INTRODUCTION

TO DRAMA
The Study of the Drama
Dramatic Forms & Types
The Study of the Drama
WHAT IS DRAMA

The elements that differentiate the dramatic form from the

non-dramatic form are:
Representation
Impersonation
Action

The essential element is furnished by the first clause of

the most famous of all definitions of tragedy, Artistotles
Tragedy is an imitation of an action.
The Study of the Drama
ELEMENTS:
1. Representation
Imitation = representation
Drama is not life but the representation of life. Not a real
event but the representation of a real (or an imagined)
event, is the essence of drama

2. Impersonation is the assumption by human beings of

personalities, characters, natures, or entities other than
their own. It involves participation not in actual but in
represented action.
The Study of the Drama
3. Action
Drama, in both its philological and historical aspects,
cannot exist without it. The action is usually overt that is
to say, physical.

The difference between drama and a drama:

A drama is a particular example of the species drama. A
drama may, and usually does involve the technical
elements of plot, character, setting, and dialogue; and the
elements of representation, impersonation and action are
present.
Drama is the whole body of specific dramas produced by
mankind throughout its recorded history.
The Study of the Drama
The drama may be studied as a type of literature or as a
form of living art. As a literary type, it may be studied in its:

Genres tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce

Aesthetic Modes classical, romantic, realistic,
naturalistic, etc.
Technical elements plot, character, dialogue, setting
Conventions effect of the choice of a subject, the
representation of characters as types, the tone or mood,
style of dialogue
The Study of the Drama

The study of the drama outside the theater has become

so conventional an approach that students need
constantly to be reminded that the only proper place for
the study of the drama is the theater.

It is necessary to insist that students accustom

themselves to regarding the drama not as a literary type
to be enjoyed but as a form of aesthetic experience to the
maximum effectiveness of which a large number of non-
literary elements must contribute.
The Study of the Drama

A play is not a play until it is acted in a theater before an

audience.

The student of the drama should take into consideration

that a play is written to be performed not in the abstract
theater of an idealists imaginings but in a theater
characteristic of a particular period.
The Study of the Drama

There are four principal aspects of the drama which

may be studied in order to attain a better understanding of
plays:
Dramatic forms
Dramatic history
Dramatic modes
Dramatic techniques
Dramatic Forms & Types
The 4 most important dramatic forms:
Tragedy, comedy, melodrama, farce

Dramatic forms are the result of an analysis of the

problem of directing emotional responses of an audience
in a theater.
The chief difficulty involved in a study of these dramatic
forms lies in the confusion which has arisen because
various historical epochs have had somewhat different
conceptions of them. (Comedy was different to the
audience of Aristophanes in 5th century BC as to the
audience of Robert Greene in the 18th century.)
Dramatic Forms & Types
Another difficulty is the multiplicity of minor varieties, like
chronicle plays, heroic plays, tragicomedies, burlesques,
problem plays, and various combinations of standard
forms.

However, later on, with the recent studies on drama, this

difficulty was resolved. These minor forms belong to the
study of particular periods of dramatic history and not to a
general introductory survey of the principal dramatic
forms.
Tragedy
Of all the chief dramatic forms, certainly the most
honorable, if not the most ancient, is tragedy.

Confusion arises because different historic epochs have

had different conceptions of the form, and critics of these
epochs have emphasized different aspects of tragedy:
Tragedy: Definition

Aristotle, writing in the 4th century BC, said:

Tragedy, then, is an imitation of an action that is serious,
complete, and of a certain magnitude; in 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
affecting the proper purgation of these emotions.
Tragedy: Definition
In the Renaissance, just before the development of
English tragedy in the plays of Shakespeare and
Marlowe, the English critic, William Webbe, said:

As expressing only sorrowful and lamentable histories,

bringing in the persons of gods, goddesses, kings and
queens, and great state, whose parts were chiefly to
express most miserable calamities and dreadful chances,
which increased worse and worse, till they came to the
most woeful plight that might be devised.
Tragedy: Definition
Carpenter, a modern American teacher of the drama,
has said:

A tragedy is a play in which the treatment is serious,

profound, and lofty, and the ending is both disastrous and
inevitable.
Tragedy
These three definitions serve to illustrate the variations
in the critical statements which have been made about
tragedy.

The second reason for confusion is the students

unfamiliarity with the plays. He has no means of testing
the adequacy of the definitions. So, the tendency is to
memorize any definition and then attempt to judge plays
without having had any broad dramatic experience.
Tragedy: Characteristics
1. Has an unhappy ending

This is usually the death of the most important character.

It cannot be denied that most tragedies do end unhappily
but it does not require a knowledge of very many plays to
see that an unhappy ending can scarcely be called the
most essential trait of the form because there a few
good tragedies that end happily. Example is Euripides
Iphigenia in Tauris
Tragedy: Characteristics
2. The treatment of the serious subject

This refers to the significant struggle between a character

or a group of characters and some great force.
Each dramatist has selected a conflict which had great
significance for the audience of his time, and in the finest
tragedies this struggle has been depicted with such a
depth of understanding and an honesty of purpose that
the plays have never lost their power to move.
Tragedy: Characteristics
3. Has universal appeal

The spectator feels that he is seeing not simply a few

events in the life of an individual but an action whose
importance extends beyond the life of one man or even of
an age.
Tragedy: Characteristics
4. Has honesty

All plays, if they are successful, seem to be true to life, at

least during the performance.

(But we realize before we have witnessed any large

number of plays that many of them have simply been
made to appear true for the moment; that the dramatist is
not trying to show us life as he really sees it but is willing
to write anything that will bring the customers to the box
office.)
Comedy
Comedy is the most miscellaneous of all the dramatic
forms.

It is always assumed that all plays which end happily are

comedies and those which end unhappily are tragedies.
This is a wrong notion since not all comedies end happily.
Examples are Molieres Misanthrope, Jonsons Volpone,
Rostands Cyrano Bergerac.
Comedy
Different nations and different epochs have not agreed as
to the most important characteristics of the form:

For some, the chief distinction is the social class of

the characters:

The Romans up through the Renaissance thought of the

characters of comedy as members of the middle and
lower classes, in opposition to the kings and princes who
were the chief characters of tragedy
Comedy

However, the dramatists of Restoration even tended to

eliminate bourgeois and lower class characters from their
comedies.

To the English audiences of the 18th and 19th centuries,

comedy meant a happy ending, or the denouement which
involved rewards for the virtuous and sympathetic
characters, and punishment and reformation for the
wicked.
Comedy: Characteristics
Greek: For Aristophanes, comedy meant three things:

Rollicking scenes of farce which would urge his audience

to shouts of unrestrained laughter
Satire, often very personal, of his contemporaries and
their work, satire which would make his audience think
about political or intellectual or social matters and which
might perhaps lead to reform
Songs of haunting beauty which would give to his
audience an aesthetic satisfaction of the sort modern
audiences associate with operas or concerts rather than
with plays
Comedy: Characteristics
Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence:

Had little interest in lyric beauty or in contemporary ideas

and problems
The element of farce in their plays was not the fantastic
fooling of the old Greek plays but a much more realistic
and limited form of buffoonery
The characters were not individuals but well-recognized
middle class city types who appeared in play after play
Expected to hold interest by the complicated intrigues of
the plot and to rouse laughter at the ingeniously contrived
or ludicrous situations
Comedy: Characteristics
In Elizabethan and Jacobean England, there were two
types of comedy:

The Romantic type of Shakespeare:

Characters are of all classes, present light-hearted
stories of love and adventure in which the happy union
of the lovers in the last act is always an important part of
the appeal
Part of the action nearly always takes place in a wood or
in a garden, and the setting is idyllic
Appeal to the audiences interest in a story, to their
sympathetic satisfaction in the triumph of the lovers
Comedy: Characteristics
Realistic comedy of Ben Jonson:

Satiric and sometimes bitter, depending on ridicule rather

than on humor for its laughs
Has a social function should benefit society by
selecting the foibles and petty vices of the time and
holding them up to ridicule on the stage
Does not deal with princes and great noblemen but
should be drawn from the middle and lower classes
Set in contemporary London
Comedy: Characteristics
Comedy of Moliere (during the reign of King Louis XIV)

Resembles Jonsons work

Set in contemporary Paris; the characters are drawn from the
life about him
Has a social function
Depends on the chief interest upon the inevitable clash
between characters of opposed ideas and temperaments
Moliere was more good-humored and profound than Jonson
Moliere expected from his audience not the roars of laughter
provoked by the situations of (Plautus and Terence), not by
Shakespeares charming song, nor the derisive glee by
Jonsons fools but sought to evoke thoughtful laughter
Comedy: Characteristics
The Restoration --- comedy of manners

Reflects the manners of the more exclusive social

groups
Has brilliant dialogues whose wit delighted the
sophisticated audience
The audience laughed at the affectations and vanities of
their friends and acquaintances set on the stage and
applauded the witty characters whose chief interests were
fashionable manners and clever conversation

Comedy: Characteristics
18th century to early 19th century

The Restoration comedy was imitated but most comedies

were quite different in tone and purpose form the gay,
brilliant, and none too decorous plays of the playwrights of
the period
The plays were somewhat like Elizabethan romantic
comedies in their interest in story, in the trials of lovers,
and in the happy ending rather than in satire or manners
or wit or fundamental character conflicts but in spite of
these similarities, 18th century comedy differed sharply
from Shakespeares romantic variety.
Comedy: Characteristics
18th century to early 19th century

Exploited the contemporary interest in preaching from

the stage
Made three regular appeals to the audience:
It gave them moralizing speeches, miniature sermons spoken by
virtuous characters, for their self-righteous applause
It gave them pitiful scenes of virtue in distress for their ever-ready,
sympathetic tears
It gave them the gratifying triumph of virtue and modesty and honor
at the end of the play
Comedy: Main Types
In summary, comedy has 6 main types:

Roman type, which depends upon intrigue or situation

Elizabethan romantic comedy
Jacobean realistic or satiric comedy
Moliers high comedy or comedy of character
Restoration comedy or comedy of manners
18th and 19th-century sentimental comedy
Modern Comedy

It is the presence on the modern stage of all 6 of these

types of comedy, which makes our modern conception of
the form such a miscellaneous one.

Modern comedies are often a mixture of two or more of

the old types.
Comedy: Two Types of Appeal
Appeal to the sense of humor, to the sense of the
ridiculous

The dramatist makes no very serious attempt to arouse

the emotions or to engage strongly the sympathies of the
audience
He tries to interest them in the action and the dialogue of
each scene, and he is not interested in rousing any deep
concern about the success or failure of others
He relies on the audiences intelligent perception of those
contrasts, incongruities, and inconsistencies which lead to
laughter
Comedy: Two Types of Appeal
Appeal to the emotional rather than intellectual

The dramatist tries to get his audience deeply interested

in the outcome of the action
He tries to build up a strong sympathy for certain
characters and a dislike or even hatred for others
He relies greatly upon the feeling of satisfaction and
delight from the audience
He makes comparatively little use of satire, which leads to
the dislike of certain characters not because they are
satirized but because they are depicted morally bad
Melodrama and Farce
Melodrama and Farce are less significant dramatic forms
than tragedy and comedy because they are designed to
make a more trivial and temporary appeal than the higher
forms ----
No one is expected to carry anything away with him from these
plays: they have no inner meaning

They are expected to be more obvious in their appeal

than tragedy and comedy; they depend upon action, and
their fundamental conflict is external
Melodrama and Farce
Their plot and individual incidents are more important than the
characters or the implications of the action as a whole:
The highest aim of melodrama is a thrill; the highest aim of a farce is a
laugh

It can be said that melodrama is a lower form of tragedy and

farce a lower form of comedy.
Melodrama deals with serious or painful elements in life but the
attitude of the dramatist and his treatment of the material are more
important factors than the subject matter.
Farce and comedy are alike in their interest in the less
catastrophic phases of life, in the amusing and the ridiculous, but
they differ in their method: keenly observant for comedy while
irresponsible and grossly exaggerated for farce
Melodrama

Originally, as its etymology indicates, melodrama was

applied to a serious play accompanied by music but
recently this is no longer a necessity. The really essential
element in melodrama is the thrill.
Melodrama
CHARACTERIZATION
It is because of the thrills that the characters are usually
only type figures, and frequently they are inconsistent.
They are invariably dominated by the plot and this is
inevitable if the thrills are to be frequent and easily
experienced by the audience.

The playwright must expend his ingenuity in devising

exciting situations.
Melodrama
CHARACTERIZATION

Long ago, writers of melodrama learned that it is best to

give characters only the most obvious story book traits
and then to keep things happening so fast that no one in
the audience has time to wonder about the
inconsistencies or notice that the protagonist is only an
old stock figure with no individuality.
Melodrama
PLOT
Melodramas are written not to present a logical sequence
of events but to display a series of individual scenes. The
plot is episodic.

Each scene is exciting in and for itself and depends much

less upon the preceding scenes for its effect than in the
case of comedy and tragedy. In this regard, a melodrama
has much in common with a newspaper comic strip.
Melodrama
DISHONEST PORTRAYAL OF LIFE

The tragic dramatist asks: What is the one thing which

these people would do in these circumstances?
The writer of melodrama asks: What is the most exciting
thing these people might do? How can I make it appear
they might actually have done such an improbable thing?

The writer of melodrama is interested not at all in

showing life as it actually is, but simply in writing an
exciting entertainment, near enough to real life to keep
the audience.
Farce
If for melodrama, it treats sensational events, farce the
ridiculous ones. And if the highest aim of melodrama is
the thrill, for farce, a laugh.

The most distinguishing characteristics of farce are:

Exaggeration of incidents and character traits
Consequent dominance of the plot over the characters
Physical action is most important (the dramatist is interested not in
what people think and feel but in what they do)
Farce
This exaggeration and the importance of situation in
farce lead almost inevitably to the simplification of
character. The usual exaggerations for certain traits for
comic effect make the people of farces caricatures.

The episodic character of farce is similar to the

melodrama. In both of these forms, immediate
entertainment is the sole aim.
Farce
The essential dishonesty is not so misleading as it is in
melodrama, for the ridiculous character of the
exaggerations in a farce prevents them from being taken
seriously

Farce, then, is one of the simpler forms of drama,

demanding no thought for its appreciation. It depends
for its humorous effects upon the exaggeration of a few
simple character traits and upon action which is
frequently, though not always, physically violent.

It also makes no pretense to depict reality and it

constantly resorts to gross improbabilities in action
and in character.