Understanding Drama, Lecture notes of English Philology

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SHIVAJI UNIVERSITY, KOLHAPUR

CENTRE FOR DISTANCE EDUCATION

Understanding Drama

(Special English)

B. A. Part-III

(Semester-V Paper-IX

(Academic Year 2015-16 onwards)

Unit-

A) Definition and Elements of Drama

Contents

1.0 Objectives

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Presentation of Subject Matter

1.2.1 Definition of Drama 1.2.2 The Origins of Drama 1.2.3 Elements of Drama 1.2.4 Conclusion

1.3 Summary

1.4 Glossary and Notes

1.5 Check Your Progress

1.6 Exercises

1.7 Answers to check your progress

1.0 Objectives

After studying this Unit you will be able :

• To Understand and identify drama as a genre of literature.
• To learn the definitions of drama To explain the difference between drama and other forms of literature
• To explain the basic elements of drama
• To understand the types of drama

A drama must create a desired effect in very short period of time. This necessitates various elements such as a very tight plot, precise delineation of character, conflict, setting, dialogue etc. Aristotle’s treatise ‘Poetics’ is especially written on tragedy. It deals with the principles that contribute to the composition of elements in his treatise. Aristotle defined tragedy and analyzed its constituent elements in his treatise. Aristotle was not primarily thinking of drama as a book to be read but as a text to be acted on the stage with people, the audience, and so he considered following elements of drama especially.

1.2 Presentation of Subject Matter

1.2.1 Definition of Drama

What is drama?.

To define any form of literature is very difficult. Literature is like a living thing that grows and even decay and therefore every form of literature has undergone considerable changes. Drama form is not exception to this. Many critics made attempts to define drama in the following manner.

“A play is a just and lively image of human nature, representing its passions and hum-ours and the changes of fortune to which it is subject for the delight and instruction of mankind”. - John Dryden

“Drama is a composition in verse or prose intended to portray life or character or tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue and typically designed for theatrical performance”.

• Webster’s English Dictionary “Drama is a composition in verse or prose and verse, adapted to be acted on the stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and action and is represented with accompanying gesture, costume and scenery as in real life”.
• Shorter Oxford Dictionary “Drama is a composition designed for performance in the theatre, in which actors take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated action and utter the written dialogue”.
• A Glossary of Literary Terms by M. H. Abrams

“A composition, in prose or poetry, accommodated to action and intended to exhibit a picture of human life, or to depict a series of grave of humorous actions of more than ordinary interest, tending towards some striking result. It is commonly designed to be spoken and represented by actors on the stage”.

• A drama is a story enacted on stage for a live audience.

1.2.2 The Origins of Drama:

The word drama comes from the Greek meaning “to act, do or perform”, and it is in the several subtle and diverse meanings of “to perform” that drama can be said to have begun. All communities accept that their later drama has roots in pre-history. Anthropologists have shown that primitive societies used (and in certain cases stilluse) role-playing in teaching the codes and behavior required to live and survive in that society; for example, to teach the skills needed in knowing what and how to hunt, the making and use of weapons and the rules of warfare. Performance could be involved in oral repetition to teach the laws and social customs, while enactment of mythical or historical episodes perpetuates and transmits what is thought important to maintain in the race-memory of the tribe. Most early societies lived by a seasonal cycle, a regular pattern allied to the movements of the sun or moon, and perhaps related to the movement of prey, or to seed time and harvest, and drama was especially important in devising rituals to deal with the inexplicable, the changing seasons, the natural phenomena of night and day, or the waxing and waning of the moon. Without propitiation with certain symbolic ceremonial safeguards or sacrifices, the sun might not rise again, the crops might fail. All humankind has, and had, concerns with life and death and has evolved ceremonies and rituals to help deal with the perennial questions of “where did I come from?” and “where do I go after death?” These were usually answered by some kind of belief in an outside power, an almighty being or beings, to give the hope of an after-life, to avoid extinction at death. Thus the invention of gods happened to provide a liaison between this world and the next and societal rituals would encompass joy, hope, and renewal, or death, despair and foreboding. Omens became important and had to be interpreted by wise men, perhaps involving impersonation, and disguise, in punctiliously performed ceremonies to appease or placate the gods. Rules for communal living would gradually be agreed: incest might be banned, but witchcraft allowed within given limits; murder be condoned for some offences but avenged for others. Most societies

The English drama at its initial stage developed from religious rituals, commemorating the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It grew out of the liturgy of the church. In order to amuse the congregation, and make the people familiar with the Bible, the bishops in the church began to dramatize some of the incidents from the life of Christ and other saints, out of this the English drama was born. In the 21st and 13th^ centuries, some plays, describing the life of Christ and other saints, were called Morality and Miracle plays. At the end of 15th^ century, the play called ‘The Morality Play’ took birth. The morality play mark the next stage in the growth of the drama in England. These plays were didactic and religious in nature. The characters were no longer Biblical figures but personified virtues and vices. Everyman(1490) is the finest of this type of play. Sackville and Norton’s, “Gorboduc” (1561) was the first regular English Tragedy. Udall’s, “Ralph Roister Doister” (1566) was the first English regular comedy. The Elizabethan Drama reached its highest point in the works of Willian Shakespeare and Marlowe. After the Restoration period drama restored and in modern age various types of drama are developed. In modern age G. B. Shaw and Galsworthy were the great dramatists.

1.2.3 Elements of drama

The elements of drama include plot, character, dialogue, staging, and theme. Our discussions of each of these elements individually allow us to highlight the characteristic features of drama in a convenient way. We should remember, however, that analysis of any single element of drama should not blind us to its function in conjunction with other dialogue; character is expressed through dialogue and staging; and so on. A drama, like the novel, has plot, character, dialogue, setting, and it also expresses an outlook on life, but in the handling of these essential features the dramatic art is different from the art of the novelist. The elements of drama include plot, character, dialogue, staging, theme, etc.

Plot:

Plot means the arrangement of the events in a story, including the sequence in which they are told, the relative emphasis they are given, and the causal connections between events. Plot is the series of events that take place in a play. There are six stages in a plot structure: Initial incident, Preliminary event, Rising action, Climax, Falling action and Denouement or Conclusion. For the dramatic purpose plot means plan, scheme or pattern. It may be defined as a pattern of events- the way in which

events are organized. It has to do with internal relation of events or the way incidents are combined or unified to produce an ‘organic whole’. The events have to be formed into a plot. It is also narrative of events, the emphases on causality. Plots could be infinite or limitless, but their significance have no limits and that’s why Aristotle said that plot is the soul of tragedy. According to Aristotle action in drama is complete in itself. It has a beginning, a middle and an end. At some points action begins, then complications enter, which gradually reaches a peak point, techniqually called the climax, followed by a crisis or the terming point what Aristotle termed us as peripety, this leads to the failure of the central character; the catastrophe depends on discovery or anagnorsis.

In his Poetics, Aristotle considered plot (mythos) the most important element of drama-more important than character. A plot must have a beginning, middle and end. For the sake of unified plot, Aristotle pointed out, is a continuous sequence of beginning, middle, and end. The beginning initiates the main action in a way which makes us look forward to something more; the middle presumes what has gone before and requires something to follow; and the end follows from what has gone before but requires nothing more; we are satisfied that the plot is complete. Aristotle divided plot into two kinds: the simple and the complex plot.

There are several forms or kinds of drama. Tragedy and Comedy are the two broad divisions. There is also a third one called Tragic- comedy. Comedies are further divided as Romantic Comedy, Sentimental Comedy, Classical Comedy, Comedy of Humour, Comedy of Manners, and Farcical Comedy.

Comedies have been written since times immemorial. Among the ancients, Aristophanes, Plautus and Terence were great writers of comedy whose comedies have been a source of inspiration to subsequent practitioners of the art. Meander, Moliere, Shakespeare and Ben Jonson are some modern writers of comedy.

Characters:

Character is the next important element of the drama. We can’t imagine the drama without characters. Characters are persons like the men and women we see around us but sometimes unreal and supernatural types of characters are also present. Plot and characters are inseparable part because when we read plays for their plots- to find out what happens- we also read them of discover the fates of their characters. We become interested in dramatic characters for varying, even contradictory,

Our discussion of character and conflict brings us to a critical aspect of dramatic characters-their speech, or dialogue. Dialogue involves two speakers and monologue to the speech of one. An important dramatic convention of dialogue is the use of a soliloquy to express a character’s state of mind. A soliloquy represent a character’s thoughts so the audience can know what he or she is thinking at a given moment. Soliloquies should be distinguished from asides, which are comments made directly to the audience in the presence of other characters, but without those characters hearing what is said. Unlike a soliloquy, an aside in usually a brief remark.

Dialogue is a very significant element. Dialogue reveals the nature of character and also gives us information about his relations with the person spoken or of the person not present when the conversation takes place. Dialogue contributes to forward the action of the drama. J. L. Styan rightly describes ‘dialogue as dramatic speech’.

Action:

Drama is different from other genres of literature. It has unique characteristics that have come about in response to its peculiar nature. Really, it is difficult to separate drama from performance because during the stage performance of a play, drama brings life experiences realistically to the audience. It is the most concrete of all genres of literature. When you are reading a novel, you read a compact form or in a condensed language. The playwright does not tell the story instead you get the story as the characters interact and live out their experiences on stage. In drama, the characters/actors talk to themselves and react to issues according to the impulse of the moment. Drama is therefore presented in dialogue.

Conflict:

The conflict can be the protagonist’s struggle against fate, nature, society, or another person. Conflict is not compulsory but necessary element of the drama. Conflict brings interest in the story. Conflict means some kind of struggle of competition. It is the conflict that makes the drama appealing. Without it the drama becomes monotones, not interesting at all. Conflicts are of two types i. e. internal conflict and external conflict. Internal conflict deals with man verses self it is also called as a psychological conflict. External conflict deals with following three types man vs man, man vs society, man vs nature, man vs supernatural-God, ghost,

monsters, spirits, aliens etc, man vs fate- fight for choice, fight against destiny., man vs Technology- computer, machines, etc.

Conflict is the very essence of drama. It enlightens life and grants dignity and worth to human life. In modern drama the conflict centers round the philosophical beliefs that life is meaningful and the experience that such meaning does not really exist. Thus the practices lead us to consider various conflicts which are handled by dramatists such as philosophical or ideological, the old and the new, the religious and the secular, the doctrinaire and the progressive, the dogmatic and the radical etc.

Staging / Stage Directions:

Drama is distinct from other literature because it is performed in front of an audience by actors to tell a story, along with the use of a set, lighting, music, and costumes. Stage Directions are guidelines, suggestions, given by the dramatist in the script of the play. They are the guidelines for the producer and the author wishes to be. Stage directions in earlier drama were pure and simple. They gave the outline of the scenery of the play and broad directions to the actors. Stage directions establish a link between the reader and the dramatist. In the dramatic literature of the past the chorus took care of these functions. In modern drama through the medium of the stage directions the dramatist attempts to exercise his control on the production. Theater artists bring the playwright’s vision to life on the stage. The audience responds to the play and shares the experience.

Theme:

From experiencing a play and examining the various elements of a play we derive a sense of its significance and meaning. We use the word theme to designate the main idea or point of a play stated as a generalization. Because formulating the theme of a play involves abstracting from it a generalizable idea, the notion of the theme inevitably moves away from the very details of character and action that give the play its life. This is not to suggest that it is not rewarding or useful to attempt to identify a central idea or set of ideas from plays, but only that we should be aware of the limitations of our doing so.

1.2.4 Conclusion:

Drama is an imitation of an action. It is a branch of literature which is both literary art and representational art. As a literary art, it deals with fiction or an

1.5 Check your progress

A) Fill in the blanks

1. Aristotle divided plots into two kinds namely ………..and …….
2. The characters are generally of two types ……. and………….
3. ……… is a conversation between two or more persons real or imaginary.
4. …….. means the arrangement of the events in a story.
5. J. L. Styan rightly describes dialogue as ………...

1.6 Exercises

A) Answer the following questions in 250 words.

I) Trace the development of English drama. II) Write a detail note on the origin of drama.

B) Write short note on the following (150 words)

I) Various definitions of Drama. II) The importance of dialogue in drama. III) Plot in the drama IV) Characters in drama

1.7 Answers to check your progress

1 Simple and complex 2 dynamic and static 3 dialogue 4 Plot 5 as a dramatic speech 

Unit-

B) Comedy as a Form

Contents

1.1 Introduction

1.2 Presentation of Subject Matter

1.2.1 History 1.2.2 Definition of Comedy 1.2.3 Type of Comedy

1.3 Glossary and Notes

1.4 Check Your Progress

1.5 Exercises

1.6 Answers to check your progress

1.7 Further Reading

1.1 Introduction:

Comedy is one of the oldest forms of drama. Comedy highlights that human beings are in fact ridiculous and cannot change.

In ordinary conversational English the words comedy and comic are used for anything that is funny or laughable. When we speak of a comedy we generally mean a play which has a pleasant atmosphere and a happy ending.

According to Aristotle (who speculates on the matter in his Poetics), ancient comedy originated with the komos, a curious and improbable spectacle in which a company of festive males apparently sang, danced, and cavorted rollickingly around the image of a large phallus. (If this theory is true, by the way, it gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "stand-up routine.")

The linking of the origins of comedy to some sort of phallic ritual or festival of mirth seems both plausible and appropriate, since for most of its history--from

For Aristotle, a comedy did not need to involve sexual humor. A comedy is about the fortunate arise of a sympathetic character. Aristotle divides comedy into three categories or subgenres: farce, romantic comedy, and satire. On the contrary, Plato taught that comedy is destruction to the self. He believed that it produces an emotion that overrides rational self-control and learning. In The Republic (Plato), he says that the Guardians of the state should avoid laughter, "for ordinarily when one abandons himself to violent laughter, his condition provokes a violent reaction.' "Plato says comedy should be tightly controlled if one wants to achieve the ideal state.

Also in Poetics, Aristotle defined Comedy as one of the original four genres of literature. The other three genres are tragedy, epic poetry, and lyric poetry. Literature in general is defined by Aristotle as a mimesis, or imitation of life. Comedy is the third form of literature, being the most divorced from a true mimesis. Tragedy is the truest mimesis, followed by epic poetry, comedy and lyric poetry. The genre of comedy is defined by a certain pattern according to Aristotle's definition. Comedies begin with low or base characters seeking insignificant aims, and end with some accomplishment of the aims which either lightens the initial baseness or reveals the insignificance of the aims.

1.2.2 Definition of Comedy:

When we speak of a comedy we generally mean a play which has a pleasant atmosphere and a happy ending. In the most common literary application, a comedy is a work in which the material are selected and managed primarily in order to interest, involve, and amuse us: the characters and their discomfitures engage our pleasurable attention rather than our profound concern, we are made to feel confident that no great disaster will occur, and usually the action turns out happily for the chief characters.

“Comedy is a drama in which the characters are placed in more or less humorous situation, the movement is light and often mirthful, and the play ends in general good will and happiness”. W. T. Young

1.2.3 Types of Comedy:

English comedy can be classified into the following types namely- 1) Romantic Comedy 2) Comedy of Manners 3) Satiric Comedy 4) Farce 5) Comedy of Humours

6. Sentimental Comedy 7) Tragic-Comedy or Dark Comedy

Romantic Comedy

The term romantic comedy is a somewhat vague appellation, which denotes a form of drama in which love is the main theme and love leads to happy ending.

Perhaps the most popular of all comic forms--both on stage and on screen--is the romantic comedy. The term romantic comedy is somewhat vague appellation, which denotes a form of drama in which love is the main theme and love leads to a happy ending. Romantic comedy was developed by Shakespeare on the model of contemporary prose romances such as Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde (1590) , the source of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599). Such comedy represents a love affair that involves a beautiful and engaging heroine (sometimes disguised as a man); the course of this love does not run smooth, yet overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union. These plays are generally concerned with love affairs that involve a beautiful and idealized heroine; the course of this love does not run smooth, but ultimately overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union. In this genre the primary distinguishing feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well- matched lovers are united or reconciled. In a typical romantic comedy the two lovers tend to be young, likeable, and apparently meant for each other, yet they are kept apart by some complicating circumstance (e.g., class differences, parental interference; a previous girlfriend or boyfriend) until, surmounting all obstacles, they are finally wedded. A wedding-bells, fairy-tale-style happy ending is practically mandatory. Examples: Much Ado about Nothing, Walt Disney's Cinderella, Guys and Dolls, Sleepless in Seattle.

Comedy of Manners:

The phrase comedy of manners is particularly applied in English to the plays of the Restoration dramatists, and especially to Congreve and Wycherley, but is a type of comedy which can flourish in any civilized urban society and we see it again in Sheridan and Oscar Wilde. The English comedy of manners was early exemplified by Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost and Much Ado about Nothing, and was given

employs highly exaggerated or caricatured types of characters, puts them into improbable and ludicrous situations, and makes free use of sexual mix-ups, broad verbal humor, and physical bustle and horseplay. The identifying features of farce are zaniness, slapstick humor, and hilarious improbability. The characters of farce are typically fantastic or absurd and usually far more ridiculous than those in other forms of comedy. At the same time, farcical plots are often full of wild coincidences and seemingly endless twists and complications. Elaborate comic intrigues involving deception, disguise, and mistaken identity are the rule. Examples of the genre include Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors, the "Pink Panther" movies, and the films of the Marx Brothers and Three Stooges.

Comedy of Humours:

Another important type of English comedy, conceived and pupularised by Ben Jonson, is the ‘comedy of Humours’. The word ‘humours’ refers to bodily fluids to which medieval medicine attributed to the various types of human temperament according to the predominance of each within the body. Thus a preponderance of blood would make a person ‘sanguine’, while excess of phlegm would make him or her ‘plegmatic’, too much choler (yellow bile) would produce a melancholy one. In Jonson is ‘Comedy of Humours’ each of the major characters instead of being a well balanced individual, has preponderant humour that gives him a characteristic distortion or eccentricity of disposition. Jonson expounds in his theory in the ‘Introduction’ to the play Every Man In his Humour (1598) and exemplifies the mode in his later comedies as well.

Sentimental Comedy:

The sentimental comedy of the 18th^ century was actually a reaction against Comedy of Manners of the Restoration period. In the sentimental comedy we find characters belonging to the middle class and possessing all sorts of human virtues who are made to suffer in their life and consequently pitied or sympathized by other who do not possess such virtue. The aim of the writers of sentimental comedies was to condemn human vices and flatter human virtues. In this way these comedies are more or less nothing but moral comedies. For example Oliver Goldsmith’s long poem ‘Retaliation’.

Jeremy Collier (1650-1726) protested against the permissiveness of the ‘comedy of manners’ specially those of Congreve and Vanbrugh, and wrote his treatise

entitled Short View of The Immortality and Profaneness of The English Stage. One result of this was the appearance of the new ‘sentimental comedy’. This form achieved some popularity with respectable middle-class audiences of the 18thcentury. It showed virtue rewarded by domestic bliss; its plots usually involved unbelievably good middle-class couple and emphasized pathos rather than humour. Pioneered by Richard Steele in The Funeral (1710) and more fully in The Concious Lovers (1722), it flourished in the mid-century with the French comedia larmoyonete (Tearful comedy) and in such plays as Huge Kelly’s False Delicacy (1768). The pious moralizing of this tradition also involved an element of preaching as a result of which the entertainment values of these plays was reduced.

Tragic-Comedy:

There are many plays which do not totally subscribe to the spirit of comedy, nor do they embody the tragic emotions. In parts, they may be cheerful but they point to some darker aspects of life as well. But generally these plays are also classified as comedies. Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and Eliot’s The Cocktail Party, for example, might both be called comedies but they have very little in common with the main stream of the English comedies. To these plays, the term ‘tragi-comedy’ or ‘black comedy’ or ‘dark comedy’ have been applied. Shakespeare’s later plays like The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline are ‘tragi-comedies’ with the pattern of sudden release from delay danger involved in the plots. In modern drama, the term black comedy is often used to describe a kind of drama in which disturbing or sinister subjects like death, disease, or warfare are treated with bitter amusements usually in a manner calculated to offend and stock. Prominent in the ‘Theatre of The Absurd’, ‘black comedy’ is represented in Beckett’s Happu Daus and Joe Orton’s The Loot.

1.3 Glossary and Notes

 University wits: dramatists of Renaissance age, Lily, Marlowe, Peele, Nash and Kyd

 Protagonist: the main character around whom the story revolves/ central character

 Antagonist: the entity that acts to frustrate the goals of the protagonist.

 Plot: the arrangement of the events in a story