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Narrative Reconfiguration in Postdramatic Theatre: A Case Study of Peter Handke’s Kaspar and Self-Accusation
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Abstract: (181 Views) |
One of the defining features of twentieth-century theatre is the transformation of narrative. In Postdramatic Theatre in particular, narrative relinquishes its classical status and is reconfigured as a fluid, fragmented, and performance-centred construct that resists linear plot structures and characterisation grounded in causal logic. Drawing on Hans-Thies Lehmann’s theoretical framework and the horizons of modern narratology, this study adopts a descriptive–analytical approach to re-examine the relationship between language, performance, and narrative. To this end, Peter Handke’s plays Kaspar and Self-Accusation are subjected to qualitative analysis. The findings reveal two distinct narrational possibilities within Postdramatic Theatre. In Kaspar, the subject is constituted through linguistic action without recourse to a dramatic plot that narrates this process; instead, the text stages the imposition of a social–linguistic order. By contrast, Self-Accusation, through the erasure of stable narrational elements such as character and narrator, attains a confessional anti-narrative in which language is mobilised against narration and persistently veers away from semantic stability. In both works, narrational positioning shifts from the substrate of plot to an intellectual, experiential, and encounter-driven plane. Character, rather than undergoing inner development, is reduced to a linguistic presence that foregrounds the fragmentation of speech and reflects states of mental crisis. The study concludes that narrative in these plays is neither wholly absent nor classically present; rather, it is transfigured into an intersubjective, performative phenomenon which, instead of constructing a story, stages for the spectator an experience of confronting the absence of meaning.
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Article number: 3 |
| Keywords: narrative, narratology, Postdramatic Theatre, Peter Handke |
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Full-Text [PDF 829 kb]
(108 Downloads)
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Type of Study: Research |
Subject:
Special
Received: 2026/06/17 | Accepted: 2025/10/2
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