The Use of Folk-Hermeneutics in Analysing Dramatic Play Texts

Academic Paper from the year 2022 in the subject Theater Studies, Dance, , course: Theatre Arts, language: English, abstract: This paper aims to propose a model for interpreting and understanding the cultural worlds represented in a dramatic play text. The qualitative method which this study captures as a hermeneutic understanding process is utilised to explicate how folkism and hermeneutics work in play analysis and how both can be used in analysing and understanding the culture embedded in dramatic play texts.

In the humanities, interpretative tools in research are a means to an end, and are often deployed as keys to analysing works. As such, exploring how analysis is carried out in a dramatic play text is paramount in theatre studies. However, there seem to be a dearth of theories that can be used in interpreting and analysing play texts which document cultural nuances in theatre studies. It is a known fact that in every dramatic play text, characters are represented in action often within a cultural setting; as such, interpretation and analysis requires readers to dig into the dialogue in order to uncover the cultural world inherent in the play by paying rapt attention to context. This is with a view to interpreting and understanding the concerns of the folk as captured in a play.