(机器翻译,未校对)
在试图描述戏剧的起源时,人们必须主要依靠推测,因为几乎没有具体的证据可供借鉴。最广为接受的理论,在 19 世纪末和 20 世纪初受到人类学家的拥护,认为戏剧是从神话和仪式中出现的。这些人类学家所感知的过程可以简要概括。在其发展的早期阶段,社会开始意识到似乎影响或控制其食品供应和福祉的力量。由于对自然原因知之甚少,它把可取和不可取的事件都归咎于超自然或魔法力量,并寻找赢得这些力量青睐的方法。感知到团体执行的某些行动与其期望的结果之间存在明显的联系,团体重复、改进并将这些行动正式化为固定的仪式或仪式。
故事(神话)可能会围绕一种仪式发展起来。神话经常包括仪式庆祝或希望影响的那些超自然力量的代表。表演者可以在仪式或伴随的庆祝活动中穿着服装和面具来代表神话人物或超自然力量。随着一个民族变得更加成熟,其对超自然力量和因果关系的概念可能会发生变化。因此,它可能会放弃或修改某些仪式。但是围绕仪式发展起来的神话可能会作为该群体口头传统的一部分继续存在,甚至可能在脱离这些仪式的条件下被表演出来。当这种情况发生时,剧院作为一种自主活动已经迈出了第一步,此后娱乐和审美价值可能会逐渐取代以前的神秘和社会效益问题。
虽然仪式起源长期以来一直是最受欢迎的,但它绝不是关于戏剧如何产生的唯一理论。讲故事被提议作为一种选择。根据这一理论,讲述和聆听故事被视为人类的基本乐趣。因此,对事件(狩猎、战斗或其他壮举)的回忆是通过叙述者的哑剧和模仿,并最终通过由不同的人扮演的每个角色来阐述的。
一个密切相关的理论认为,戏剧是从主要是哑剧、韵律或体操的舞蹈或模仿动物的声音和声音演变而来的。对表演者的技巧、精湛技艺和优雅的钦佩被视为将活动精心制作成完全实现的戏剧表演的动力。
除了探索戏剧可能的前因外,学者们还对导致人们发展戏剧的动机进行了理论化。戏剧为什么会发展起来,为什么在它不再履行仪式的功能后又受到重视?大多数答案都依赖于关于人类思维和人类基本需求的理论。一,由亚里士多德在公元前四世纪提出,认为人类天生具有模仿性——喜欢模仿人、事物和行为,并乐于看到这些模仿。另一种是在 20 世纪推进的,它表明人类具有幻想的天赋,通过这种天赋,他们试图将现实重塑为比日常生活中遇到的更令人满意的形式。因此,幻想或虚构(戏剧是其中的一种形式)允许人们客观化他们的焦虑和恐惧,面对它们,并在虚构中实现他们的希望,如果不是事实的话。因此,剧院是人们定义和世界或逃离不愉快现实的一种工具。
但是,人类的模仿本能和对幻想的嗜好本身都不会导致一个自主的剧院。因此,需要额外的解释。一个必要条件似乎是对人类问题的某种超然看法。例如,这种情况的一个标志是喜剧视觉的出现,因为喜剧需要足够的超然性,才能将某些与社会规范的偏差视为荒谬而不是对整个群体的福利的严重威胁。另一个促成自主剧场发展的条件是审美意识的出现。例如,一些早期社会不再认为某些仪式对他们的幸福至关重要,并放弃了它们;尽管如此,他们仍将围绕仪式发展起来的神话保留为口头传统的一部分,并因其艺术品质而非宗教用途而钦佩它们。
原文
The Origins of Theater
In seeking to describe the origins of theater, one must rely primarily on speculation, since there is little concrete evidence on which to draw. The most widely accepted theory, championed by anthropologists in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, envisions theater as emerging out of myth and ritual. The process perceived by these anthropologists may be summarized briefly. During the early stages of its development, a society becomes aware of forces that appear to influence or control its food supply and well-being. Having little understanding of natural causes, it attributes both desirable and undesirable occurrences to supernatural or magical forces, and it searches for means to win the favor of these forces. Perceiving an apparent connection between certain actions performed by the group and the result it desires, the group repeats, refines, and formalizes those actions into fixed ceremonies, or rituals.
Stories (myths) may then grow up around a ritual. Frequently the myths include representatives of those supernatural forces that the rites celebrate or hope to influence. Performers may wear costumes and masks to represent the mythical characters or supernatural forces in the rituals or in accompanying celebrations. As a people becomes more sophisticated, its conceptions of supernatural forces and causal relationships may change. As a result, it may abandon or modify some rites. But the myths that have grown up around the rites may continue as part of the group’s oral tradition and may even come to be acted out under conditions divorced from these rites. When this occurs, the first step has been taken toward theater as an autonomous activity, and thereafter entertainment and aesthetic values may gradually replace the former mystical and socially efficacious concerns.
Although origin in ritual has long been the most popular, it is by no means the only theory about how the theater came into being. Storytelling has been proposed as one alternative. Under this theory, relating and listening to stories are seen as fundamental human pleasures. Thus, the recalling of an event (a hunt, battle, or other feat) is elaborated through the narrator’s pantomime and impersonation and eventually through each role being assumed by a different person.
A closely related theory sees theater as evolving out of dances that are primarily pantomimic, rhythmical or gymnastic, or from imitations of animal noises and sounds. Admiration for the performer’s skill, virtuosity, and grace are seen as motivation for elaborating the activities into fully realized theatrical performances.
In addition to exploring the possible antecedents of theater, scholars have also theorized about the motives that led people to develop theater. Why did theater develop, and why was it valued after it ceased to fulfill the function of ritual? Most answers fall back on the theories about the human mind and basic human needs. One, set forth by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C., sees humans as naturally imitative—as taking pleasure in imitating persons, things, and actions and in seeing such imitations. Another, advanced in the twentieth century, suggests that humans have a gift for fantasy, through which they seek to reshape reality into more satisfying forms than those encountered in daily life. Thus, fantasy or fiction (of which drama is one form) permits people to objectify their anxieties and fears, confront them, and fulfill their hopes in fiction if not fact. The theater, then, is one tool whereby people define and world or escape from unpleasant realities.
But neither the human imitative instinct nor a penchant for fantasy by itself leads to an autonomous theater. Therefore, additional explanations are needed. One necessary condition seems to be a somewhat detached view of human problems. For example, one sign of this condition is the appearance of the comic vision, since comedy requires sufficient detachment to view some deviations from social norms as ridiculous rather than as serious threats to the welfare of the entire group. Another condition that contributes to the development of autonomous theater is the emergence of the aesthetic sense. For example, some early societies ceased to consider certain rites essential to their well-being and abandoned them; nevertheless, they retained as parts of their oral tradition the myths that had grown up around the rites and admired them for their artistic qualities rather than for their religious usefulness.
来源: TOEFL TPO1