The interdependence of plot and figure

Traditionally, the relationship between figure and plot in drama has been examined above all with the question in mind as to which has precedence, plot or figure. Without wishing to examine the historical development of this question in any detail, we should nonetheless like to point out that the tradition of theoretical works that insist that plot takes precedence over figure stretches from Aristotle's Poetics (ch. 6) via Gottsched's Versuch einer kritischen Dichtkunst (II,ix and x) through to Brecht's Short Organon on the Theatre, whereas the opposite position, which Lessing, in Part 51 of his Hamburg Dramaturgy, claimed could only apply to comedy, was not defended with any conviction until the appearance of the Sturm und Drang movement, epitomised by Jackob Michael Reinhold Lenz's Anmerkungen übers Theater and Goethe's address in honour of Shäkespears Tag, and then later on in the dramaturgical writings of naturalism.

However, in our own analysis we are not so much concerned with the question as to which category takes precedence over the other – whether from the point of view of production or reception – since this question is a historical variable. Our concern are the problems associated with the constant structural interdependence of the two categories.