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Woo, Seungjeung. “The Politics of the Metadrama in the Love of the Nightingale.” Studies in English Language & Literature. 42.2 (2016): 105-124. This study focuses on the characteristics of the metadrama and its theatrical and political effects in The Love of the Nightingale by Timberlake Wertenbaker. Metadrama is the drama on the drama which uses the theatrical apparatus for awakening the audience to perceive the message of the drama, not being absorbed into it. It helps the audience keep a distance from the theatrical illusions and not passively accept the contents on stage as truth. This is because realism dramas represent life-like scenes where characters are realistic, and lessons and messages are outwardly true. However, they often distort the reality and truth, and are used for instilling dominant ideology and culture and reinforcing the existing system. The Love of the Nightingale rewrites the Greek myth of Philomela and Procne, but it adopts metadramatic strategies such as directly speaking to the audience and the play within the play. It also uses elements of ancient dramas including chorus and bare stage. These strategies change terrible acts of violences in the Philomela story into messages for our time. They also help recognize what has been behind the repeated violence and its circular mechanism up until today, which allows the audience to reinterpret the meaning of the violence in the myth. (Chosun University)