Joy, Guilt, Anger, Love : What Neuroscience Can--and Can't--tell Us About How We Feel by Frazzetto Giovanni

Author:Frazzetto, Giovanni [Frazzetto, Giovanni]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2014-02-25T05:00:00+00:00

Suspension of disbelief

In theatre, the boundary between reality and fiction is porous.

Throughout a play, we constantly switch between two worlds. One is the physicality of the boards of the set and of the actors in flesh and bone. The other is the fictional world of the characters and their story. When in a theatre, we witness actors in their corporeal appearance. We perceive their presence on stage. We hear their voices. If we are sitting in the front row, we may even feel their breath blowing towards us – as well as be met by some of their flying sweat. Simultaneously, as a parallel reality superimposed on that of the stage, we perceive and imagine the story being told. The set transmutes into anything from the palace of Thebes or the court of Elsinore to a cherry orchard, a battleground or someone’s living room. We meet all sorts of different characters and we are introduced to their world. Some are well-known historical figures whose vicissitudes are deeply imprinted in our cultural background. Some are made up. Among these, some are more realistic than others, or rather, closer or more relevant to our own world.

Hamlet is a prince in Denmark. There may have been a Danish prince named Hamlet, but the one in the play is based on a legend and belongs anyway to a different historical time. Yet we understand Hamlet’s plight. In Michael Frayn’s play Copenhagen, on the other hand, we see on stage a theatrical representation of Nils Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, two great physicists who really existed. In Death of a Salesman, we face the struggling, desperate soul of a middle-aged man whose whole existence suffers a huge blow in one day, whereas other plays may shift across far wider timespans. Whatever the case, we always need to follow the story and temporarily adhere to the world of the characters, relate to them.

Theatre, and fictional representation in general, has for a long time employed a technique to reduce the distance between spectators and the characters: creating the circumstances in which spectators suspend disbelief.

The suspension of disbelief is a phrase first coined in 1817 by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834). In his romantic poetry, Coleridge employed fantastic and supernatural characters that a rational, educated readership would not easily have identified with. Wanting to keep fantastic elements in his writing, Coleridge thought that by imbuing his narrative with enough facts and contemporary references he would help readers accept the story, rather than condemn it as implausible. He asked of his readers that they recognize ‘a human interest and a semblance of truth’ to the characters. He demanded ‘a willing suspension of disbelief’.49

Unless you still believe in wizards, when you are enjoying J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books you are also suspending disbelief, big time. In the specific case of theatre, suspension of disbelief is achieved by believing that in addition to the three walls of the set there is a fourth transparent wall separating the audience from the action on stage.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.