I really don't understand this paragraph...

Question

However, as he wrote in a study of the Italian comic actor, Toto,no critic should attempt ' a historical or, above all, critical, analysis of the technique of an actor if the actor in question does not have a "poetic"; because it is in that, in the themes through which it is developed, that "technique" acquires breadth and meaning, becoming "style" '(Toto, p.9).

Enoon · Accepted Answer

The writer is using the word "poetic" as a noun in a non-standard way. He must have defined it elsewhere in the work, or it is a term of art that I am unfamiliar with. I suspect he's borrowed the French "poétique", the complex of literary principles that inform a writing, to speak of an actor's influences and methods and the way they mold him.

CalifJim · Answer

enoonI suspect he's borrowed the French "poétique"

Good catch. You sent me running to my French dictionary, where the noun poétique is defined as "literary theory; literary science". I learned something new today.

To be honest, though, I still can't make much sense of the quote in its entirety. Would you say that it claims (broadly, approximately) that one shouldn't attempt to analyze the technique of a performer who has no theory on which to base his performance( s )? Odd thing to say.

CJ

Enoon · Answer

CalifJim enoonI suspect he's borrowed the French "poétique"Good catch. You sent me running to my French dictionary, where the noun poétique is defined as "literary theory; literary science". I learned something new today. To be honest, though, I still can't make much sense of the quote in its entirety. Would you say that it claims (broadly, approximately) that one shouldn't attempt to analyze the technique of a performer who has no theory on which to base his performance( s )? Odd thing to say.CJ

My Petit Larousse defines it as you do but also gives a second sense, more or less as I have rendered it above, with an example, La poétique de Mallarmé, which isn't much help. In case anybody cares, hoping it's fair use: Ensemble de principes littéraires commandant l'écriture et la composition d'une oeuvre ou impliqués par celles-ci.

Uh, me neither. I think that excerpt is from a down-and-dirty criticism piece, and I know next to nothing about all that. I would need to read the whole thing before I would dare to comment.

CalifJim · Answer

enoonI know next to nothing about all that

Join the club!

enoonI would need to read the whole thing before I would dare to comment.

Same here.

CJ

Henry74 · Answer

CalifJimWould you say that it claims (broadly, approximately) that one shouldn't attempt to analyze the technique of a performer who has no theory on which to base his performance( s )? Odd thing to say.

Approximately speaking, that seems to be point, to me as well. The French Poétique has a parallel in the Italian Poetica, which probably was the original word here.
As already mentioned, Poetica roughly means the defining characteritics of an artist's work, or of an art mouvement. Either from the point of view of the artist, or from that of a theory on what the artist's work has come to mean.
I don't know if Poetic translates that. It's a word used a lot in Philosophy of Art; I'm sure there's a parallel in English.
But to speak of an actor as having, or not having, a Poetica is really stretching the meaning of the word. Which is probably why the author felt that quotation marks were necessary.
To be honest, I have the feeling that the meaning of this passage is not entirely clear to the autor either. The overuse of quotation marks ("technique", "style") speaks volumes in this regard. If you want to say that a technique becomes a style, just say it. If you put them under quotations marks, it tells me that perhaps there is something else that you're trying to say, but you don't know exactly what.

H.

CalifJim · Answer

Henry74Poetica

The English is either "poetics" or "poetic" and it has the same meaning.

Henry74it tells me that perhaps there is something else that you're trying to say, but you don't know exactly what.

Good point. (Now I'll have to watch carefully how often I use quotation marks in my EnglishForward replies!)

CJ

Nesa · Answer

Hello,

I appreciate your replies. But honestly I disappointed of understanding because I didn't get any point. As the last try I want to put the previous paragraphs here, maybe it can help you clear me with the writer's meaning.

Carlo Goldoni, the 18th-century Venetian playwright, wrote in his autobiography that he was 'born under the star of comedy', and Dario Fo could make a comparable claim.
he brought to his theatre an innate talent for nonsensical, a gift for zany observation, a love of whimsy, a fantasy at home in the realms of the absurd, a wayward glance at the affairs of men and women that could have made him the equal of the great writers of pure farce at any stage of theatrical history.

I hope this would help.

Regards,
Nesa

By the way I thought the next paragraphs would help as well.

Fo, both as actor and author, possesses the style , the technique and the theory and philosophy of theatre which together constitute a 'poetic'. It is true that his unbounded, instinctive creativity is often at odds with his 'poetic', but his constant aim is to shape and structure his comic gifts so as to forge a new kind of theatre which combines boisterous laughter with a rage at injustice. In the process, he has become one of the leading writers of political theatre of our age.

Enoon · Answer

Henry74The French Poétique has a parallel in the Italian Poetica, which probably was the original word here.

Italian. Right. Makes sense. Feel free to slap me on the back of the head.

I, too, saw those quotation marks. I figured he was redefining terms for the nonce or that he wasn't used to writing in English, but now I see that he was merely marking the three parts that in his mind go to make up an artist—"the style, the technique and the theory and philosophy of theatre which together constitute a 'poetic'." (Italics, appropriately enough, would have been better than quotation marks.) That is where he defines "poetic" as he is using it.

I have read the passage you provided. Thank you. It is a paean to the eminent Nobelist. The concept embodied in "poetic" is new to me, but here is how I see what he's saying: An actor can be a great actor without ever asking himself what theater is for or how it does what it does; he can be all talent and technique and no poetic. It is when he becomes conscious of his place in the formula, when he consciously modifies his technique to speak to the history of theater and theater's role in life, that he develops style. The poetic transforms technique into style the way a chef transforms ingredients into a meal. To attempt to critique an actor who has no poetic would be an empty exercise, and even more so to attempt to trace the progress of his career.

It is always stimulating to discover foreign words that have no equivalent in English. One I heard recently, during the last vuvuzela World vuvuzela Cup, was vuvuzela. Oops, I meant saudade, the Portuguese word for vuvuzela. I did it again. Those vuvuzelas sure are intrusive, aren't they? The word for a sort of yearning. Another is caracoler, the French word for what children do when they pretend a broomstick is a horse.

Nesa · Answer

Thank you all.So I see for better understanding we should be familiar with different roots. What a pity I'm not!

I really don't understand this paragraph...

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