INTRODUCTION TO DRAMA AND KINDS OF DRAMA - UGC NET ENGLISH PAPER II UNIT 1, MODULE 1

The Origin of Drama

1. Drama, drived from the word "chan" meaning "to perform" or "action on stage"
2. Definition: presentation of events on the stage through actions and dialogue
3. Originated from Greece in 5th Century BC
4. Greek dramas, based on religious  rites to Dionysus, God of life, death, wine and fertile earth
5. Whom Do You Seek Easter Trope as the earliest drama performed in 925

Classification of Drama:

SIX Types of Drama: Comedy, Tragedy, Melodrama, Tragic-Comedy, Farce,   and Opera

1. Comedy: dealing with brighter side of man's life and having happy endings 

• Sub divisions of Comedy: 
•  Romantic comedy (usually dealing with the tribulations and reunion of young lovers as in Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night's Dream by Shakespeare) 
• comedy of humours(concerned with one of the four humours dominating individual passion and man's nature as in Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist) the four humours: blood, phlegm, choler and melancholy or black choler
• comedy of manners (also known as anti-sentimental comedy and Restoration comedy satirising social standards and manners as in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest)
• Sentimental Comedy (As a reaction to the immorality of Restoration Comedy, dealing with the noble sentiments of man to bring him back to the moral path as in The Conscious Lovers by Richard Steele)
• The First Comedy Play in Verse: Ralph Roister Doister by Nicholas Udall performed in 1552
• The Second Comedy Play in Verse: Gammer Gurton's Needle by John Still and William Stevenson performed in 1566
• The First Comedy in Prose: Supposes by Gascoigne performed in 1566

2.Tragedy: dealing with darker side of man's life and having sad endings, especially with the death of protagonist - tragedy arising from the tragic flaws of protagonists or through the mysterious workings of fate - targeting sympathy, terror and purification (catharsis) of  the viewers -Aristotle's Poetics, defining the characteristics of tragedy - the fall of great men as common theme in tragedy 

• Sub divisions of Tragedy:
•  Revenge Tragedy: mostly influenced by Seneca, dealing with the hero's quest for revenge - murder taking place on the stage, in stead of getting reported - Kid's Spanish Tragedy performed in 1587 as the best example - Marlowe's The Jew of Malta, Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus and The Middleton's The Revenger's Tragedy, other examples
• Neo-classsical Tragedy: the imitation of great writers of Greek and Roman tragedies, especially observing  the three unity of time, place and action - John Dryden's All For Love (1678) as the best example of Neo-classical Tragedy
• Closet Tragedies : tragedies not meant for the stage - Milton's "Samson Agonistes" and Byron's Manfred as fine examples
• The First English Tragedy written in blank verse: Gorboduc or Ferrex and Porrex (1561) by Thomas Norton (three acts) and Thomas Sackville (two acts) in collaboration. 

3. Melodrama (musical plays) : melo, meaning music - a drama with extensive use of music, popular in the19th C. - hero suffering in the hands of villain throughout but triumphing at the end as the nature of melodrama - virtue at distress as the main theme -Jerrold's Black Ey'd Susan (1829) and Boucicault's The Colleen Been (1860) as  typical examples

4. Tragic-Comedy: mixture of comic and tragic elements - aiming comic relief by introducing  comic characters in between two tragic scenes - first introduced by the Italian dramatists Cinzio and Guarani - popularised in England in 17th C by Beaumont and Fletcher in collaboration in "Philaster " (1608-9)- Shakespeare's dark comedies The Merchant of Venice, The Winter's Tale and Measure for Measure as other best examples of Tragic Comedy 

5. Farce: the word derived from French 'farce' meaning "stuffing" - Morton's Box and Cox(1847), Pinero's  The Magistrate(1885) and The School Mistress (1886) as good examples -unlike comedy, a humorous play dealing  with trivial theme well known to the audience - consisting of ridiculous situations,  mistaken identity, change of costume of genders as chief elements - farces arising from marital misadventures known as bedroom farces. 

6. Opera: The form derived from the reciting style by some intellectuals at Medici court in Florence - associated with the musical tradition of Mozart and Beehoven and with music composers of Donizetti,  Rossini and Puccini - mostly having secular themes - Like comedy and tragedy having grand themes and subjects but presenting them through music and dance - the inner feelings of characters expressed through music and dance, not through dialogue - La Boheme by Puccini and Falstaff by Verdi as typical examples of Opera - difference : in 'masque' as in A Midsummer Night's Dream,  music is ornamental but in opera,  essential part - The first opera, Orfeo(1607)by Monteverdi - the first English opera: The Siege of Rhodes (1656) by Sir William D' Avenant (but music part not surviving)  - The First opera with the survival of music: John Blow's Venus and Adonis (1684) - Benjamin Britten,  W. H. Auden and E. M. Forster as great composers of opera of the 20th Century.