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Drama 📖
Ø Mystery and Morality Plays,
Ø Tragedy [Classical, Senecan, Romantic,
Heroic, Neo-Classical],
Ø Masque and Anti-Masque
Definition of Drama
A drama is defined as a piece of literature
of which the intended purpose is to be performed in front of an audience. This
type of writing is written in the form of a script, and the story is told
through the lines of the characters played by actors.
“A play is a just and lively image of human
nature, representing its passions and hum-ours and the changes of fortune to
which it is subject for the delight and instruction of mankind”. - John Dryden
“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 Origins of Drama:
The
word drama comes from the Greek meaning “to act, do or perform”, and it is in
the several subtle and diverse meanings of “to perform” that drama can be said
to have begun. Greek drama began with the work of Aristotle’s ‘Poetics’ (335
B.C.), which is the oldest recorded work of dramatic theory. The tradition
continued throughout Greek culture, marked by the famous laughing /crying masks
of drama.
The
English drama at its initial stage developed from religious rituals,
commemorating the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It grew out of the
liturgy of the church. In order to amuse the congregation, and make the people
familiar with the Bible, the bishops in the church began to dramatize some of
the incidents from the life of Christ and other saints, out of this the English
drama was born. In the 21st and 13th centuries, some plays,
describing the life of Christ and other saints, were called Morality and
Miracle plays. At the end of 15th century, the play called ‘The Morality Play’
took birth. The morality play marks the next stage in the growth of the drama
in England. These plays were didactic and religious in nature. The characters
were no longer Biblical figures but personified virtues and vices. Everyman
(1490) is the finest of this type of play. Sackville and Norton’s, “Gorboduc”
(1561) was the first regular English Tragedy. Udall’s, “Ralph Roister
Doister” (1566) was the first English regular comedy. The Elizabethan Drama
reached its highest point in the works of Willian Shakespeare and Marlowe.
After the Restoration period drama restored and in modern age various types of
drama are developed. In modern age G. B. Shaw and Galsworthy were the great
dramatists.
Mystery Plays
Medieval
religious drama existed primarily, then, to give religious instruction,
establish faith, and encourage piety. There were two dramatic forms used by the
church: mystery (miracle) plays and morality plays. Mystery plays derive their
name from the French mystere or ministere because the ministerium, the clergy
were the first actors. Mystery plays are primarily concerned with Scripture
narrative with prominence given to the story of man’s fall and redemption;
miracle plays deal with the lives of the saints and martyrs. Actually, however,
the terms are used interchangeably.
Plays in the church were very popular on
holy days (holidays) and fairs. Inevitably they became filled with humor and
even buffonery as a way of capturing the audience’s attention. The church
reacted by throwing out all those kinds of actors and troops and instead
produced full and complete performances themselves. The effect was electric the
church building proper was too small to contain the crowds so plays moved from
the altar to the porch to the church yard and eventually to public streets and
open spaces. Every foot the plays moved from the church weakened the ability of
the clergy to control the performances; as a result, more and more comedy and
buffonery were introduced and the church eventually withdrew its support and
backing for the plays.
Once rejected by the church, the plays
came under the care of the guild societies and were produced as a cycle on
feast or holy days. The four great cycles of plays are the York, Wakefield,
Chester, and Coventry plays.
Morality Plays
The term 'Morality
Play' was not known in medieval England, but taken over from French as late as
in the 18th century. The French term moralité can be traced back to
the title Moralité faite au College de Navarre of the year 1427.
A morality play is a type of theater,
which was common in medieval Europe. It uses allegorical characters to teach
the audience moral lessons, typically of a Christian nature. The morality play
can be considered an intermediate step between the biblical mystery plays of
the medieval period and the secular theater of the later Renaissance, such as
the plays of William Shakespeare. The morality play has remained a cultural
influence to some degree, though it has greatly waned in popularity. The basic
premise of the morality play, however, in which an “everyman” character who is
easy to relate to makes a journey and is influenced by characters along the
way, eventually gaining some kind of personal integrity, is still common in
many works of theater and film.
One of the most salient characteristics of
the morality play is the way that characters are named. Instead of normal
names, they are called by the quality they represent. In Everyman, the most
famous morality play, some of the characters include Fellowship, Knowledge,
Goods, and Kindred. Eventually, all of these characters abandon the play’s
hero, Everyman, during his journey with Death, and only Good-Deeds stays with
him. The moral of this play is therefore that only good deeds can help one get
into Heaven, and that no other earthly things are truly lasting.
The morality play allowed writers more
creativity than was possible with the former mystery play, which was very
closely based on biblical and traditional stories. This trend continued into
later centuries with morality plays that sought to teach secular lessons, such
as which form of government is best. Throughout the Renaissance, plays
continued to be less didactic and allegorical and more representative of real
life.
John Bunyan’s 1678 novel, The Pilgrim’s
Progress, while not an example of drama, relies heavily on the tropes of the
morality play. Other famous morality plays are The Castle of
Perseverance (1400- 25), Wisdom (1460-63) Mankind (1465-70)
and Everyman (1530).
Tragedy
Tragedy, branch of drama that
treats in a serious and dignified style the sorrowful or terrible events
encountered or caused by a heroic individual. By extension the term may be
applied to other literary works, such as the novel.
For the Greeks, tragedy simply meant “A
play with a sorrow ending,” usually, at least one death, “The action and the
thoughts are create seriously and with a respect for human personality.”
Aristotle, the master-craftsmen, is held
as the father and preceptor of ‘classical tragedy’. “Tragedy is the imitation
of an action, that is serious, complete and of a certain magnitude; in language
embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found
in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through
pity and fear effecting a proper catharsis of these emotions”. (Aristotle,
Poetics)
The Origin of Drama:
The origin of drama looks back to the
period between 600 and 400 BC. It was during this period that poetry and drama
both blossomed: both being complex art forms: both carving enormity of
brilliance ever after. The most important dramatists of this period were
Aeschylus (525-456 BC), Sophocles (496-406 BC), Aristophanes (c.448-c.380 BC)
and Euripides (484-406 BC). They are considered the pillars of Greek concept of
art called drama.
Tragedy sprouted in Athens many years ago
and has its base in the choral poetry. It is a Greek concept that Dionysius,
the god of nature, died and took rebirth in a cycle each year. Thus, they
performed a chorus in the form of hymn to pay tribute to him, named
‘dithyramb’. Aristotle described that tragedy was born from this dithyramb,
played by a solo actor called Thespis. The story goes that Thespis began to
converse with dithyramb. The contextual meaning of the word tragedy is ‘goat-song.’
This goat was taken as a gift for that song.
Types of Tragedy:
· Classical Tragedy
· Senecan Tragedy
· Romantic Tragedy
· Heroic Tragedy
· Neo-Classical Tragedy
Classical or Greek Tragedy:
Aristotle’s Poetics is based on the
analysis of the Greek tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides. Hence,
the characteristics of Greek tragedy are well stated in the Poetics. The
stories in these tragedies being based on myths were known to the audience.
Hence, there was little element of surprise in them. As part of the religious
festivals, there was a strong religious and moral element in the plays. Fate
(nemesis) was supreme. The Greek tragedy, as far as possible, avoided scenes of
brutal violence on the stage, though the subjects were often shocking and
terrible.
There were as few as five to six
characters in the play. Such incidents were narrated by the chorus which was
fifty men strong. Chorus consisted of a group of actors; whose businesses off
the stage. It also made moral comments from time to time in the action of the
play to deepen the desired effect. The characters, usually the protagonist
belonged to a high social order; a man with exceptional character but with a
flaw which led to his downfall. Women and slaves were not considered fit
subjects for a tragedy. The tragedies were ‘pure tragedies’ and there was no
mixing of the comic with the tragic, thus following the Unity of Action. Greek
tragedies were performed as trilogies; a series of three plays. But after
serious plays usually there would be a ‘Satyr play’ which was separate from the
tragedy and often crudely comic in nature.
Senecan Tragedy:
Apart from Greece, the gift of tragedy
travels from the ancient Rome where the name of Seneca (Lucius Annaeus Seneca
c. 4 BC-AD 65) finds the place of the first known tragedian. His plays
displayed vigorous bloodshed and the element of horror containing a lot of
aspects, which technically could not be staged. It was a combination of real life
happenings or elements which a stage could not represent, especially the facts
related to murder, cutting into pieces, showing heavy things to be carried from
one to another, and the likes.
Seneca had a multiple persona who wrote
plays, poetry, satire, philosophy and was trained in rhetoric, besides being a
politician. The Senecan trend called ‘stoicism’: an approach to drama which was
devised during 3rd century BC in Athens. It was a popularly applied trend in
Rome from c. 100 BC to c. AD 200. Stoicism made its influence on the Christian
way of thought. Ten of the plays of Seneca survive today and the most
famous of them are Thyestes, Troades,
Medea and Hippolytus. In ten plays, Troas, Thyestes,
and Hercules Furens were translated by Jasper Heywood.
Seneca framed his tragedies in the following ways:
- He constructed his tragedies in five acts.
- The hero who meets tragic fall displays no sign of fear toward death, rather he bears death with a strong heart and dignified grace.
- A foreboding of death or a ‘Cloud of Evil’ is vanquished by the ‘defeat of Reason of Evil’, which yields to ‘Triumph of Evil’ and finally as seen in the ‘the Trojan Women’
- The stage is full of corpses at the end of the play.
It was Seneca who became the role model
for the Renaissance playwrights in the development of the plot. Thomas Kyd’s The
Spanish Tragedy (1582-92) and Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta
(1589/90) are specimen of Senecan tragedy.
Romantic Tragedy:
The rise of tragedy in England goes back
to the Elizabethan Age when Gorboduc (1561) by Thomas Sackville and Thomas
Norton was acted. English tragedies receive inspiration from Seneca. Drama saw
its massive proliferation and development in the Elizabethan England during
1585 and 1642.
Romances which end
unhappily or with the death of the hero and heroine are categorized as romantic
tragedies e.g. Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The romantic tragedy is built on
a plan different from that of classical tragedy. It is not circumscribed by the
three Unities. Its action extends for years and the scene of action change from
place to place as offer as the plot required. The action of Julius
Ceaser takes place in Roman Sardis and then Philippi.
The romantic tragedy is debarred from
mixing the tragic and the comic and also from introduced a sub-plot.
Marlowe's Dr. Faustus has a number of comic
scenes. In the romantic tragedy scenes of violence, horror, murders and battle
may be represented on the stage. In King Lear the
horrible scene of the blinding of ‘Gloucester’ takes place on the stage.
The romantic
tragedy does not employ the chorus. The purpose of chorus is served through
some minor characters, the soliloquies and retrospective narration, put into
the mouth of some major characters. In short, the romantic tragedy is written
not to a set pattern, but in what ever from the writer finds best suited to his
dramatic purpose. The name Shakespeare is inseparably associated with
this type of tragedy, though it had been popularized earlier
in England by Marlowe.
Although Shakespeare broke away from the
classical tradition in several ways, the hero in his tragedy is a man of
important station in life and his tragedy accurst from some tragic flaw in his
character. His major tragedies are Hamlet (1603), Macbeth (1611), Othello
(1604), King Lear (1606), Antony and Cleopatra (1606), and Coriolanus (1609).
They were all written between 1600 and 1606. His Richard II (1595), Richard III
(1592), Romeo and Juliet (1597) and Julius Caesar (1599) are excellent
historical or romantic tragic dramas. His period of tragedy is diluted with his
other genres of plays. His tragedies have powerful diction, poetical outbursts,
noble characters, each shows a serious conflict of a soul caught between reason
and action, and each of his heroes exhibit a frailty, or prejudice of
character. The hero’s action is repentant at the dénouement section. The action
of his heroes decides the destiny of their country too. His tragedies are deep studies
of human psyche and his poetry. His tragic hero’s central action and the
portrayal of the world where he moves, affects the atmosphere.
Heroic Tragedy:
Heroic Tragedy was also called as
“Heroic Drama” by Dryden, who is the main supporter of Tragedy. These plays
were written in the Classical model of the rhymed heroic couplet and later
in blank verse tragedy.
Heroic Tragedy is a name given to the form
of tragedy which had some vogue in the beginning of the Restoration period
(1660-1700). It was often criticized as unnatural, artificial and alien. It
came into existence in response to the spiritual needs of a tired,
disillusioned and decadent aristocracy. It created a dream-world with love,
virtue and greatness in contrast to the debased life in reality of the times.
It dealt with the themes of love and honour or duty. It is an artificial world
which can be best termed as ‘heroic’ for the protagonist and his belief in his
absolute power over his actions and surroundings. The Heroic play shows more
affinity with the epic with its character, with its style, especially the use of
heroic metre. The plot, the characters, the wit, the passions, the descriptions
are all exalted and epical in style. Love and valour are the themes of a heroic
play.
The audience is amazed by the superhuman
devotion and loyalty shown by the hero. To this love is linked the theme of
honour, which includes all spiritual and moral qualities and the hero strives
to possess them to be worthy of his beloved. The Heroic play shows complications
such as two men loving the same woman, or two brothers or two friends. These
lead to sudden turns in the fortune of the hero. The Heroic play usually ended
on a happy note as the aim of the dramatist was to present the hero as a model
to be emulated. Hence, he was rewarded in the end. Thus, there is poetic
justice in the tragedy unlike the Greek or Shakespearean tragedy. Another
version of such a play is the blank verse tragedy which uses the blank verse
instead of the heroic couplet as the metre. John Dryden wrote such Heroic plays
His All for Love based on Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is a famous Heroic
play.
Neo-Classical Tragedy:
The Neo - classical practice immediately
followed the English Renaissance. In English literature, neoclassicism is a
period of literary history covering the last part of the seventeenth century
throughout the eighteenth century; neoclassicism is a movement in literature
with its poetic works and a strongly normative and prescriptive doctrine; and
also neoclassicism is the creator of a particular trend in poetry,
philosophical and satirical. The Neoclassical Period can be divided into three
subsets: The Restoration (1660 - 1700), The Augustan Age (1700 - 1745), and the
Age of Sensibility (1745 - 1798).
English literature of the last decades of
the seventeenth century and most of the eighteenth century, or, more precisely,
the period from 1660s to 1780s (that is, from Restoration to the rise of
Romanticism), was dominated by classical doctrine that continued and institutionalised
the revival of ancient classical tradition that had started in Renaissance. The
Neoclassical Period of English literature (1660 ‐ 1785) was much
influenced by contemporary French literature.
The neoclassicalists recognized only two
legitimate forms of drama – tragedy and comedy. Moreover, these two types of
drama were referred to as ‘the heroic tragedy’ and ‘the comedy of manners.’ They
believed that tragedy could be written only about kings and nobles, whereas comedy
should deal with the middle or lower classes. Tragedy was to be resolved with
death, and comedy with happiness. The Neoclassic thought it most important that
the two forms were never to be mixed. Neoclassicalists believed that the
purpose of all drama is to teach and to please.
Neoclassical Rules of Drama were:
·
Verisimilitude
·
Purity
of the Dramatic Form
·
Five
Act Form
·
Decorum
·
Purpose
of Drama
Major
Playwrights in Neoclassical:
While there were many successful
playwrights during the Neoclassical movement, three playwrights achieved a
significant amount of success and notoriety. Pierre Cornielle (1606 – 1684) is
often called the father of the French tragedy, writing scripts for more than
four decades. Corneille was influenced by the Renaissance period. He created in
his work, an ideal world full of heroes and illustrious men. Jean-Baptiste
Poquelin better known as Molière (1622 - 1673) is known for his
comedies. Jean Racine (1639 – 1699) was a tragedian beloved for his simplistic
approach to action and the linguistic rhythms and effects he achieved. All
three of these men were able to take elements from classical Greek and Roman
literature and transform them into plays that adhered to the Neoclassical
standards of decorum, time and space.
With Corneille‟s tragedies, the plays take
the form of a problem and keeps alive the curiosity of the audience until the
last act. The dilemmas of Cornelian character tear them apart. Racine makes
another attempt to revive the classical order in his presentation of the tragic
heroine. Neo-Classical Tragedy plays, Pierre Corneille’s Cid (1637) and
Jean Racine’s Bérénice (1670) and Phèdre (1677).
Masque
Masques were stylized dramas
incorporating poetic dialogue, music and dancing, and often making lavish use of
costumes, scenery and mechanical devices. They began as costume balls designed
around a theme, frequently a classical one. Invited performers, often wearing
exotic costumes and masks, would dance before their royal host and guests.
After their act, the players would invite the spectators to join in.
The masque was a popular entertainment in
the Elizabethan and Stuart courts. Masques began as costume balls designed
around a theme; costumed guests would perform a dance before the host and
company, after which they would invite the spectators to join them. Masques
were performed at court in the reign of Henry VIII (1509–47), but they reached
the height of their popularity as court entertainments in the reigns of
Elizabeth (1558–1603) and James I (1603–25).
Typically, masques were occasions for
revelling. They were performed as part of a programme of festive events at
Christmas and Easter or to celebrate a wedding. The masque usually began in the
evening, and often continued late into the night or the early morning.
Shakespeare provides some evidence of this type of entertainment in Romeo
and Juliet.
Theme:
Masques almost always dealt with classical
or mythological subject matter; the characters were often gods and goddesses or
personifications of abstract qualities such as grace or peace; they were often
composed to celebrate a marriage, and so married bliss was a widely used theme;
they were normally shorter than the more usual drama of the time; they
frequently used rhyming couplets; and they made lavish use of music and
costumes. Masques reached the height of sophistication in the court of James I
with extravagant productions written by, among others, Ben Jonson, and designed
by Inigo Jones.
Characteristics
of a Masque:
- The use of Allegorical and mythical subjects.
- The characters are usually gods and goddesses of classical mythology, or personified qualities such as Delight, Grace, Love, Harmony, Revel, Sport, Laughter.
- The number of characters is usually small and often equally divided between males and females.
- The entertainment is much shorter than the regular drama.
- The scenes are laid in some ideal region, such as the Hill of Knowledge, the House of Chivalry, the House of Oceanus, the Fountain of Light, or at least in some far-off region, picturesque and romantic.
- The rhymed verse is used.
- The Masques were performed privately and the actors and actresses were amateurs.
- Their object was usually to celebrate marriages in high life. They were written for particular occasions. Hence, they were characterised by music and dance.
- Most costly and elaborate scenery and costume were employed so that the Masques were characterised by the spectacle and scenic display.
- Within the masque proper there is usually a ridiculous masque or “anti-masque” performed partly by servants, partly by actors hired for the purpose, and generally separated from the actual masque by a change of scene.
Milton’s Comus is one of the finest
masques in the English language. Its superb poetry has made it immortal.
Another example is Lady of May by Philip Sidney, Love Restored by
Ben Johnson.
Antimasque
An Antimasque is a theatric convention, comic
or grotesque dance presented before or between the acts of a masque, a type of
dramatic composition. In later years, the antimasque developed into a farce or
pantomime.
The court masque after 1609 had two parts,
the antimasque and the main masque (what used to be the entirety of a masque).
In the antimasque, professional actors who, attired as witches, rustics, or
inanimate objects like bottles or trees, portrayed negative abstractions like
ignorance and gluttony by making spells, speeches, and dancing about. Then a
sudden event such as a loud burst of music interrupted their festivities.
The humorous, often grotesque characters
of the antimasque were expelled and replaced by aristocratic court members
representing positive abstractions such as chaste love or heroic virtue.
The main masque followed, beginning with
the nobility's entrance in a procession of fanciful cars and floats. The
masquers danced several choreographed numbers interspersed with songs and
speeches by actors, talented servants, or the occasional nobleman.
Then the masquers descended from the stage
and invited audience members to join in the revels, the grand masque dance made
up of popular dances known to all courtiers. After an hour or so of dancing, a
speech or song called the masquers back, they returned to their vehicles, and
the procession passed offstage.
Ben Jonson in addition to writing numerous
plays also wrote more than a dozen masques and was responsible for the
introduction of the antimasque. For The Masque of Queens (1609)
Ben Jonson devised the first antimasque at the request of Queen Anne. Jonson
had employed what he called an anti-masque for the Hadington Viscount's
marriage celebration, but that was only a small show that occurred before the
official masque. It had no particular relation to the main masque nor did it
differ in style. The Queen, however, desired a dance prelude to contrast with
the main masque. As Jonson relates in his introductory notes:
And because her majesty (best knowing that
a principal part of life in these spectacles lay in their variety) had
commanded me to think on some dance or show that might precede hers, and have
the place of a foil or false masque, I was careful to decline not only from
others but mine own steps in that kind, since the last year I had an
anti-masque of boys, and therefore now devised that twelve women in the habit
of hags or witches, sustaining the persons of Ignorance, Suspicion, Credulity,
etc., the opposites to good fame, should fill that part; not as a masque, but a
spectacle of strangeness producing multiplicity of gesture and not unaptly
sorting with the current and whole fall of the device.
Difference between Masque and Antimasque:
Ø Masque is the performance.
Ø An antimasque is a theatric convention,
comic or grotesque dance presented before or between the acts of a masque, a
type of dramatic composition.
Ø Masque performed by members of the court.
Ø Antimasque performed by professionals.
Ø ‘Wild' and 'confused’ are the adjectives
with the antimasque dances.
Ø ‘Solemn' and 'stately’ are with the dances
for the main masque.
Ø It can also be seen from the extant
repertory that the antimasque dances were not much different harmonically,
rhythmically or melodically from the dances written for the main masque.
However, that the two groups differed from each other musically in some way.
Ø Musicals are an example of a masque, costume,
song, dance, lighting etc. The anti masque could be the themes discovered
inside the musical.
Example
for Masque and Antimasque:
In Shakespeare’s The Tempest - Engagement scene – in Act IV, scene i
Prospero calls in Ariel and asks him to
summon spirits to perform a masque for Ferdinand and Miranda. Soon, three
spirits appear in the shapes of the mythological figures of Iris (Juno’s
messenger and the goddess of the rainbow), Juno (queen of the gods), and Ceres
(goddess of agriculture). This trio performs a masque celebrating the lovers’
engagement. The masque is suddenly interrupted when Prospero realizes he
had forgotten the plot against his life. He orders Ariel to deal with this.
Caliban, Trinculo, and Stephano are chased off into the swamps by goblins in
the shape of hounds. Stephano, Trinculo, and Caliban perform a function similar
to the antimasque.
Detail explanation for Drama and its types in tamil given in the below image link:
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