History of English Drama, Elements of Drama, Types of Drama

             4.1 History of English Drama  

what is Drama?

1) Drama is a composition in verse or prose to be acted on the stage, in which a story is related by means of dialogue and action and is represented with, accompanying gesture, costume and scenery as in real life.

2) 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.

The Elements of Drama are-

1. Plot

2. Characterization

3. Dialogue

4. Settings

5. Stage directions

6. Conflict

7. Theme

Plot- Plot is a series of events occur in a play. It means Plan, scheme or Pattern. It has begining, Middle and End.

Characterization- Characterization means to reveal peculiarities of characters. To gain insight of Personalities, to establish connection with them.

Dialogue- It involves two speakers

Monologue-to speak to oneself

Soliloquy- character's thought process expressed aloud

    • It reveals the nature of character and gives us

      information about his relations.

Stage Direction-

            • Perfomance of the actors during the course of the

               development of the story along with the use of

                 set lighting music and costumes

            • Stage directions are guidelines, suggestions,

                 given by the dramatists.

Conflict-

            • It is the essence of drama

            • It enlightens life, grants dignity and worth to human life

Theme-

                The main idea or point of a play stated as a

                 generalization

(I) Introduction to English Theatre : 

               Drama has its origins in folk theatre. We therefore cannot consider drama merely as a part of literature. Words are the medium of literature as an art but drama is a multiple art using words, scenic effects, music, gestures of the actors and the organising talents of a producer. The dramatist must have players, a stage and an audience. The beginnings of drama in England are obscure. There is evidence to believe that when the Romans were in England they established vast amphitheatres for the production of plays but when the Romans departed their theatre departed with them. Then there were minstrels. People enjoyed their performances. Gradually by the 10th century the ritual of the plays that itself had something dramatic in it, got extended into the rudiments of a play. Between the 13th and 14th century drama started having themes which were separated from religion. The words themselves were spoken in English, a longer dramatic script came into use, and they were called as Miracle plays. Later, these religious dramas were the Morality plays in which characters were abstract vices and virtues. These were allegories.

(II) Elizabethan and Restoration Theatre :

        These Secular Morality plays have direct links with Elizabethan plays. The Renaissance imposed a learned tradition, classical in depth with themes of education, general moral problems and secular politics. The plays had nothing to do with religion. There were examples of both, comedy and tragedy. Thomas Kyd, Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare are the prime dramatists of this era. It was Kyd who discovered how easily blank verse might be converted into a useful theatrical medium which Shakespeare used brilliantly in all his plays. Tragedy developed in the hands of Kyd and Marlowe. Comedy had also proceeded beyond rustic humour. But by the nineties of the 16th century, the theatre in England was fully established but complicated conditions governed

the activities of the dramatist.