Drama is a form of literary work that allows in a short plot to show the conflicts of society, feelings and relationships of heroes, to reveal moral issues. Tragedy, comedy and even modern sketches are all varieties of this art that arose in ancient Greece.
Drama: A Book with a Complex Character
Translated from Greek, the word "drama" means "act." Drama (definition in literature) is a work exposing the conflict between heroes. The character is revealed through actions, and the soul through dialogues. The works of this genre have a dynamic plot, composed through dialogues of actors, less often - monologues or polylogues.
The language of the author is present only as remarks. They have a technical function, characterizing the characters and describing the scene.
Drama as a kind of literature is composed according to classical rules.
It consists of several parts, dividing into acts. There are several heroes in it, one developed storyline that sets the axis of the work. A small number of events take place over the entire work. If the work is created for the stage, then its volume should not exceed 80 pages. Such a scenario or play equals 3-4 hours of action on stage.
Ancient literature
Initially, the drama was formed on the basis of the cult of the god of fertility Dionysius, including songs and dances. The actors put on skins, masks and sang praises on their faces. Competitions were held between tragedians and comedians. Famous playwrights - Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripilus, Aristophanes - the famous authors of Ancient Greece.
Classical drama includes different genres. There are a lot of works of literature related to this type of art: this is tragedy, comedy and drama itself. At the junction formed a tragicomedy, so popular in a Russian school.
The development of drama as an example of tragedy
In the literal sense, the word "tragedy" means "goat song." She was associated with autumn sadness, when the god of winemaking went into hibernation, or metaphorically died. Aeschylus is considered the founder of the tragedy, he perfected the form and included the second actor in the action. Sophocles added a third character. Emotional moves are expressed through mourning, an expression of condolences, horror, anger. The choir, with the help of the praises, set the right tone.
The tragedy in Ancient Greece consisted of six classical components: myth, disclosure of characters, relevant and significant opinion, prosaic and metric language, music and spectacle. Tragedy captures the soul and lets you know the suffering.
In its unchanged form, the tragedy reaches the Renaissance, where it again becomes popular. Shakespearean heroes experience fatum in a new way. Now social conditions are more important than the games of the gods. The famous "King Lear", "Othello", "Hamlet" to this day are a reader for young playwrights and actors.
In the Age of Enlightenment, actors are fighting for ideas. Schillerâs famous tragedies âRobbersâ and âCunning and Loveâ were not inferior to Goethe's works âEgmontâ and âGetz von Berlichingenâ in popularity.
Romanticism reveals a conflict, but already between the inner and outer worlds of heroes. Byron, Hugo work in the genre of tragedy.
Big literary family
Drama in literature is primarily a large creative category. The original progenitor of tragedy and comedy today has acquired new family members. Modern representatives are melodrama, vaudeville, sketch. Melodrama as a kind of literature divides the heroes into âgoodâ and âbadâ people: the actors have polar moral principles. The conflict occurs between the values ââof the characters, and in the end there is an unexpected solution. Vaudeville and sketch are combined art forms.
Expressive genres in literature
However, in addition to drama, there are other expressive genres of literature. The table will help classify what we will now analyze in some detail.
The short story is a version of the story: a prosaic short work with a sharp plot and a neutral style of narration. There is no psychological overtones and an unexpected ending, as in a melodrama.
Ode is a ceremonial work that is outdated today, but very popular at the end of the 18th century, which was expounded through poems or poetry, put on music.
Essay - factual facts of real life, reliable narration.
The story is an epic genre about the life of a hero or several characters, showing successive episodes from life. More in volume than a story, but less than a novel.
Poem - a story in poetic form.
The story is a smaller fellow of the story, which mentions one or more events from the life of the hero. Actions are not long in time, and there are few actors. As a rule, most of the information comes from an invisible narrator. The story and poem are the most popular genres of works of literature.
A novel is a great narrative work in which there are several storylines that affect a significant period of a personâs life or his entire life. The characters are equivalent, the plot reveals socially significant tasks, problems.
Epic - a large work on significant national or historical events. It is issued in the form of prose or verses. Often authors call epics novels, however, it differs from the latter in the content of national life, the exposure of the way of life of all walks of life, and its wide geographical and historical reach.
The ballad is a lyrical epic poem, where the historical line passing through the whole plot is clearly expressed. The ballad differs from the lyric poem in content. In the latter, the author seeks to express his inner feelings, instead of the plot. In addition, verses are shorter.
A song is an expression of an idea, feelings, plot through poems set to music. It is divided into parts where the refrain is the refrain, and the developing plot is the verses.
Famous folk, historical, lyrical, heroic songs. It is believed that songs and ballads are the most ancient genres of literature.
The table below will help to provide a general idea of ââthe types of creative categories of literature.
Literature Form
| Epos | Lyrics | Drama |
| Fable | Anthem | Vaudeville |
| Bylina | Invective | Sketch |
| Legend | Madrigal | Comedy |
| Short story | Oh yeah | Tragedy |
| Story | Song | Drama |
| Story | Sonnet | Melodrama |
| Feature article | Romance | Tragicomedy |
| Novel | Message | |
| Story | Elegy | |
| Epic | Poem | |
| Epitaph | |
| Epigram | |
| | |
| | |
The birth of domestic drama
The leisurely and measured first quarter of the 19th century was marked by the rapid spread of dramatic literature.
On the one hand, this, of course, is associated with an interest in the theater, where a whole galaxy of talented artists and writers appears. On the other hand, during this period there is a fashion for home reading and literary living rooms. The tragedies of Kryukovsky, Ozerov, Plavilshchikov, Viskovagov, Gruzintsev, Glinka, Zotov are popular. Great success is enjoyed by Martha the Posadnitsa, or the Conquest of Novgorod, by Ivanov.
The confrontation of classics and identity
The critic P. A. Katenin tried to defend the classical form of the genre, which is why he translated Cornel and Racine. At the beginning of the 19th century, drama in literature was a copy of French plays. The notion of âfalse classic tragedyâ appears, and Kotzebueâs works are under attack. The core of critical attacks is Dramatic Messenger, published by Linguistic since 1808. One of the most prolific playwrights of the time was Shakhovsky. From under his pen came more than 100 plays. He was famous for comedies in which the internal weakness of the play, according to criticisms of experts, was overlapped by the brilliance of the atmosphere and fake effects.
New Drama Genres in Literature
Vaudeville for the Russian mentality was first composed by Khmelnitsky. He was primarily a talented translator. So, his frank imitations of the French drama became famous: "Castles in the Air", "Talker", "Indecisive".
Griboedovâs comedy âWoe from Witâ is the first Russian book of manners, which was brilliantly made according to the style and model of French plays. This work, released in 1831, and today comes with great success.
English literature also had a great influence on the formation of Russian drama. For example, Belinsky also noticed that Pushkin turned out to be Shakespeareâs Boris Godunov. Pushkin seemed to freely redraw portraits of the heroes of the king of tragedy. But Russian characters do not act under the banner of passion, but under the yoke of rock drama.
Examples of Lermontovâs works, which are insolvent in the artistic sense, but interesting as material about the poetâs attitude, make it possible to penetrate the inner world of a brilliant stylist. Gogolevâs âExaminerâ is a drama bomb that has ridiculed the problems of bureaucracy. After the success of Gogol in Russia, a fashion for the Russian character appears, and not for a translated carbon copy from European literature.
A drama in literature is also the work of Turgenev, who worked on this genre in the late 40s and early 50s. His plays "Freeloader", "Breakfast with the leader", "Bachelor", "Provincial" are still included in the theater repertoire.
Heroes become more and more natural in the works of the mid-19th century. For example, the character of Pisemsky from "The Bitter Fate" is a village peasant in full size and without embellishment. The comedies of the author "Baal", "Enlightened Time", "Financial Genius" did not last long on stage.
Russian Shakespeare
A drama in Russian literature would not exist in its form without the name of Ostrovsky. This author was able not only to earn folk love, for 40 years Ostrovsky delivered about 50 plays, but also to instill the taste of the audience in good and complex works. Dobrolyubov called the work of Alexander Nikolaevich "plays of life." All texts are designed like a classic drama. The definition in the literature of Ostrovskyâs plays is universal drama. The author is trying not only to show the situation, but also looking for the roots of the problem in the characters' characters, the environment.
He managed to present to the public not just heroes, but psychological characters in which it is so easy to see themselves. The gifted playwright wrote sparkling comedies (âThe Marriage of Balzaminovâ), chilling the soul of the tragedy (âThunderstormâ), made the audience cry, be amazed, empathize. His works are a treasury of Russian speech.
Drama as a kind of literature in Russia, as an original school of Ostrovsky's followers, arises already during the life of the master. Bright imitators of his talent were Potekhin, Dyachenko, Krylov, Soloviev, Chernyshev, Vladykin, Chaev, Lvov and Antropov. All of them were outstanding playwrights of the second half of the XIX century. These were masters of theatrical technology, scenic action.
The next stage in the development of dramatic writing is the industrial plot. The most interesting representatives of the latest drama are Potekhin, Shpazhinsky, Tarnovsky, Sumbatov, A. Suvorin, Karpov.
L. Tolstoy used drama as an instrument for informing the masses by publishing the Power of Darkness and the Fruits of Enlightenment.
In the 60s, the
genre of historical chronicles appeared as a drama. Examples of Ostrovskyâs works âMinin-Sukhorukâ, âVoivodeâ, âVasilisa Melentievnaâ are the brightest examples of this rare genre. The trilogy of Count A.K. Tolstoy is also distinguished by these merits: "The Death of John the Terrible", "Tsar Theodor Ioannovich" and "Tsar Boris", as well as Chaev's chronicles ("Tsar Vasily Shuisky"). Crackling drama is inherent in Averkinâs works: âMamaev Massacreâ, âComedy about the Russian nobleman Froly Skobeevâ, âKashirskaya Antiquityâ.
Contemporary Drama
Today, dramaturgy continues to develop, but at the same time it is built according to all the classical laws of the genre.
In today's Russia, drama in literature is such names as Edward Radzinsky, Nikolai Erdman, Mikhail Chusov. As boundaries and conventions are erased, lyrical and conflicting topics that touch on Wisten Oden, Thomas Bernhard, and Martin MacDonagh come to the fore.