Lecture One

An Introduction to
The Field of Drama
 What is drama?
• A specific mode of fiction
represented in
performance.
 The origin of the term
• From a Greek word meaning “action” derived
from “to do” or “to act”.

• So the action performed by actors on stage

before an audience.
 Early masterpieces of the art of
Drama
• Classical Athenian Tragedy by Sophocles:
Oedipus the king (429 Bc)
• Early modern tragedy by Shakespeare: Hamlet
(1601)
• A modern example: Long Day’s Journey into
Night by Eugene O’Neill (1956).
Original play types of ancient Greece

Drama

Comedy Tragedy
• Witty remarks
• Plays that involve
• Strange characters death, sadness,
and circumstances conflicts and
• Innumerous play emotions
• “A Midsummer’s Night • “Romeo and Juliet”
Dream”
 What is a play?
• A form of literature written by a playwright
(dramatist), usually consisting of dialogue
between characters, intended for theatrical
performance rather than reading.
• The term play may refer to both the written
work of a playwright and its theatrical
performance.
 19th Century Drama
• Drama refers to a play that is neither a
comedy nor a tragedy.

• Realism as a genre in drama.

• Chekhov’s Ivanov (1887)

• Drama is often combined with music and
dance.

• Drama in Opera is generally sung throughout.

 Elizabethan Drama
• English Renaissance Theatre in 16th and 17th
Centuries in England
• Many of the plays were written in verse,
particularly iambic pentameter
• Prominent playwrights: Christopher Marlowe,
Shakespeare and Ben Jonson.
• Historical plays celebrated the lives of past kings
• Drawn from Greek mythology and Roman
mythology.
The difference between Plot and Story
Plot Story
Plot is for the presentation of a story, chronological succession of events and
namely the subject occurrences
Plot corresponds to Aristotle’s concept of A story contains some ingredients like:
mythos
Aristotle’s mythos is the synthesis of Subjects
events
This synthesis is determined by a whole Temporal dimension
series of principles (causality for example)
Creating beginning, middle and end Spatial dimension
Aristotle’s mythos creates a unified entity Less specific
(Pfister 197-98) (Pfister 196-97)
Aristotle’s six parts of Tragedy
 Aristotle’s Definition of Tragedy

“Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is

serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in the
language embellished with each kind of artistic
ornament, the several kinds being found in separate
parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative;
through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation-
catharsis of these and similar emotions. . . . . Every
Tragedy, therefore, must have six parts, which parts
determine its quality—namely, Plot, Characters,
Thought, Diction, Melody, Spectacle.” (translation by S.
H. Butcher)
Therefore, he considers tragedy the noblest form of poetry in his
time, because it imitates an action that is serious, complete, and
of a certain magnitude.

The distinct pleasure afforded us by tragedy is the “pleasure

that comes from pity and fear by way of imitation.”
 Aristotle’s Six Parts of Tragedy

• plot,
• character,
• thought,
A work of tragedy • diction,
should consist of • melody, and
the following
elements: • spectacle.
 Parts of Tragedy

1. Plot or mythos: arrangements of incidents and actions in the story.

2. Character: the moral qualities of an agent.
3. Thought: the intellectual qualities of an agent.
4. Diction: the composition of the verses of dialogues.
5. Melody/songs
6. Spectacle: the overall visual appearance of the stage and the
actors—i.e. the costumes and setting.
 The Plot
Aristotle argues that:
• Among these six, the plot is the most important.
 without action there cannot be tragedy
 at the same time characters are required to do action.
• The plot of a tragedy (a tragic plot) should be:
 logical and flow in a reasonable and realistic manner.
• Ideally complicated as the protagonist moves from good
fortune to disaster then to death.
 The Hero’s Understanding
Anagnorisis
•The tragic hero has a “moment of enlightenment”
near the end of the story. Change from ignorance
to knowledge realizing the cause of his misery to
each catharsis.
– Tragic hero understands what he has done wrong—how
he contributed to the tragic situation.
– The story often ends with the death of the tragic hero.
 Lecture Two

• General Elements of Drama

General Elements of Drama
• Plot:
Two or more plots are juxtaposed
or strung together (Pfister 212).
•Theme:
• An abstract idea that emerges from a literary
work’s treatment of its subject-matter.

• It may be announced explicitly, but more

often, it emerges indirectly.
(The Oxford dictionary of literary terms, 3ed, 334)
 Character
& Dramatic figure
• Character: a personage in a narrative or
dramatic work …describing some recognizable
type of person (The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms)
• Dramatic figure: the word figure hints at
something deliberately artificial, produced for
a particular purpose. Dramatic figures can not
be separated from their environment (Pfister
161)
 Stage Directions

Stage Directions

Primary text
Secondary text

The dialogue The notes left by the

exchange among playwright to guide the
characters stage designer or actor
Types of stage directions

Actor’s Activities
Paralinguistic
Linguistic
Mimicry
Gestures
Manner

Actor’s Appearance
Costume, Hairstyle, Physiognomy, Props

Setting
Lighting-locale-properties
 Dialogue

• Monologue and dialogue

• Soliloquy and aside

• Conventional and motivational soliloquies

• Aside ad spectator

• Dialogical aside
History of WesternDrama
 The Greeks
• Although no consensus exists on the exact date of the birth of drama nor
on the specific development of the origin of theater, the most accepted
hypothesis is that the Greek drama was the outgrowth of the rites of
worship of Dionysus.
• Very seldom in the history of Western drama has the presence of sacer
ludus,holy play, been more dominant than in the Greek theater of
antiquity.
• The Greek audience attended the theater, as all participants do, to be
instructed and delighted, but at the same time, to experience communion
with the gods.
• Tragedy was performed in Athens at the three annual festivals of Dionysus
• The intention was to identify one’s self with the god, to praise and honor
the gifts from the god.
 Elements of the Greek Theatre
• In the ritual dance to Dionysus, the whole body of worshippers
participated; only the uninterested, women, and children were spectators.
All are actors; all are doing the thing done; there is no distance between
actor and audience. The common action, the common emotion is the core
of ritual.

• the circle of flat ground.

• the skene (the building from which the actors made their entrances and
exits and which eventually was decorated with simple painting

• The cult statue of Eleathereus, a pillar-shaped idol of Dionysus

 On the Role of the Chorus
• The Chorus was on stage during the entire drama and contributed visually,
aesthetically, rhythmically, and dramatically to the action.
• Ranging in numbers from twelve to fifteen to fifty
• Aesthetically, the Chorus set the mood of the play and echoed the images
present within the action.
• Greek drama without its choral passages . . . [would make] the action
move too fast. These retardations—these pauses in which to look
backward and forward—contributed enormously to the over-all emotional
effect; they are part of the design without which the whole would be
incomplete or unsatisfying.
• Dramatically, the members of the Chorus informs us of the past, connects
in the present, and foresees the future. They interpret, give advice,
express opinions, and sometimes threaten to become involved in the
action.
 Mystery and Morality Plays
The Medieval Era
• The liturgical music dramas from their beginnings in the tenth century through
the twelfth century took place in church buildings with the clergy in the acting
roles.
• The actors in the early plays, no matter what the roles called for, were the
clergy.
• Later, lay persons were in charge both in the production and performance of
the drama.
• The language, as was true for all the liturgy until rather recently in the Roman
Catholic Church, was Latin.
• But by the thirteenth century, the vernacular was the common vehicle for the
dramas.
• As a result religion started to lose its grips upon drama.

• WHY?
 Shakespeare’s Theatre
“The Globe”
• In contrast to the later drama beginning in the
16th century with its enclosed spaces and
emphasis on domestic settings, Shakespeare’s
theater attempted to be a microcosm of the
world itself. Its flat open arena and its large
balcony and its second smaller double balcony
was a mirror of the universe as perceived by the
Renaissance audience and playwright—the divine
presence, the court, and the people—three
levels, separate yet often intermingling
 The Shakesperean Drama in
Accordance with People’s Worldview
• For Elizabethans to affirm that the king was a lion
among beasts or like the sun was to affirm a
sense of order and congruence. This sense of
order and congruence manifested itself in many
dimensions in Shakespeare’s drama. Amid the
mistaken identities of comedy and the
catastrophes of tragedy, a sense that there is
meaning in human events continues to prevail.
The coincidences which untangle the comic plots
and the magnificent speeches of the tragic
heroes as they die all point to the belief that a
transcendent order is at work in the universe.