1. Drama

2. Like Fiction Makes use of plot and characters, Develops themes
Arouses emotional responses
Literary or commercial in its representation of reality

3. Unlike Fiction It is written entirely to be performed
It normally presents its action
Through actors
On a stage
Before an audience

4. Impact
Because a play presents its action through actors, the impact is direct, immediate, heightened
Experience of the play is registered immediately – may be more fuller or more compact
A work of literature may describe a man – how he walks, how he dresses, how he moves, how he looks, etc…
Actors present this information all at once
Simultaneous impressions are not temporally separated
Through facial expressions, gesture, speech rhythm, and intonation – an actor can make a speaker’s words more expressive than can the reader’s unaided imagination
Thus, a play by skilled actors – expertly directed – gives the playwright a tremendous source of power

5. Point of View Objective or dramatic Playwrights – are limited – cannot
Comment on the action or the characters
Enter the minds of their characters and tell us what is going on there
Authorial commentary risks distorting characterization and leaving the character’s reliability uncertain – soliloquy and aside

6. Soliloquy and aside Used sparingly Interrupt action
Inappropriate in a realistic mode

7. Attention Stage is lighted Theater is dark
Extraneous noises are shut out
Spectators are almost pinned in their seats – nothing to distract
Playwright is not dependent on the power of words alone

8. Limiting Confined to a stage rather than the imagination’s vast arena
For the most part – they must present human beings in spoken interaction with each other
Cannot present complex actions
Shifting scenes is more difficult in the twinkling of an eye – cannot whisk readers from heaven to earth

9. Cannot present warfare on a grand scale
Cannot present realistic fantasy or bring shots of outiside actions – like space as efficiently
Cannot present wounds on a grand scale

10. Changing scenes
In ancient theatre and in some modern plays – scenery was very simple – dependent upon the audiences imagination
Switching depends upon
The elaborateness of the stage setting
The means by which one scene is separated from another

11. Greek theatre – chorus and costumes
Modern theatre – darkening and illuminating
A playwright – even with switch changes cannot be as fast as a writer of prose fiction – reader’s minds can shift faster

12. Communal experience Before an audience – the experience is communal
Spectator’s response can be influenced by the other spectators’ responses
Intensified

13. Drama
Imposes sharp limitations but holds an opportunity for extraordinary force

14. Types of drama Realistic -
Nonrealistic – surrealistic experience and representation, breaks from conventions

15. More types
Tragedy
Comedy
Melodrama
Farce
Romantic
satiric

16. Foils
Major/minor characters
Themes
Didactic
Dramatic exposition – narration?

17. Types of drama
Tragedy
Comedy
What is the difference?

18. Catharsis
Do we imitate art?
Do we live through it?

19. Imitate it
Censorship

20. Live through it
Catharsis – experiencing something so that we don’t have to do it ourselves – gives us perspective
Deeper than simply seeing it and experiencing it – it is the feeling

21. Tragic Hero
Hamartia
The tragic hero is hardly a bad person – his misfortunes result from what Aristotle calls Hamartia
A criminal act committed in ignorance of some material fact or even for the sake of the greater good.
A tragic plot has unity – the events do not simply follow one another – they happen because of each other.

22. Best tragic plots
Involve a reversal or a discovery

23. Tragic Hero
A man of noble stature – has a greatness about him – in Shakespeare he is usually a king or prince
If the hero’s fall is to rouse emotion – he or she must fall from a great heigt
We look at what could be and lament

24. The tragic hero is good – not perfect – and his fall results form what Aristotle calls Hamartia – an act of injustice either through ignorance or from a conviction that the greater good will be served
The act is a criminal one and the good hero is still responsible for it. Even if he is totally unaware of the crminality

25. Aristotle’s view is natural order – the tragic flaw being the only downfall as some modern critics think implies that the world works on personality alone – not actions
Tragic Flaw – a fault of character or excessive virtue

26. Accidents, villainy, or fate may contribute to the downfall but only as cooperating agents – they are not alone responsible
Tragic rather than pathetic

27. The hero’s downfall is not wholly deserved – the punishment usually exceeds the crime
We do not come away from a tragedy with the feeling of “he got what he deserved” but rather with the sad sense of a waste of human potential
The hero reveals to us the dimensions of human possibility

28. His fall can fill us with pity and fear

29. The tragic fall Not pure loss
Although it may result in death – it involves some increase in awareness, some gain in self-knowledge – some discovery – a change from ignorance to knowledge
Often this increase in wisdom involves some sort of reconciliation with the universe or with the protagonist’s situation – he exits not cursing his fate but accepting it

30. Emotions
The tragic fall arouses solemn emotions – pity and fear – Aristotle – compassion and awe are better terms
Though the hero may be defeated – he at least has dared greatly and he gains understanding from his defeat as do we

31. Comic mask
Is it laughing or smiling – usually we laugh at something but we smile with someone –a laugh has a cruelty whereas a smile has a reassurance.
Comedy lies between satire and romance
Scornful comedy or satiric comedy
Romantic comedy

32. Difference between comedy and tragedy
Depiction of human nature
Tragedy emphasizes human greatness and comedy delineates human weakness
Comedy exposes human folly – its function is partly critical and corrective
Characters are sensible and good in a comedy and in a tragedy they are noble, aspiring, and grand.

33. Norms of comedy are primarily social
Comedies put the protagonist in the center to show who they are – tragedies isolate the protagonist
Comic plots have less of a logical cause and effect progression – outrageous violations of probability