Introduction to Basics of Drama
The term "drama" comes from a Greek word dran meaning to do or to act.
Drama is a mode of fictional representation through dialogue and performance.In
general, fiction refers to plot, settings, and characters created from the imagination,
while nonfiction refers to factual stories focused on actual events and people.
Aristotle used the term 'drama' to describe poetic compositions that were 'acted' in front of
audiences in a theatron.
Drama is a play that can be performed for theatre, radio or even television.
A play is a work of drama, usually consisting mostly of dialogue between characters and
intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. The writer of a play is
a playwright.Drama refers to the script( ামা যিদ script হয়),while the word theatre is the
performance of the script.
It is one of the literary genres, which is an imitation of(অনুকরণ) some action. In simple words, a
drama is a composition in verse or prose presenting a story in or dialogue.
Merriam Webster:A composition in verse or prose intended to portray (ভাষায় বণনা করা)life or
character or to tell a story usually involving conflicts and emotions through action and dialogue
and typically designed for theatrical performance.
Drama is a visual art and is clearly spelled (ব খ া করা)out for the audience. The characters, the
setting, and the action are all right there. Nothing essential is left to the viewer's imagination.
Novel, on the other hand, is a journey into the Imagination.
Aristotle’s Six Elements of Drama :Aristotle considered these six things to be essential to good
drama:
• Plot: This is what happens in the play. Plot refers (িনেদশ কের) to the action; the basic storyline
of the play.
• Theme: While plot refers to the action of the play, theme refers to the meaning of the play.
Theme is the main idea or lesson to be learned from the play. In some cases, the theme of a play
is obvious(সু ); other times it is quite subtle.(সূ )
• Characters: Characters are the people (sometimes animals or ideas) portrayed by the actors in
the play. It is the characters who move the action, or plot, of the play forward.
• Dialogue: This refers to the words written by the playwright and spoken by the characters in the
play. The dialogue helps move the action of the play along.
• Music/Rhythm: While music is often featured in drama, in this case Aristotle was referring to
the rhythm of the actors' voices as they speak. (ছ )
• Spectacle: This refers to the visual elements of a play: sets, costumes, special effects, etc.
Spectacle is everything that the audience sees as they watch the play.(দৃশ )
The Modern Theater:In the modern theater, this list has changed slightly, although you will notice
that many of the elements remain the same. The list of essential elements in modern theater is
as follows:
• Characters • Plot • Theme • Dialogue • Convention • Genre • Audience
The Modern Theater The first four, character, plot, theme and dialogue remain the same, but the
following additions are now also considered essential elements of drama.
• Convention: These are the techniques and methods used by the playwright and director to
create the desired stylistic effect.
• Genre: Genre refers to the type of play. Some examples of different genres include comedy,
tragedy, mystery and historical play.
• Audience: This is the group of people who watch the play. Many playwrights and actors
consider the audience to be the most important element of drama, as all of the effort put in to
writing and producing a play is for the enjoyment of the audience.
Four Main Possibilities in Drama:
1. Comedy(Integrative)-সুসংহত।
2. Romance(Beauty)
3. Tragedy(Disintegrative)-িবেভদ।
4. Satire(Ugliness)
Comedy:Comedy is entertainment consisting of jokes intended to make an audience laugh.The
motif of this dramatic work is triumph over (জয়) unpleasant (িবরস) circumstance by creating
comic effects, resulting in a happy or successful conclusion. For ancient Greeks and Romans
a comedy was a stage-play with a happy ending.The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be
described as a dramatic performance which pits (লড়াই করােনা)two groups or societies against
each other in an amusing (হাস কর) agon ( িতেযাগীতা)or conflict.
Definition: Comedy is a broad genre of film, television, and literature in which the goal is to make
an audience laugh.
Example:
Example #1: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (By William Shakespeare)
Example #2: Every Man in His Humor (By Ben Johnson)
Example #4: All’s Well that Ends Well (By William Shakespeare)
Types of comedy:Tragicomedy,romantic comedy,farce,dark comedy.
Comedy of manners: witty, (রিসক ও বুি মান)cerebral form of dramatic comedy that depicts
(বণনা করা) and often satirizes the manners and affectations (পিরকি ত দশন)of a contemporary
(সমসামিয়ক)society. A comedy of manners is concerned (উি )with social usage (সামািজক
ব বহার)and the question of characters meet certain social standards.(সামািজক মান)
Definition:In English literature, the term comedy of manners (also anti-sentimental
comedy(ভাব বণ িব ) describes a genre of realistic, satirical comedy of the Restoration
period (1660–1710) that questions and comments upon the manners and social
conventions (রীিতনীিত)of a greatly sophisticated(বা বধম ),artificial society.
Famous for comedy of manners:Oscar Wilde
Again, a little over a century from this date, Comedy of Manner plays were being perfected in
England by famous Irish playwright Oscar Wilde, with wonderful works like Lady Windermere's
Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895).
Comedy of humours, a dramatic genre most closely associated (যু ) with the English
playwright Ben Jonson from the late 16th century. The term derives (আহিরত)from the
Latin humor (more properly umor), meaning “liquid,” and its use in the medieval and Renaissance
medical theory that the human body held a balance of four liquids, or humours: blood, phlegm
( ষা)yellow bile (choler),(হলুদ িপ ) and black bile (melancholy). (কােলা িপ )
Famous for comedy of humour: Ben Johnson.
Comedy of Humours was introduced by Ben Jonson, in English Drama. The Comedy of Humours
was the natural expression of his genius.
The term ‘humour’ as used by Ben Jonson is based on an ancient physiological theory of four
fluids found in the human body.
According to this theory, there are four fluids in the human body which determine a man’s
temperament ( মজাজ) and mental state. These four fluids are-
Blood,
Phlegm,
Choler (Yellow Bile); and
Melancholy (Black Bile)
A normal man has these four fluids in a balanced proportion. (সমানুপাত)৷ But this excess of any
one of these fluids makes him abnormal and develops some kind of an oddity (অ াভািবকতা)of
the temperament ( মজাজ)and behaviour and hence such a person becomes an object of fun and
ridicule.(উপহাস)
Excess of different fluids have different effects on the human-
The Humour of Blood makes a man excessively optimistic even without the slightest chance of
hope or success.(আশাবাদী)
Phlegm makes one excessively calm and docile.(িনরীহ)
Choler makes one highly ill-tempered.(অসু )
Black Bile makes one excessively melancholy.(িবষাদ )
Ben Jonson’s comedies are called Comedies of Humour because the principal characters in all
the comedies are victims of one humour or the other. For example, he uses Comedy of Humours
in his play Every Man in his Humour.
Difference Between Comedy of manners and comedy of humours:
When we think about the difference between these two concepts, a comedy of manners, as
other editors above have suggested, is one which satirises or makes fun of conventional
values(িশ াচার) and practises of the day(যুগ). A comedy of humour is associated with
playwrights such as Jonson and feature characters that are overwhelming (অিভভতকারী)in
characteristics.
Comedy of humours is a kind of drama that focuses on one or more characters who have
prominent traits (উে খেযাগ বিশ ) significant to their personalities, desires or conduct.(আচরণ)
10 October
Tragedy:Tragedy, branch of drama that treats in a serious and dignified(মযাদাপূণ) style, the
sorrowful or terrible events encountered (স ুখীন হওয়া)or caused by a heroic individual.(বীর
বি )
Also,Tragedy is a genre of story in which a hero is brought down by his/her own flaws
( িট)usually by ordinary human flaws – flaws like greed, over-ambition, or even an excess of
love, honor, or loyalty.In any tragedy, we start with the tragic hero, usually in his prime. ( সরা
সময়)The hero is successful, respected, and happy. But he has some tragic flaw that will
ultimately cause his downfall.
Tragedies might be the oldest form of storytelling in the Western tradition. The earliest known
Greek plays are all tragedies, and many Greek philosophers believed that tragedy was the
highest form of literary art.No one is really sure why people have historically loved tragedies
so much.But tragedy has an enduring ( ায়ী) power in literature that shows deep and lasting
popularity.
Unfortunately, tragedies are rare these days. Modern film and television audiences prefer happy
endings, so it’s unusual to see a genuine tragedy in modern popular culture.
Characteristics:
1.Protagonists who are courageous (সাহিসকতাপূণ)and noble and must face significant internal
or external challenges.
2.A heartbreaking ending that often leads to a catharsis (the process of releasing, and thereby
providing relief from strong or repressed emotions)for the audience and gives them hope for
mankind.
3.Tragedies lead to the deaths of “exceptional” people such as royalty, (রাজবংশীয় ব ি বগ)
nobility, etc. The idea is that the higher a person is in rank, the greater the tragedy is (the rich
and powerful have more to lose), which is why tragedies before the 19th century never focus on
the lives of common people.
4.Originated in ancient Greek theatre,
5.Generally portrays the downfall of a prominent,(িবিশ ) well-respected character.
6.The fall is generally the result of fate, or a fatal flaw.(মারা ক িট)
8.The character may die, or experience a dramatic change in fortune.
9.The end aim of a tragedy is to provide the spectator with katharsis/catharsis
Tragicomedy:
a play or novel containing elements of both comedy and tragedy.Most often seen in dramatic
literature, the term can describe either a tragic play which contains enough comic elements to
lighten the overall mood or a serious play with a happy ending.
The blend (িম ণ) of suffering, sorrows, humor, romance, forgiveness, and reunion in the play
confirms its label as a tragicomedy. There are different aspects of the tragicomedy in the play
that include: tragic elements, comic elements, romantic elements, and a happy ending.
Revenge tragedy:Revenge tragedy (sometimes referred to as revenge drama, revenge play,
or tragedy of blood) is a theoretical genre in which the principal theme is revenge and revenge's
fatal consequences.
Its Origin:
*influenced by Roman tragedies of Seneca which had:
inconsistency of fortune (অস িত)
crime and murder
*Also influenced by “Spanish Tragedy” by Thomas Kyd in
1587.
*developed in the Elizabethan and Jacobean Eras
Formally established by American educator Ashley H. Thorndike in his 1902 article "The
Relations of Hamlet to Contemporary Revenge Plays," a revenge tragedy documents
the progress of the protagonist's revenge plot and often leads to the demise (মরণ)of
both the murderers and the avenger himself.We found its highest expression in William
Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Audiences watching Hamlet at the time it was first performed would recognize the play as
belonging to a particular genre: they didn’t have a name for it, but modern scholars call it
“revenge tragedy.” In a revenge tragedy the hero has suffered a great wrong, usually the murder
of someone he loves, and the plot is driven by his desire for revenge. At the end of the play, the
hero murders the person who has wronged him, and typically (সাধারণত)the hero also dies.
Heroic Tragedy:Heroic play, also called heroic drama or heroic tragedy, a type of play prevalent
( ভাবশালী) in Restoration England during the 1660s and 1670s. The term "heroic drama" was
invented by Dryden for his play.All for Love is Dryden's greatest play in blank verse heroic tragedy
style, which was invented by Dryden. In it, he develops the characters of Cleopatra and Antony to
show the affects of their love on each other during the last day of their lives.
Definition:Characterized by highly stylized poetic dialogue, larger-than-life heroes (বা ব
িহেরা)and idealized heroines, and sensationalistic (উে জনাপূণ) action often played out in exotic
locales, heroic tragedy is a genre of English drama that flourished in the years of the Restoration.
Heroic tragedy was written in rhyming pentameter couplets. Such plays presented characters
of almost superhuman stature,(মযাদা) and their predominant (কতৃ কর) themes were exalted
(সমু ) ideals of love, honour, and courage. (বীর )The heroic play was based on the traditional
epic and romance.
It is generally characterized by exotic settings, (foreign settings) bombastic (শ াড় রপূণ)
rhetoric, and exaggerated characterization.
Tragic Hero:A tragic hero is the protagonist of a tragedy in dramas.
A tragic hero is a type of character in a tragedy, and is usually the protagonist. Tragic heroes
typically have heroic traits that earn them the sympathy of the audience, but also have flaws or
make mistakes that ultimately lead to their own downfall.
In Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Romeo is a tragic hero. His reckless( বপেরায়া) passion in
love, which leads directly to the tragedy of his death.
The idea of the tragic hero was first defined by the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle based on
his study of Greek drama.
6 characteristics of a tragic hero
born of a noble birth.
imperfect( িটপূণ)characteristic that makes them human.
has a fatal flaw that affects their fate.
wounded (আহত) by experience.
fatal flaw causes for a realization/ discovery.
downfall causes pity (সমেবদনা) or fear.
Tragic Flaw: Tragic flaw is a literary device that can be defined as a trait in a character leading to
his downfall, and the character is often the hero of the literary piece. This trait could be the lack
of self-knowledge, lack of judgment, and often it is pride.(দ )
The Greek word for Tragic flaw is hamaratia or hamartanein, which means “to err.” (ভল করা) It
was Aristotle who introduced this term first in his book Poetics, and his idea was that it is an
“error of judgment” on the part of a hero that brings his downfall. A tragic flaw is also called a
“fatal flaw” in literature and films. This is taken as a defective( িটপূণ) trait in the character of the
hero.
We can also say,the character defect that causes the downfall of the protagonist in the
tragedy.In the play of Romeo and Juliet written by William Shakespeare, Romeo's tragic flaw
is his rashness. (হঠকািরতা)which rushes ( ত ছিড়েয় পড়া)into action without thinking quickly,
such as when he marries Juliet after only knowing her for a short time.Juliet's fatal flaw is her
impulsiveness, (আেবগ বণতা)and Friar Lawrence's fatal flaw is that he is blinded by his goal to
bring peace to Verona.
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