BA I Semester Optional English Paper DSC 1.

Gulbarga University, Raichur University NEP Syllabus.

Drama and It’s Forms Details

Comedy.

In the most common literary application, a comedy is a fictional work in which the materials are selected and managed primarily in order to interest and amuse us: the characters and their discomfitures engage our pleasurable attention rather than our profound concern, we are made to feel confident that no great disaster will occur, and usually the action turns out happily for the chief characters. The term “comedy” is customarily applied only to plays for the stage or to motion pictures; it should be noted, however, that the comic form, so defined, also occurs in prose fiction and narrative poetry. Within the very broad spectrum of dramatic comedy, the following types are frequently distinguished:

(1) Romantic comedy was developed by Elizabethan dramatists on the model of contemporary prose romances such as Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde (1590), the source of Shakespeare’s As You Like It (1599). Such comedy represents a love affair that involves a beautiful and engaging heroine (sometimes disguised as a man); the course of this love does not run smooth, yet overcomes all difficulties to end in a happy union

(2) Satiric comedy ridicules political policies or philosophical doctrines, or else attacks deviations from the social order by making ridiculous the violators of its standards of morals or manners.

Tragedy.

The term is broadly applied to literary, and especially to dramatic, Representations of serious actions which eventuate in a disastrous conclusion For the protagonist (the chief character). More precise and detailed discussions Of the tragic form properly begin—although they should not end—with Aristotle’s classic analysis in the Poetics (fourth century B.C.). Aristotle based his Theory on induction from the only examples available to him, the tragedies of Greek dramatists such as Aeschylus,

Sophocles, and Euripides. Aristotle defined tragedy as “the imitation of an action that is serious and also, as having magnitude, complete in itself,” in the medium of poetic language and in the manner of dramatic rather than of narrative presentation, involving “incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish the catharsis of such emotions.”. Precisely how to interpret Aristotle’s catharsis—which in Greek signifies “purgation,” or “purification,” or both—is much disputed. On two matters, however, a number of commentators agree A one-act play is a play that has only one act, as distinct from plays that occur over several acts. One-act plays may consist of one or more scenes. The 20-40 minute play has emerged as a popular subgenre of the one-act play, especially in writing competitions.

A One-Act Play

It must have the following characteristics and components: The story must revolve around, or focus on one event. The action of the play should move fairly quickly. There is no time to have a lengthy introduction. Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and And Jack Fell Down are examples of a one-act play. Epic play A modern episodic drama that seeks to provoke objective understanding of a social problem through a series of loosely connected scenes that avoid illusion and often interrupt the action to address the audience directly with analysis or argument (as by a narrator) or with documentation (as by a film) The features of epic theatre include the use of poor or ironic acting, moving sets, actors playing multiple characters, the actors interacting with the audience, and the direct address of social issues.