ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches the cultural-intellectual atmosphere at the fin-desiècle, which led the theatre to undergo a change of form, away from drama. The emergence of lyrical drama stemmed from concentrating on a brief, often climactic moment which, in turn, held consequences for the temporality of theatrical experience. Tragedy that has grown lyrical articulates the experience of falling silent and standing at the mercy of fate 'inside a now meaningless dramatic form'. Both theoretical and historical analyses indicate that tragedy harbours something that radically exceeds the normal context of life something that is, and remains, foreign. Dramatic tragedy had developed the eruption of excess into the substance of tragic representation, its 'adventure': Shakespeare's characters, who transgress the norm radically, and Racinean figures' equally passionate displays of rivalry. In symbolist drama, the tragic does not derive from the plot but from internally divided consciousness that 'somehow' reflects on itself, as one also finds in Hölderlin.
