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The Nature of Drama

The document provides an overview of drama as a genre of literature and performance. It defines drama as a story enacted live by actors for an audience, tracing its origins to ancient Greek festivals. It notes three key things that separate drama from other literature: it is written to be performed rather than read, uses techniques like dialogue and monologue, and involves a live audience. The document also summarizes the defining characteristics of tragedies and comedies, including their different themes, plot structures, and intended emotional impacts. It concludes with background on William Shakespeare and his contributions to drama.

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Aquino Jomar Atos
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115 views9 pages

The Nature of Drama

The document provides an overview of drama as a genre of literature and performance. It defines drama as a story enacted live by actors for an audience, tracing its origins to ancient Greek festivals. It notes three key things that separate drama from other literature: it is written to be performed rather than read, uses techniques like dialogue and monologue, and involves a live audience. The document also summarizes the defining characteristics of tragedies and comedies, including their different themes, plot structures, and intended emotional impacts. It concludes with background on William Shakespeare and his contributions to drama.

Uploaded by

Aquino Jomar Atos
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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The Nature of

Drama
CHAPTER 1
What is Drama
 Definition: a story that is enacted in real space
and time by live actors for a live audience.
 Based on Greek word dran, meaning “to do”
 Earliest copies from 5th century in ancient Greece
 For festivals for Dionysus (God of wine and fertility)
 Competition each year to see who would win with best play
 Most Greek conventions within theater are still followed today
 Despite the genre, all plays originally emulated plots
similar within literature we see today
 So what makes it so different?
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjLrMxO4cys
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
 It is written to be performed, not read. It has a tremendous source of power if done correctly.
It normally presents actions:
1. Conveyed through actors
 Costumes
 Impact is direct, immediate, and heightened by actor’s skills
 Limitations of thought process were seen until conventions of:
 Dialogue- conversations between characters on stage
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfiY9B_F74I
 Monologues- Long speeches by individual characters
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8RoH-ky6Kw
 Soliloquy- characters are presented as speaking to themselves
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pusU90ov8pQ
 Aside- characters turn from the persons with whom they are
conversing to speak directly to the audience or to one character.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mYaKObc_3w
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
2. Performed On stage (thrust, in the round, proscenium arch)
 Forcefully commands spectators attention
 (controlled lighting, sounds, seating, distractions, speed)
 Not only dependent on power of words
 Scene Design
 Lighting
 Props
 Stage directions

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6VFfGvAVZI
What Separates Drama from other
Literature?
3. Performed before an audience
 spectator = “to view” and audience “to hear”
 Actors and playwrights can feed off of audience response
 The experience created is communal and its impact is intensified.
 Spectator’s responses are influenced by other spectators many times
 “One of the special qualities of theater is that when we respond, we respond as a group.”
– Robert Anderson
 Do you agree? Does an audience affect one’s performance?
Tragedy
1. Always includes tragic hero who is a man of noble and moral stature
 Greatness about him, not ordinary but one of outstanding quality.
 He is good though not perfect and his fall results from “an act of injustice”
2. The hero always has a downfall which is a result of result of his/her own
free choice, not accident. This personal failing is known as the tragic flaw
 Greatness + flaw = pity
3. This misfortune is not usually wholly deserved.
 Punishment often exceeds the crime
 Hard to say “He got what was coming to him.”
4. The tragic fall is not pure loss
 This is where “discovery” usually takes over
5. Though solemn emotions are aroused (pity and fear),
if done correctly more positive emotions are evoked
(compassion and awe)
 Should not leave depressed but rather contemplative!
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cj7R36s4dbM
Comedy
1. A play that ends happily
 Contains own typical conflicts and plot patterns
 Boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy wins girl etc. (visa versa with gender)

2. Central characters do not have to be noble or righteous


3. Conflicts usually hinge on a problem of the heart (internal)
 Thwarted courtship, romantic misunderstanding.
 Although resolved happily, always comical complications
4. Melodrama: like tragedy attempts to arouse feelings of
fear and pity, but it does so ordinarily through cruder means.
5. Farce: like a comedy it is aimed at rousing explosive
laughter, but again by cruder means.
As you like it
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHnCA10mof0
Tragedy vs. Comedy
 Pity and fear  Pleasure and absurdity
 Human possibility  Human ridiculousness
 High plausibility in plot  Low plausibility in plot
 Emphasize uniqueness  Both focus on personal issues  Emphasize commonness
 Emphasis on psychological
 Judge on moral standards development of characters  Judge of social standards
 Human greatness (nobility)  Modern theater has tried to  Human weakness (anybody)
change these standards for
 Human freedom both genres as times  Human limitations
 External conflicts  Internal conflicts
 Ends contemplative  Ends happy
William Shakespeare
 We know very little about Shakespeare compared to other authors
 However, there is more material on Shakespeare than any other author
 Baptized on April 1564 (Public Records) therefore born most likely a couple days before
 Birthday is celebrated on April 23rd but only because he also died on this date in 1616
 Father was merchant (John) and a man of some importance in the town
 Serving as alderman and high bailiff (aka mayor)
 Attended Stratford Grammar school where he was schooled in Latin and Greek/Roman myths
 Married in 1582 to Anne Hathaway (8 years older)
 1583 had their first child (Sussanna)
 1585 twins (Hamnet and Judith)
 1592 he falls of the face of the world (most likely went to London to seek his fortune)
 Rival was Robert Green who warned other playwrights from doing what Shakespeare did (acting  writing plays)
 Actors were looked down upon and lumped together with “vagabonds” and “rogues”
 Julius Caesar was most likely written in 1599 after a Swiss traveler commended the Globe
 Died at 52 and buried in Holy Trinity Church
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geev441vbMI

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