“DRAMA”
Types of Drama
 Tragedy:
[solemn, personal, religious & social issues
– often ends in death]
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Tragic Flaw [our hero often suffers from great pride
(hubris) and this leads to a grave mistake leading to
tragedy]
Catharsis [Pity & Fear: The audience pities the actors
suffering on stage and fears they too might make a
mistake and suffer a similar fate]
 Comedy:
[humorous/solving – often ends in a
marriage]
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Farce = Physical [think three stooges]
Satire = Morals/ Manners [makes fun of society
and its ways]
Analyzing Drama: Setting
Scenery illustrates location,
time period, social class
 Lighting shows time, season,
mood, action, and character
 Costumes reveal age, class, profession,
and ethnicity
 Props have significance!
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Dramatic Structure
[similar to novels]
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Exposition ( who, what, where, when)
Conflict (Problem of main character)
 In Phaedrea, what is her main problem?
Climax (Pivotal point in action)
 What happens when Phaedra is rejected by Hippolytus?
Resolution ( How does it all work out?)
 What happens to Phaedra, Hippolytus and Theseus at the end?
Climax
Conflict
Resolution
Expo
Characterization
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Types of Characters
 Protagonist vs. Antagonist
 Confidant (friend or servant)
 Stock characters: comic, victim, braggart, pretender,
fool
How do characters reveal themselves?
 Externally: Names, appearance, physique, speech,
accent, dress, status, class, education, friends, family,
interests.
 Internally: thoughts, feelings, emotions.
Theme & Overall Message
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Theme: main points of the play
 In
Phaedra, love, revenge, & suicide are
some themes
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Overall message of the play
 In
Phaedra, love can be terrible, revenge
causes great pain, and suicide does not solve
problems
Irony
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Dramatic Irony: Contrast between what the
characters know and what the audience
knows.
Neo-Classicism
Racine’s Phaedra is a tribute
to classical plays of old and follows
Neoclassic conventions described below:
Neoclassic plays illustrated
•
a regard for tradition and reverence for the
classics, with an accompanying distrust of
innovation
•
a sense of literature as art--that is, as something
"artificed" or "artificial," made by craft; hence the
value put on "rules," conventions, "decorum," the
properties of received genres.
•
a concern for social reality [tenets or rules of
society].
Neo-Classicism
Also illustrated
4. a concern for "nature"--or the way things are (and should be). This
relates back to the distrust of innovation and inherent conservatism
of neoclassicism. The artistic rules of old, for instance, Pope
describes as having been "discovered, not devised" and are "Nature
methodized"; so too, "Nature and Homer" are "the same" This belief
in "nature" implies a conviction that there is a permanent, universal
way things are (and should be), which obviously entails fundamental
political and ethical commitments.
5. a concern with "pride" as the root of threats to the above. We might
see pride as in part standing for individual self assertion against the
status quo ("nature"). Pope:
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Of all the causes which conspire to blind
Man's erring judgment, and misguide the mind,
What the weak head with strongest bias rules,
Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools.
Neoclassic plays followed
the Three Unities
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The three unities or classical unities are rules for drama derived
from Aristotle's Poetics. In their neoclassical form they are as
follows:
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The unity of action: a play should have one main action that it follows, with no or
few subplots.
 The unity of place: a play should cover a single physical space and should not
attempt to compress geography, nor should the stage represent more than one
place.
 The unity of time: a play should represent an action that takes approximately the
same amount of time as the play; years should not pass during the hours a play
takes.
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Aristotle does not mention the unity of place. It should be noted that
Aristotle was writing after the golden age of Greek drama, and many
Greek playwrights, notably Aeschylus, wrote plays that do not fit
within these conventions.
However, 16th century Italian and 17th century French critics of the
neoclassical movement expanded Aristotle's descriptions to make
them into rules for how any play must be structured.