What is Drama?

An AP® Literature IntroductionMrs. Leach

Chapel Hill High School

Drama Defined• Literary form designed for the

theater• Actors take roles, perform actions,

and utter written dialogue (usually in blank verse).

• Aristotle referred to it as “imitated human action.”

• A “Closet Drama” is written in the form of a drama, but it is intended only to be read.

Elements of Drama• 1. Story (told in)• 2. Action (by)• 3. Actors (impersonating

characters)

• Aristotle insisted on 3 Unities: 1 action + 1 day + 1 locale = 1 drama

An Active Audience• The audience must “suspend

belief” and accept the substitutions for reality, even though they know them to be false.

• They must accept the following DRAMATIC CONVENTIONS . . .

• 1. The actors must be taken as the people in the story.

• 2. The stage must be regarded as the actual location of the action.

• 3. The intervals between acts and scenes must be expanded imaginatively to correspond with the needs of the story.

• 4. The elaborate, poetic language must be accepted as spontaneous and natural – soliloquies, asides, rhyming speeches, etc.

• 5. The details of costuming (even disguises) and staging (visible ghosts, dinner table seating) must be accepted as simultaneously as the actors and as the audience see them.

• 6. The staging devices of lighting, music, symbolic objects must be accepted within the context of the play, even though improbable in real life.

Terms Used in Drama• Act: A major division in the action

of the play.• Dramatic Notion: An abbreviated

form for indicating the location of lines from a play. Usually indicated in parenthesis after a quote, such as Macbeth’s, “ fair is foul and foul is fair” (I, I, 1. 5-6)

• Dramatis Personae: the characters, usually listed at the beginning of the play and described briefly

• Dramaturgy: The art of writing plays.

• Scene: A sub-division of an act, in which there is usually no break in the continuity of time or place.

• Staging Devices: Lighting, props, costumes, etc.

What is a Tragedy?• The Myth of the Phoenix link-a conception of strength rising from destruction, carried by the Greeks into an art form– the tragic drama.The Hero Cycle link When the hero experiences tragedy, the readers/ viewers share the emotion. The Greeks have a name for this emotion . . . CATHARSIS!

General Rules on Tragedy• 1. It arouses the emotions of pity

and fear, awe and wonder.• 2. A tragic hero must be a man or a

woman capable of great suffering.• 3. Tragedy explores the question of

the ways of God to mortals.• 4. Tragedy purifies emotions.• 5. Tragedy shows how the hero is

brought to disaster by a single flaw in character.

Hamartia• The Greek word for error, frailty,

tragic flaw, error of judgment, or moral fault. The word actually means “missing the mark.” Typically, it is a moral sin or intellectual mistake.

4 Rules for a Tragedy• 1. Is the protagonist, a noble or

dignified, but has a weakness, his hamartia, which brings about his downfall?

• 2. Does the hero suffer greatly, self-consciously being aware of his plight and learning from it?

• 3. Does the hero struggle against his suffering and its causes, whether they come from the outside or inside himself?

• 4. Does the hero confront a choice, perhaps making the wrong choice because of the hamartia?

• If you said “YES” to most of these, your play is a TRAGEDY!!

Time Period Tragedy Differences

• Aristotelian: the hero must be “better” than other men. He starts virtuous and is brought to misery.

• Shakespearean: the hero is a king/ruler.

• Democratic: an archetypal citizen – a worker, a police officer, a gangster, etc.

What is a Comedy?• 1. Starts in chaos and ends in

union, relying on intrigue and coincidence to assure inevitable disaster is avoided.

• 2. Must maintain a tone of lightness.

• 3. Equilibrium must be restored.• 4. All’s well that ends well before

the curtain falls.

Comedy’s Characters• 1. Often flat and stereotyped,

rather than round and individual.• 2. Characters are usually middle

class and separated into “good guys” v. “bad guys”

• 3. Relies heavily on “stock characters”

• -miles gloriosus (the swaggering soldier)

• -senex amans (the amorous old man)

• -the clever slave

Comedy occurs when . . . • 1. characters and situations are

exaggerated, when incongruous elements are paired, or when the unexpected takes place.

• 2. When man is presented as ludicrously unheroic. (The coward tries to be brave or the king pretends to be a servant).

Comedy occurs when . . . • 3. Limitations are placed on man.

(Someone is at a formal event and cannot control belching, through his speech).

• 4. There is an escape and evasion. ( A running away from life– crushing pain is trivialized).

Deus Ex Machina• Pronounced: (Day-oos Ek Mak-ee-

na)• Greek for “god out of the machine”

link

Other Kinds of Drama• 1. Melodrama- a play constructed

with too many ups and downs, bearing little relationship and acting without motivation. (t.v. series, soap operas, etc.) link

• 2. Tragicomedy- a play containing humorous scenes but ends tragically (online list)

• 3. Pantomime- a wordless play (link)

• 4. Comedy of Manners- ridicules high society by making fun of decorum.

• 5. Commedia dell’ Arte- Street Comedy (link)

• 6. Farce- A comedy in which the predominating elements are action, plot, and exaggeration. (link)

• 7. Masque- light poetical and musical drama, in which costume and background are most important. Popular in the 1500 (link)

• 8. Medieval dramas- Mystery plays (scriptural) link, Miracle plays (legend of saints) link, Morality plays link, and Passion plays (crucifixion)link