Introduction to English Literatures
Drama- Lecture 9
What is Drama?
Drama is literature that is primarily written for theatrical
performance.
A dramatic text consists of two components: (1) It is
literature to begin with (2) but it is incomplete without
the performative aspect. Every dramatic text contains of
instructions, known as secondary text, for performance.
Multi-medial (audio, visual, textual)
Theatre Studies/Literary Studies (performance criticism)
AMPHITHEATRE
HISTORICAL IMAGE (GLOBE INSIDE)
GLOBE (INSIDE VIEW)
FOURTH WALL
History of Drama








Greek Drama: 500-400 B.C.
(tragedy, comedy, amphitheatres, annual competitions)
Medieval: The Middle Ages 1200-1500 AD
(Liturgical, morality; example: The Castle of Perseverance)
Elizabethan & Jacobean:1500-1642
(Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson )
Restoration & 18th Cent. Drama :1660-1800
(John Brute’s The Provoked Wife )
Romantic Era:1800-1880
(Keats, Byron, Shelly)
Modern Era :1880-Present
(absurd, regular drama, Beckett, Pinter)
Conventions of Drama




Cast of Characters: listed in the beginning of the play,
before the action starts
Act: a major division of a play
Scenes: a major division of an act
Stage Directions: a dramatist’s instructions for
performing a play (secondary text)
Waiting for Godot
(Italics: secondary text, non-italics: primary text)
ACT I
A country road. A tree.
Evening.
Estragon, sitting on a low mound, is trying to take off his boot. He pulls at it with both hands, panting.
He gives up, exhausted, rests, tries again. As before. Enter Vladimir.
ESTRAGON: (giving up again). Nothing to be done.
VLADIMIR: (advancing with short, stiff strides, legs wide apart). I'm beginning to come round to
that opinion. All my life I've tried to put it from me, saying Vladimir, be reasonable, you haven't
yet tried everything. And I resumed the struggle. (He broods, musing on the struggle. Turning to
Estragon.) So there you are again.
ESTRAGON: Am I?
VLADIMIR: I'm glad to see you back. I thought you were gone forever.
Communication

External
at the level of author and recipient, production and audience

Internal/Intertextual
at the level of characters, text.
characters move between the roles of the addresser and addressee
Key Components of Internal Communication
Dialogue
Monologue
Soliloquy
Aside
(there is no narrator in drama)
Communication
- Between the Characters and Stage
Historical Author/ Recipient
(reader and theatre apparatus)
(addresser)
-
Between the Cast and the Audience
Theatre apparatus and audience
(addresser)
Epic Theatre . Stage Manager.
Inside the Action .
Shaffer’s Amadeus
(clip) .
Outside the Action
Wilder’s Our Town
Verbal . Non Verbal . Alienation Effect
Types of Drama






Comedy
(Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well)
Tragedy
(Shakespeare's Othello)
Romantic Comedy (boy gets the girl, loses her, and gets
her again: Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Satiric Comedy (critique of society, wit, Oscar Wilde’s
The Importance of Being Earnest)
Farce (verbal humor, mixed plot, subversion, eg.
Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew)
Absurd (meaningless of existence, Beckett’s Endgame,
Pinter’s The Homecoming)
Semiotics of Theatre
Codes
Acoustic/Visual
Stage Set (Durative) – do not Change
Gestures and Facial Expressions (Non-Durative) –
Change
(Transparency)
Information and Verbal Communication
‘Dramatic introduction’ (phatic)
(Waiting for Godot)
‘Exposition’ (referential- drama text, context)
(clip – The Tempest)
Can occur concurrently
Isolated/Initial (separate from the action proper)
(examples Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle)
Integrated (part of the action proper)
(clip Richard III)
Analytical Drama – genre – Analysis of exposition is present throughout
Monologue and Soliloquy
Soliloquy – Character speaks to himself/herself in his or her
lonely presence
Monologue – Character speaks to himself/herself addressing
others/ in the presence of others
Obvious of artificiality, realistic dramas avoid them.
They can also serve as ‘exposition’ and ‘introduction’ of the
drama.