DIALOGUE AND DIALOGISM IN DIEGETIC DRAMA

Diegetic drama is between a purely narrative text and a purely dialogical text. Diegesis (narrative) is a concept taken from Plato’s theories, usually opposed to mimesis (imitation). This type of drama became an established genre in the modern era in opposition to the classical Aristotelian drama. Brecht’s “epic theatre” is one of the well-known types of diegetic theatre and drama, whose purpose was to combat the audience’s passivity and invite them to activate their thinking. After Brecht, other dramatists, such as Beckett, created diegetic dramas combining third-person, abstract narratives (diegesis) alongside first-person imitative dialogues (mimesis), with dialectical and philosophical approaches. According to Bakhtin’s theory, among the three genres of lyric poetry, drama, and novel, the novel provides the possibility of establishing polyphony and dialogism by combining first-person narration with the third-person. It seems that this possibility exists in diegetic drama more than novels because in diegetic dramas the interaction of voices can be more intense, therefore dialectical potential increases. Even Brecht changed the title of his “epic theatre” to “dialectical theatre” after a while. This paper seeks to discuss the potential of dialogism in diegetic drama by relying on Bakhtin’s opinions and the characteristics of diegetic drama.