlighteners for the theater and the assumptions they shared, coupled with the circumstances and conditions of theater entrepreneurship at the time, led willy-nilly to the formation of a popular theater and the development of analogical popular drama. For it would be a gross misunderstanding to treat this theater and drama as a highly artistic enterprise, even though the resultant institution was flexible enough to be able to put on other kinds of shows as well. Nonetheless, such attributes as the theater’s educative and utilitarian qualities, i.e. that it was politically engaged, responsive to the current realities of life, programmatic, entertainment-oriented, and willing to perform for a broad spectrum of audiences, are indeed marks of its popular character. A pragmatic approach to the stage was reinforced by the royal subsidies as well. In this situation, a new profession of the repertory supplier emerged, represented not only by Jan Baudouin or Franciszek Zabłocki, but also by numerous other authors who tried their hand at playwriting, even though they had not been involved in writing literature before. And since the theater audiences were quickly gaining autonomy and soon started making their own demands, it became clear that the neoclassical aesthetic was bound to give way to non-classical tendencies. What emerged was a generally popular form of theater enterprise that became a major influence on the ensuing development and evolution of the 19th-century stage.


Keywords:

theater history, Enlightment drama, Polish theater 1765-1800

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Published
2017-10-15

Cited by

Ratajczakowa, D. (2017) ““The Same Place” for ‘Eagles and Mosquitos of the Parnassus,’ or What Drama (and What Theater for That Drama) Our Enlighteners Envisioned”, Pamiętnik Teatralny, 66(3), pp. 5–15. doi: 10.36744/pt.2025.

Authors

Dobrochna Ratajczakowa 

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8073-4869

Dobrochna Ratajczakowa - (full) Professor of Theater and Drama, author and co-author of many books and over 200 academic articles. Her research covers theater and drama of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries, as well as the issues of dynamic theatrical-cultural relations. She created Theater Studies Department at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and headed first the Institute of Drama and Theater for many years, and later the Chair of Drama, Theater, and Performance.



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