Impressionism and Expressionism in modern drama

Impressionism and Expressionism

Impressionism and expressionism are two trends thatbare equally well-markd in modern drama. Impressionism was a movement in painting, music and literature whose aim was to force the beholder, listener or the reader to participate in recreating the experience of the artist and whose method was to suggest "impression" or effect on the artist than to make precise and explicitvthe objective characteristics of things or events. In impressionism the emphasis is on the subjective reception of impressions, and the impressionist seeks to escape from the tyrannical aspects of objective reality. The impressionist does not accept objective life as it comes, but seeks to escape from the world of reality to his own imaginary land. Traces of can be found in the plays of Irish writer like W.B. Yeats and J.M. Synge.

    Expressionistic movement originated in Germany as a reaction against naturalism. It attempted to express the basic reality of its subjects rather than to produce the mere appearance or surface of life. Expressionist drama was not concerned with society but man. It aimed to offer subjective psychological analysis, not so much of individual as of a type and it made use of the subconscious. For such a study established dramatic forms and methods of expression were inadequate. Hence the expressionists threw overboard conventional structure in favour of an unrestricted freedom. The dialogue of the expressionist drama were after cryptic and patterned on prose and was in every way far remote from naturalistic prose of the realist school. Sean O'Casey, C.K. Munro, Elmer Rice are those who popularised expressionism in drama.