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Drama as a literary genre
Drama as a literary genre The features of a dramatic text Performer - Culture & Literature Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella, Margaret Layton © 2012 Drama as a literary genre 1. The structure A play consists of a number of acts divided into scenes. All Shakespearian plays are made up of five acts: • • • • • Act 1: introduction Act 2: development Act 3: crisis or turning point Act 4: complications Act 5: denouement = the resolving of all difficulties Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 1. The structure Elizabethan tragedies: • are generally introduced by a prologue, spoken by the chorus provides information about the main character / the subject of the play • often end with an epilogue - requests applause - is usually played by a central character Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 2. The plot and the setting • The plot the story-line of a play • The sub-plot a secondary plot. It usually mirrors the themes of the main plot but presents them from a different perspective • Place and time can be inferred both from the dialogue and the stage directions An open place. Thunder and lightning. (W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1) Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 3. Stage directions • Stage directions are the instructions a playwright gives to the director and the actors about how a play should be staged. • They provide information about 1. the setting; 2. the characters’ actions and movements; 3. the style of acting. Exeunt all but TITANIA [and the sentinel]. Enter Oberon. He drops the juice on TITANIA’s eyelids. (W. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Sc II) Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 4. Characters The number of characters, which in the past were called Drámatis Personae, may vary but always includes: • a hero, the protagonist of the play who is not necessarily “heroic”, noble and brave; • a heroine, the play’s main female character; • an antagonist, who is the hero’s main opponent, usually the play’s villain. Characters can be divided into main or minor according to how important they are for the story. Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 4. Characters The character can be introduced through • dialogue, that is, his interaction with other characters; • soliloquies, which reveal his thoughts, feelings and personality; • asides; • stage directions - how the character changes, why and when; - his / her motivation to action; - his / her relationship with other characters should also be analysed. Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 5. Dramatic techniques Dialogue is the main support of drama since: • it creates the action; • it provides details about the characters and their relationships; • it contributes to theme development; • it gives information about the past; • it can foreshadow subsequent events; • it may be built to cause specific reactions in the audience. Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 5. Dramatic techniques Soliloquy and monologue are special conventions of Elizabethan drama. soliloquy monologue the character is alone on the stage there are other characters but the speaker ignores them These devices enable the playwright to let the audience know: • the character’s thoughts about a specific problem; • the character’s plans for the future; • the character’s feelings and reactions; • the character’s explanation of what happens between scenes. Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 5. Dramatic techniques Asides are short comments made by a character for the audience alone, usually occurring in or between speeches. Their purposes are: • to reveal the nature of the speaker, • to draw the attention of the audience to the importance of what has been said; • to explain developments; • to create humour by introducing the unexpected. Performer - Culture & Literature Drama as a literary genre 6. The language The language of drama is particularly intense and vivid because it can share the features of everyday speech, of poetry or prose. The normal form of Shakespeare’s plays is blank verse but prose and poetry can be intermingled. Another feature of dramatic language is the use of clusters of imagery lots of images of a similar nature linked to a specific theme in the play clusters of imagery Example = the imagery of clothing linked to the theme of ‘false appearances’ in Macbeth Performer - Culture & Literature