Drama as a literary genre

The features of a dramatic text

Performer - Culture & Literature
Marina Spiazzi, Marina Tavella,
Margaret Layton © 2012
 Drama as a literary genre

1. The structure
A play consists of a number of acts divided into scenes.
All Shakespearian plays are made up of five acts:

• Act 1: introduction
• Act 2: development
• Act 3: crisis or turning point
• Act 4: complications
• Act 5: denouement = the resolving of all difficulties

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Drama as a literary genre

1. The structure
Elizabethan tragedies:
• are generally introduced by a prologue,
spoken by the chorus

provides information about the main character /

the subject of the play

• often end with an epilogue

- requests applause
- is usually played by a central character

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 Drama as a literary genre

2. The plot and the setting

• The plot the story-line of a play

• The sub-plot a secondary plot. It usually

mirrors the themes of the
main plot but presents them
from a different perspective

• Place and time can be inferred both from the dialogue

and the stage directions

An open place.
Thunder and lightning.
(W. Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 1)

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 Drama as a literary genre

3. Stage directions
• Stage directions are the instructions a playwright gives to
the director and the actors about how a play should be
staged.
• They provide information about
1. the setting;
2. the characters’ actions and movements;
3. the style of acting.

Exeunt all but TITANIA [and the sentinel]. Enter

Oberon. He drops the juice on TITANIA’s eyelids.
(W. Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act 2, Sc II)

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 Drama as a literary genre

4. Characters
The number of characters, which in the past were called
Drámatis Personae, may vary but always includes:

• a hero, the protagonist of the play who is not necessarily

“heroic”, noble and brave;
• a heroine, the play’s main female character;
• an antagonist, who is the hero’s main opponent, usually the
play’s villain.

Characters can be divided into main or minor according to

how important they are for the story.

 
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 Drama as a literary genre

4. Characters
The character can be introduced through
• dialogue, that is, his interaction with other characters;
• soliloquies, which reveal his thoughts, feelings and
personality;
• asides;
• stage directions
- how the character changes, why and when;
- his / her motivation to action;
- his / her relationship with other characters should also
be analysed.

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 Drama as a literary genre

5. Dramatic techniques
Dialogue is the main support of drama since:
•it creates the action;
•it provides details about the characters and their
relationships;
•it contributes to theme development;
•it gives information about the past;
•it can foreshadow subsequent events;
•it may be built to cause specific reactions in the audience.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Drama as a literary genre

5. Dramatic techniques
Soliloquy and monologue are special conventions of
Elizabethan drama.

soliloquy monologue

there are other characters

the character is alone but the speaker
on the stage ignores them

These devices enable the playwright to let the audience know:

• the character’s thoughts about a specific problem;
• the character’s plans for the future;
• the character’s feelings and reactions;
• the character’s explanation of what happens between scenes.

Performer - Culture & Literature

 Drama as a literary genre

5. Dramatic techniques
Asides are short comments made by a character for the
audience alone, usually occurring in or between speeches.

Their purposes are:

•to reveal the nature of the speaker,
•to draw the attention of the audience to the importance of
what has been said;
•to explain developments;
•to create humour by introducing the unexpected.

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 Drama as a literary genre

6. The language
The language of drama is particularly intense and vivid
because it can share the features of everyday speech,
of poetry or prose.
The normal form of Shakespeare’s plays is blank verse
but prose and poetry can be intermingled.
Another feature of dramatic language is the use
of clusters of imagery
lots of images of a similar nature
linked to a specific theme in the play
clusters of imagery
Example = the imagery of clothing
linked to the theme of ‘false
appearances’ in Macbeth

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