DRAMA

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DRAMA

• INTRODUCTION TO HUMANITIES

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DRAMA

• Drama is a species of literature whose basic
  medium is spoken language.
• Drama can be read, somewhat like a poem or novel.
• But the word drama comes from the Greek word
  meaning act.

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Drama

• Drama is spoken language acted, to be produced
  for public exhibition, usually upon a stage.
• Drama as a complete work of art exists in the
  presentation.

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Aristotle and the Elements of Drama

• Much of what modern commentators say about drama
  goes back to theories Aristotle put forth in his
  Poetics.
• His ideas were interpreted as rules.
• They interpreted tragedy as a serious action
  whose consequences reached sometimes as far as
  the gods.

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• The rules devised in the eighteenth century (and
  earlier) insisted on the unities that there be
  only one plot in a tragedy,
• That the action should take place in one locale,
  that it should be completed in one day, and that
  the main character should display a unity of
  behavior.

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• Aristotle felt that tragedy evoke or ought to
  evoke two emotions from the audience
• Pity and fear
• Pity was sympathy for the tragic hero
• Fear was the awareness that such a fate could be
  fall anyone.

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THE IMITATION OF LIFE

• No other art comes closer to life and hence
  drama, more than any other art.
• This led Aristotle to his theory of art as the
  imitation of nature nature being life in
  general not just outdoors.

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ELEMENTS OF DRAMA

• Drama uses the resources of the theater to show
  human action in such a way that we gain deeper
  understanding of human experience.
• The basic elements of drama are action,
  character, setting, and ideas.
• Action is the plot or ongoing business of the
  characters what they strive for, what they
  expect to see happen.

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• Character is either developed or flat,
• Either individuated or typed, either
  psychological or symbolic.
• Setting is either established explicitly and
  reproduced on stage with realistic or
  expressionist sets,
• Or it is hinted at and suggested.

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• Archetypal drama aims at symbolic or mythic
  interpretations of experience.
• For instance, ones search for personal identity,
  since it seems to be a pattern repeated in all
  ages, can serve as a primary archetypal structure
  for drama.

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GENRES OF DRAMA TRAGEDY

• Carefully structured plots were favored by
  Aristotle, and are usually essential in
  tragedies.
• But for the best tragedies, according to
  Aristotle, the action must also arise from the
  searchings of a noble character.
• The strengths and flaws of the protagonist
• Must be factors contributing to the dramatic
  outcome.

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• But when we turn to the great tragedies that most
  define the genre, we think immediately of great
  characters Oedipus Agamemnon Prometheus
  Hamlet Macbeth
• In most modern tragedies, such as ONeils Desire
  Under the Elms and Millers Death of a Salesman,
  the characters still remain at the center of the
  drama.

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COMEDY OLD AND NEW

• Old Comedy is associated with our modern farce,
  burlesque, and the broad humor and make-believe
  violence of slapstick.
• New Comedy is suave and subtle.
• New Comedy developed type characters, such as the
  gruff and difficult man who turns out to have a
  hear of gold, the good cop, the bad cop

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TRAGICOMEDY THE MIXED GENRE

• The tragic mask with a downturned mouth, and the
  comic mask with an upturned mouth hang on the
  wall of many stages.
• If there were a third mask, it would probably
  have an expression of bewilderment as is someone
  had just asked a totally unanswerable question.
• Mixing the genres of tragedy and comedy in a
  drama may give such a feeling.

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EXPERIMENTAL DRAMA

• The last forty years have seen exceptional
  experimentation in drama in the Western world.
• Another important thrust of experimental drama
  has been to assault the audience.

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SUMMARY

• The subject matter of drama is the human
  condition as represented by action.
• By emphasizing plot and character as the most
  important elements of drama, Aristotle helps us
  understand the priorities of all drama.
• Some archetypes seem related to the natural
  rhythms of the seasons and focus,

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Summarycontd

• Comedy has several distinct genres.
• Old Comedy often abuses individual characters and
  revels in broad humor.
• New Comedy emphasizes the comedy of manners, a
  social commentary that often depends on type
  characters.
• Tragicomedy combines both genres to create a
  third genre.