Construct · 2 fields · 3 citations

dramaturgy: one construct, many systems

One name. One construct. Different systems. One map.

● invariant · one construct, two systems Nearest construct by meaning·not indexed
Goffman borrowed the stage as a model for social lifedramaturgy2 SYSTEMSDramatic compositionARISTOTLE · POIESISDramaturgical analysisGOFFMAN · 1959

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1959Dramaturgical analysis1996Dramatic composition
2026

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Theatre

The craft of shaping a play for the stage

In the theatre, dramaturgy is the craft of how a drama is composed and shaped for performance: the arrangement of plot, character, time, and action, and in modern practice the dramaturg's work of researching, structuring, and advising on a production. Aristotle's Poetics founded this analysis by anatomising tragedy into its parts and arguing that the ordering of events is the soul of the work, and Pavis's Dictionary of the Theatre traces the term through to the contemporary dramaturg. The referent is the internal architecture of a dramatic work and the labour of building it, judged by how coherently the parts serve the whole.[1][2]

Unit
The structural coherence of a dramatic work and the dramaturg's shaping of it
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Assessed through dramaturgical analysis of plot structure, unity of action, and the fit between text and staging

Sociology

Everyday social life staged as performance

Erving Goffman borrowed the theatre's frame wholesale: in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life he treats ordinary social interaction as a performance in which people manage the impressions others form, play roles before audiences, and work in teams to sustain a shared definition of the situation. Here dramaturgy names a sociological method (reading conduct as staged, with front and back regions, scripts, and props) rather than the composition of a play. It is the same theatrical vocabulary carried into social science, where the performance is the self presented to others and the measure is how successfully that impression is maintained.[3]

Unit
The success with which a person sustains a credible performance of self before an audience
Recovery means
Not applicable
Measured by
Studied through close observation of impression management, front- and back-region behaviour, and performance breakdowns

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Nearby constructs

backstage1 fields · 1 citationsanchor · a standalone constructspectacle2 fields · 2 citationsjingle · one word, two constructsaction3 fields · 6 citationsjingle · one word, three constructs

References

  1. Aristotle. (1996). Poetics (M. Heath, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Original work published ca. 335 B.C.E.) ISBN 9780140446364
  2. Pavis, P. (1998). Dictionary of the theatre: Terms, concepts, and analysis (C. Shantz, Trans.). University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802081636
  3. Goffman, E. (1990). The presentation of self in everyday life. Penguin Books. (Original work published 1959) ISBN 9780140135718

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