Chapter 1: The Nature of Drama
- Action through...
- actors
- impact is direct and based on the actors' skills
- audience receives all info at once instead of multiple paragraphs- how character looks and moves and speaks
- stage
- and before an audience
- Playwrights are limited
- practically limited to one point of view: the dramatic
- Soliloquy- characters are presented as speaking to themselves (think out loud)
- Aside- characters turn from people on stage they are conversing with to speak directly to audience- allows audience know what they are really thinking/feeling
- Playwright can, and must command undivided attention
Drama Terms
- Realistic- attempts, in content and presentation, to preserve the illusion of actual ordinary life.
- Non Realistic- drama that departs, markedly, from the ordinary to outward appearances of life.
- Tragedy- drama with events that lead to downfall and suffering of protagonist- usually a person of high moral or intellectual stature.
- Comedy- usually happy ending, emphasizing human limitation, rather than human greatness. Two types..
- Romantic Comedy
- Scornful Comedy
- Melodrama- related to tragedy, but featuring sensational incidents, emphasizing plot, relying on cruder conflicts and having happy ending.
- Farce- related to a comedy, but emphasizing improbable situations, violent conflicts, physical action, with coarse wit over characterization and plot.
- Protagonist- main character in story/ play
- Antagonist- any force in story in conflict with protagonist. May be person, aspect of physical or social environment or destructive element in protagonist's own nature.
- Foil- a character whose distinguishing moral qualities or personal traits are summed up in one or two traits
- Suspense- That quality in a story or play that makes the reader eager to discover what happens next and how it will end.
- Themes- The central idea or unifying generalization implied or stated by a literary work.
- Dramatic Exposition- the presentation of information about events that occurred before the action of a play. That occurs offstage or between the staged action.
- Didactic- poetry, fiction, or drama having as a primary purpose to teach or preach.
Chapter 2- Realistic and Non-Realistic Drama
- Drama adds another dimension of possible unreality since written to be performed
- involves certain necessary artificiality
- audience must imagine there are four walls and actors must adapt to different stages to accommodate members from all sides of the audience.
- dramatic conventions- certain departures from reality. Such as the stage- room with less than four walls still represents one with four.)
- chorus- group of actors speaking in unison
- narrator- vehicle for dramatic truth
Hey Tom!
ReplyDeleteExcellent job of including all the key terms we covered in this section. Pass for now, but again, remember to include outside connections! (See Class Notes Nov. 15-23 for comments about outside connections).
Pass!
ReplyDeleteYou did an excellent job with covering everything we learned in this unit and phrased everything very nicely in your own words. Just remember the outside connections.