4-1) History of English Drama
INTRODUCTION
‘How dramatic you are!’ is your response when a friend exaggerates
or overreacts. It means you are correctly using the adjective form of
the word ‘drama’. Drama is a performance which is essentially loud,
exaggerated and larger than life. It is an audio visual medium. The
audience sitting around, in front of, close to or in the last row of the
theatre, should be able to hear and see the actor on stage. For example,
a stage whisper is far louder than a whisper in real life. This would be
an example of ‘willing suspension of disbelief’. It can be defined as a
willingness to accept the unreal. It may also mean sacrifice of realism
and logic for the sake of enjoyment. The term was coined by the poet
and aesthetic philosopher Samuel T. Coleridge. The term often applies to
fictional works of the action, comedy, fantasy and horror genres. It refers
to the willingness of the audience to overlook the limitations of a medium.
Drama is a medium of expression, whereby performers express themselves
artistically. The performance is based on a script which is in the form of
dialogues, whereas a story or a novel is written in the narrative form.
Poetry is language expressed in rhythm and metre. Drama is the specific
mode of fiction represented in performance. A play, opera, mime and ballet
are performed in a theatre, on radio or on television.
What is drama?
‘Drama is a composition in verse or prose to be acted on the stage, in which a
story is related by means of dialogue and action and is represented with, accompanying
gesture, costume and scenery as in real life’.
- Shorter Oxford Dictionary
‘Drama is a composition designed for performance in the theatre in which actors
take the roles of the characters, perform the indicated action and utter the written
dialogue’.
- A Glossary of Literary Terms by M.H. Abrams
The Elements of Drama:
The elements of drama are-
1. plot
2. characterization
3. dialogue
4. settings
5. stage directions
6. conflict
7. theme
The four closely related areas of focus are-
1. The focus of the scene
2. The focus of the audience
3. The focus of the character
4. The focus of the actor
Objectives:
After studying this unit you will be able to :
• understand and identify drama as a genre of literature
• learn the definition of drama
• explain the difference between drama and other forms of literature
• explain the basic elements of drama
• understand the types of drama
Types of Drama:
• Tragedy • Comedy • Tragic Comedy
(i) Romantic Comedy,
(ii) Sentimental Comedy,
(iii) Classical Comedy,
(iv) Comedy of Humour
(v) Comedy of Manners
A Short History of Drama
(I) Introduction to English Theatre :
Drama has its origins in folk theatre. We therefore cannot consider drama
merely as a part of literature.
Words are the medium of literature as an art but drama is a multiple art using words,
scenic effects, music, gestures of the actors and the organising talents of a
producer.
The dramatist must have players, a stage and an audience.
The beginnings of drama in England are obscure. There is evidence
to believe that when the Romans were in England they established vast
amphitheatres for the production of plays but when the Romans departed
their theatre departed with them.
Then there were minstrels. People enjoyed
their performances. Gradually by the 10th century the ritual of the plays that
itself had something dramatic in it, got extended into the rudiments of a play.
Between the 13th and 14th century drama started having themes which were
separated from religion. The words themselves were spoken in English, a
longer dramatic script came into use, and they were called as Miracle plays.
Later, these religious dramas were the Morality plays in which characters
were abstract vices and virtues. These were allegories.
(II) Elizabethan and Restoration Theatre :
These Secular Morality plays have
direct links with Elizabethan plays. The Renaissance imposed a learned
tradition, classical in depth with themes of education, general moral problems
and secular politics. The plays had nothing to do with religion. There were
examples of both, comedy and tragedy.
Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe
and William Shakespeare are the prime dramatists of this era. It was Kyd
who discovered how easily blank verse might be converted into a useful
theatrical medium which Shakespeare used brilliantly in all his plays.
Tragedy developed in the hands of Kyd and Marlowe. Comedy had also
proceeded beyond rustic humour. But by the nineties of the 16th century, the
theatre in England was fully established but complicated conditions governed
the activities of the dramatist.
The public theatre of the 16th century differed in many important ways
from the modern theatre. It was open to sky, without artificial lighting,
the stage was a raised platform with the recess at the back supported by
pillars. There was no curtain and the main platform could be surrounded on
three sides by the audience. Around the theatre there were galleries. In the
17th century the enclosed theatre gained importance.
There was increasing
attention to scenic device as theatre became private.
Shakespeariean era came into existence in the 16th century to the public
theatre. He wrote for the contemporary theatre, manipulating the Elizabethan
stage with great resource and invention.
But the genius of Shakespeare should
not allow the rest of the drama of his age to be obscured.
Contemporary
to him was Ben Johnson, a classicist, a moralist and a reformer of drama
In comedy, Johnson’s genius is found at its best and his influence was
considerable. The Restoration dramatists leaned strongly upon him.
Closing of theatres by the Puritans in 1642, brought this greatest of
all periods in the history of English drama to an end.
With the Civil wars no theatre existed between 1642 to 1660.
The next phase which appeared
after the Restoration produced a very different kind of dramatic literature.
Dramatists like Chapman, Thomas Middleton, Webster and Dekker were at
the forefront.
When Charles II came back with the Restoration of 1660, the theatres
were reopened. The Restoration comedy achieved its peculiar excellence.
Drama developed into class drama with upper-class ethos. It lasted beyond
this period into the first decade of the 18th century. Comedy in the early 18th
century declined into sentimentalism. It became Comedy of Manners. George
Etherege was its most important exponent. From such depths the drama
was rescued by Oliver Goldsmith and Richard Sheridan. With Sheridan,
something of the brilliance of restoration dialogue returned into comedy but
with more genial atmosphere. The characters were firmly presented with
clarity, reminiscent of Johnson but with no depth in Sheridan’s world, no
new interpretation of human nature. In this he was nearer to Oscar Wilde
than to Johnson.
(III) Modern Theatre :
The modern theatre with its picture frame stage, its
actresses taking female parts, its moveable scenery designed to create a
visual image of the locale of each scene and its artificial light was developed
during the Restoration period. There is clear influence of France in theatre,
the audience and the themes.
The drama of the early 19th century was on the whole on the way to
decline because of many causes. The theatre was home, mainly to irregular
spectacle, melodrama and farce. A simple external reason can be found in
the monopoly held by the two houses, Covent Garden and Drury Lane, for
the performance of serious drama.
The audiences which gathered to the 19th century theatre had
not the intelligence or the imagination of the Elizabethan
audience. The danger in the 19th century theatre was that, above all, it was
unrelated to the life of the time. The changes in the structure of society
had so modified the human personality itself that a new interpretation was
essential.
Ibsen, the great Norwegian dramatist of the 19th century, dominates the
modern drama. He developed modernist, realist, social and psychological
dramas like The Doll’s house, Ghosts, and An Enemy of the People.
They are far more subtle in stagecraft and profound in thought than anything in
the modern English theatre. But it was only George Bernard Shaw who
was deeply influenced and affected by Ibsen’s innovative contributions and experimentation.
He was the most brilliant playwrights of his times.
He alone had understood the greatness of Ibsen and he was determined that his own
plays should also be a vehicle for ideas. The responsibility of elevation of
the English drama to the brilliance of the Norwegian, fell with Oscar Wilde
and G. B. Shaw in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The 20th century showed a talent in the drama with which the 19th
century could not compete. H. Granville Barker, John Galsworthy, St. John
Ervine were some of the playwrights who explored contemporary problems.
St. John Ervine had been associated with a group of Irish dramatists whose
work was normally produced in the Abbey theatre in Dublin. Much that is
best in the modern drama in English developed from this movement. One of
its originators was Lady Gregory with W. B. Yeats and J. M. Synge.
They were the most important dramatists of this Irish revival who used a sense
of tragic irony, a violent species of humour and a rich and highly flavoured
language.
T.S. Eliot experimented with Greek tragedy in the early forties of the
20th century. Other dramatists of the modern era, John Osborne, wrote on
people who grew up after the Second World War. Kingsley Amis wrote
about frustrated, anti-establishment young people. Osborne’s ‘Look Back in
Anger’ brought a new vitality to the theatre scene.
It was more a cultural phenomenon than the work of literature.
Other important playwrights of the
modern era include Anton Chekhov, Bertolt Brecht, Eugene O’Neill, Arthur
Miller, Tennessee William, Eugène Ionesco, Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter.
(IV) Indian Theatre :
Earliest seeds of modern Indian Drama can be found in the Sanskrit Drama
from the first century A.D. Mahabhasya by Patanjali provides a feasible
date for the beginning of theatre in India. The major source of evidence is
‘A Treatise on Theatre (NatyaShastra) by Bharat Muni is the most complete
work of dramatology in the ancient world. It gives mythological account of
the origin of theatre. Modern Indian drama however, has influences from
all over the world, as well as Sanskrit and Urdu traditions.
About One Act Play
The revised Coursebook for Std. XI focuses on language and literature.
Students should be able to enjoy, appreciate and digest the various forms of
literature. Literature provides a gateway to express emotions. This is a paradigm
shift from studying general extracts of literature to understanding a specific genre
of literature. With this intention, a One Act Play, as a genre, has been selected
for close study to Std. XI.
A one-act play is not exactly a shortened play. It is a complete story that
has to be performed on the stage in stipulated time. It has its own features and
characteristics. The action is confined to a single place and the number of
characters is limited. Simplicity of design and quick effect are its features. The
prescribed one-act play will help the learners to understand the following features.
1. Plot- The plot of a one-act play is limited to a single interesting episode.
The plot of any piece of literature is a story that has been woven into a closely
related chain of events arranged in sequence. Aristotle says 'conflict is the soul
of drama'. We usually have conflict in a play. Modern plays of the 'Theatre of
the Absurd' are an exception to it.
2. Theme- A theme is the central idea around which the plot revolves. It is
directly stated through the playwright's instructions, dialogues and other features.
It focuses on the subject of the play. It can be implicit or explicit. There can be
a number of sub-themes that portray human life. The theme helps to convey the
message of the playwright.
3. Setting- Setting or location is a place where the story takes place. A drama
is meant for stage performance, the location or setting is revealed through effective
use of a variety of props. The unity of time, place and action has to be taken
into consideration while setting the stage. The proper use of setting/props helps
the play to be impactful.
4. Language- We all know that the 'pen is mightier than the sword' likewise
words are the weapons of a writer. There is another language too. Have you
enjoyed films of Charlie Chaplin who uses nonverbal communication very
effectively through his body? It conveys emotions and underlying meanings
profoundly. One act play has a profound effect due to its brevity of words. If
the dialogues are witty, pungent and concise, they add to the overall impact of
the play e.g. Shakespeare's Hamlet says "To be or Not to be'. The dialogues of
the playwright use techniques like projection, articulation and phrasing for effective
communication. Poetic devices and figures of speech like imagery, symbolism,
personification and humour embedded in wit, pun, irony, and paradox make the
dialogues extremely powerful. The tone of the dialogue can be comic, ironic,
light, playful, sad, serious, sinister, solemn, sombre, threatening etc.
5. Characters- There are a limited number of characters in one-act plays.
There are two types of characters-main and supporting. E M Foster in his 'Aspects
of the Novel' divides characters in two types: Round: the one that develops
through the experiences and evolves as a dynamic persona and a Flat character
is one who remains the same throughout the story. Flat characters are also known
as Caricatures and recognized only through one characteristic. The story revolves
around the main character or characters who face a dilemma or conflict.
Features of One Act Play:
1. has one or more scenes.
2. is concise in manner.
3. has a single dominant theme which produces singular effect.
4. treats problems of everyday life.
5. has a beginning, a middle and an end. The stages are as follows-
1 Exposition is brief, introduction
2 Conflict Development of drama, is a backbone
3 Climax Turning point, Important part
4 Denouement Brief, Often overlaps climax
6. gives introduction of stage direction.
7. creates mood or atmosphere.
8. has unity of time, place and action.
9. has simplicity of plot, concentration of action and unity of Impression.
10. has limited characters.
11. presents a question, answers of which are eagerly awaited by the audience.
Creativity
The course book aims not only at understanding and at studying the given genre
but also at being creative to use the features of the same, to express feelings and ideas.
Learners should try to produce the given content in their own language. They are
expected to add some of their own imaginative beginnings or ends by using the features
obtained from the given one act play. It will be an aid to create the citizens having
linguistic proficiency. The learners are expected to study as well as enjoy exploring the
richness of the language by studying a genre in detail.
Objective Test
1. Name any four periods of History of British Drama.
2. List the four elements of drama.
3. State a type of drama each from any four periods of history.
4. Compare the features of a comedy and tragedy.
5. State the difference between poetry and drama.
6. State the difference between drama and novel.
7. Define drama.
8. Explain the term plot.
9. Differentiate between characters and characterization.
10. Enlist a few reasons for watching a drama live on the stage.
🌑🌑⭕️⭕️⭕️⭕️⭕️🌑🌑
Click below for more posts
👇👇👇
No comments:
Post a Comment