Dramatic works (other gr. action), like epic ones, recreate series of events, the actions of people and their relationships. Like the author of an epic work, the playwright is subject to the “law of developing action.” But there is no detailed narrative-descriptive image in the drama.
The actual author's speech here is auxiliary and episodic. These are lists of characters, sometimes accompanied by brief characteristics, designation of time and place of action; descriptions of the stage situation at the beginning of acts and episodes, as well as comments on individual remarks of the characters and indications of their movements, gestures, facial expressions, intonations (remarks).
All this constitutes a secondary text of a dramatic work. Its main text is a chain of statements by the characters, their remarks and monologues.
Hence some limitations of the artistic possibilities of drama. A writer-playwright uses only part of the visual means that are available to the creator of a novel or epic, short story or story. And the characters of the characters are revealed in drama with less freedom and completeness than in epic. “I perceive drama,” noted T. Mann, “as the art of silhouette and I feel only the person being told as a three-dimensional, integral, real and plastic image.”
At the same time, playwrights, unlike authors of epic works, are forced to limit themselves to the volume of verbal text that meets the needs of theatrical art. The time of the action depicted in the drama must fit within the strict time frame of the stage.
And the performance in the forms familiar to modern European theater lasts, as is known, no more than three to four hours. And this requires an appropriate size of the dramatic text.
The time of the events reproduced by the playwright during the stage episode is neither compressed nor stretched; characters in the drama exchange remarks without any noticeable time intervals, and their statements, as noted by K.S. Stanislavsky, form a continuous, continuous line.
If with the help of narration the action is captured as something in the past, then the chain of dialogues and monologues in the drama creates the illusion of the present time. Life here speaks as if on its own behalf: between what is depicted and the reader there is no intermediary narrator.
The action is recreated in drama with maximum immediacy. It flows as if before the reader’s eyes. “All narrative forms,” wrote F. Schiller, “transfer the present into the past; everything dramatic makes the past present.”
Drama is oriented towards the demands of the stage. And theater is a public, mass art. The performance directly affects many people, who seem to merge together in responses to what is happening in front of them.
The purpose of drama, according to Pushkin, is to act on the multitude, to engage their curiosity” and for this purpose to capture the “truth of passions”: “Drama was born in the square and was a popular entertainment. People, like children, demand entertainment and action. The drama presents him with unusual, strange incidents. People demand strong sensations. Laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination, shaken by dramatic art.”
The dramatic genre of literature is especially closely connected with the sphere of laughter, for the theater strengthened and developed in inextricable connection with mass celebrations, in an atmosphere of play and fun. “The comic genre is universal for antiquity,” noted O. M. Freidenberg.
The same can be said about theater and drama of other countries and eras. T. Mann was right when he called the “comedian instinct” “the fundamental basis of all dramatic skill.”
It is not surprising that drama gravitates towards an outwardly spectacular presentation of what is depicted. Her imagery turns out to be hyperbolic, catchy, theatrically bright. “The theater requires exaggerated broad lines both in voice, recitation, and in gestures,” wrote N. Boileau. And this property of stage art invariably leaves its mark on the behavior of the heroes of dramatic works.
“Like he acted out in the theater,” comments Bubnov (“At the Lower Depths” by Gorky) on the frenzied tirade of the desperate Kleshch, who, by unexpectedly intruding into the general conversation, gave it theatrical effect.
Significant (as a characteristic of the dramatic type of literature) are Tolstoy’s reproaches against W. Shakespeare for the abundance of hyperbole, which allegedly “violates the possibility of artistic impression.” “From the very first words,” he wrote about the tragedy “King Lear,” “one can see the exaggeration: the exaggeration of events, the exaggeration of feelings and the exaggeration of expressions.”
In his assessment of Shakespeare's work, L. Tolstoy was wrong, but the idea that the great English playwright was committed to theatrical hyperbole is completely fair. What has been said about “King Lear” can be applied with no less justification to ancient comedies and tragedies, dramatic works of classicism, to the plays of F. Schiller and V. Hugo, etc.
In the 19th-20th centuries, when the desire for everyday authenticity prevailed in literature, the conventions inherent in drama became less obvious, and they were often reduced to a minimum. The origins of this phenomenon are the so-called “philistine drama” of the 18th century, the creators and theorists of which were D. Diderot and G.E. Lessing.
Works of the greatest Russian playwrights of the 19th century. and the beginning of the 20th century - A.N. Ostrovsky, A.P. Chekhov and M. Gorky - are distinguished by the authenticity of the life forms recreated. But even when the Playwrights focused on verisimilitude, plot, psychological and actual speech hyperboles were preserved.
Theatrical conventions made themselves felt even in Chekhov’s dramaturgy, which showed the maximum limit of “life-likeness.” Let's take a closer look at final scene"Three Sisters" One young woman, ten or fifteen minutes ago, broke up with her loved one, probably forever. Another five minutes ago found out about the death of her fiancé. And so they, together with the elder, third sister, sum up the moral and philosophical results of the past, reflecting to the sounds of a military march about the fate of their generation, about the future of humanity.
It is hardly possible to imagine this happening in reality. But we don’t notice the implausibility of the ending of “Three Sisters”, since we are accustomed to the fact that drama significantly changes the forms of people’s life activities.
The above convinces us of the validity of A. S. Pushkin’s judgment (from his already cited article) that “the very essence of dramatic art excludes verisimilitude”; “When reading a poem or a novel, we can often forget ourselves and believe that the incident described is not fiction, but the truth.
In an ode, in an elegy, we can think that the poet depicted his real feelings, in real circumstances. But where is the credibility in a building divided into two parts, one of which is filled with spectators who have agreed?
The most important role in dramatic works belongs to the conventions of verbal self-disclosure of heroes, whose dialogues and monologues, often filled with aphorisms and maxims, turn out to be much more extensive and effective than those remarks that could be uttered in a similar situation in life.
Conventional remarks are “to the side”, which do not seem to exist for other characters on stage, but are clearly audible to the audience, as well as monologues pronounced by the characters alone, alone with themselves, which are a purely stage technique for bringing out inner speech (there are many such monologues as in ancient tragedies and in modern dramaturgy).
The playwright, setting up a kind of experiment, shows how a person would speak if in the spoken words he expressed his moods with maximum completeness and brightness. And speech in dramatic work often takes on similarities with artistic, lyrical or oratorical speech: the heroes here tend to express themselves like improvisers-poets or masters of public speaking.
Therefore, Hegel was partly right when he viewed drama as a synthesis of the epic principle (eventfulness) and the lyrical principle (speech expression).
Drama has, as it were, two lives in art: theatrical and literary. Constituting the dramatic basis of performances, existing in their composition, a dramatic work is also perceived by the reading public.
But this was not always the case. The emancipation of drama from the stage was carried out gradually - over a number of centuries and was completed relatively recently: in the 18th-19th centuries. World-significant examples of drama (from antiquity to the 17th century) at the time of their creation were practically not recognized as literary works: they existed only as part of the performing arts.
Neither W. Shakespeare nor J.B. Moliere were perceived by their contemporaries as writers. Decisive role in strengthening the idea of drama as a work intended not only for stage production, but also for reading, the “discovery” in the second half played a role XVIII century Shakespeare as a great dramatic poet.
In the 19th century (especially in its first half) the literary merits of the drama were often placed above the stage ones. Thus, Goethe believed that “Shakespeare’s works are not for the eyes of the body,” and Griboyedov called his desire to hear the verses of “Woe from Wit” from the stage “childish.”
The so-called Lesedrama (drama for reading), created with a focus primarily on perception in reading, has become widespread. Such are Goethe's Faust, Byron's dramatic works, Pushkin's small tragedies, Turgenev's dramas, about which the author remarked: “My plays, unsatisfactory on stage, may be of some interest in reading.”
There are no fundamental differences between Lesedrama and a play that is intended by the author for stage production. Dramas created for reading are often potentially stage plays. And the theater (including modern) persistently searches and sometimes finds the keys to them, evidence of which is the successful productions of Turgenev’s “A Month in the Country” (first of all, this is the famous pre-revolutionary play Art Theater) and numerous (although not always successful) stage readings of Pushkin’s small tragedies in the 20th century.
The old truth remains in force: the most important, main purpose of drama is the stage. “Only during stage performance,” noted A. N. Ostrovsky, “the author’s dramatic invention receives a completely finished form and produces exactly that moral action, the achievement of which the author set himself as a goal.”
Creating a performance based on a dramatic work is associated with its creative completion: the actors create intonation-plastic drawings roles played, the artist designs the stage space, the director develops the mise-en-scène. In this regard, the concept of the play changes somewhat (more attention is paid to some of its aspects, less attention to others), and is often specified and enriched: the stage production introduces new shades of meaning into the drama.
At the same time, the principle of faithful reading of literature is of paramount importance for the theater. The director and actors are called upon to convey the staged work to the audience as fully as possible. Fidelity of stage reading occurs when the director and actors deeply comprehend a dramatic work in its main content, genre, and style features.
Stage productions (as well as film adaptations) are legitimate only in cases where there is agreement (even relative) of the director and actors with the range of ideas of the writer-playwright, when stage performers are carefully attentive to the meaning of the work staged, to the features of its genre, the features of its style and to the text itself.
In the classical aesthetics of the 18th-19th centuries, in particular in Hegel and Belinsky, drama (primarily the genre of tragedy) was considered as the highest form literary creativity: as “the crown of poetry.”
A whole series artistic eras and in fact showed himself primarily in dramatic art. Aeschylus and Sophocles in their heyday ancient culture, Moliere, Racine and Corneille at the time of classicism had no equal among the authors of epic works.
Goethe's work is significant in this regard. For the great German writer, everything was available literary genera, he crowned his life in art with the creation of a dramatic work - the immortal “Faust”.
In past centuries (until the 18th century), drama not only successfully competed with epic, but also often became the leading form of artistic reproduction of life in space and time.
This is due to a number of reasons. Firstly, it played a huge role performing arts, accessible (as opposed to handwritten and printed books) to the widest strata of society. Secondly, the properties of dramatic works (depiction of characters with clearly defined features, reproduction human passions, attraction to pathos and the grotesque) in the “pre-realistic” eras fully corresponded to general literary and general artistic trends.
And although in the XIX-XX centuries. The socio-psychological novel, a genre of epic literature, has moved to the forefront of literature; dramatic works still have a place of honor.
V.E. Khalizev Theory of literature. 1999
- ▲ type of fiction, types of literature. epic genre. epic. prose fictional story about which l. events. prose (# works). fiction. lyrics. drama... Ideographic Dictionary of the Russian Language
This term has other meanings, see Drama. Not to be confused with Drama (a type of literature). Drama is a literary (dramatic), stage and cinematic genre. Received particular popularity in the literature of the 18th and 21st centuries,... ... Wikipedia
In art: Drama is a type of literature (along with epic and lyric poetry); Drama is a type of stage cinematic action; a genre that includes various subgenres and modifications (such as bourgeois drama, absurdist drama, etc.); Toponym(s): ... ... Wikipedia
D. as a poetic genus Origin D. Eastern D. Ancient D. Medieval D. D. Renaissance From Renaissance to Classicism Elizabethan D. Spanish D. Classical D. Bourgeois D. Ro ... Literary encyclopedia
Epic, lyric, drama. It is determined according to various criteria: from the point of view of methods of imitation of reality (Aristotle), types of content (F. Schiller, F. Schelling), categories of epistemology (objective subjective in G.V.F. Hegel), formal... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary
Drama (Greek dráma, literally - action), 1) one of the three types of literature (along with epic and lyric poetry; see literary genre). D. belongs simultaneously to theater and literature: being the fundamental basis of the performance, it is at the same time perceived in... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Modern encyclopedia
Literary gender- GENUS LITERARY, one of three groups of works fiction epic, lyric, drama. The tradition of generic division of literature was founded by Aristotle. Despite the fragility of the boundaries between genera and the abundance of intermediate forms (lyroepic ... ... Illustrated Encyclopedic Dictionary
Epic, lyric, drama. It is determined according to various criteria: from the point of view of methods of imitation of reality (Aristotle), types of content (F. Schiller, F. Schelling), categories of epistemology (objective subjective in G. Hegel), formal characteristics... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
ROD, a (y), prev. about (in) gender and in (on) gender, plural. s, ov, husband. 1. The main social organization of the primitive communal system, united by blood kinship. The elder of the clan. 2. A number of generations descending from one ancestor, as well as a generation in general... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary
Books
- Pushkin, Tynyanov Yuri Nikolaevich. Yuri Nikolaevich Tynyanov (1894-1943) - an outstanding prose writer and literary critic - looked like Pushkin, which was what he was told about student years. Who knows, maybe it was this similarity that helped...
Drama is one of the three types of literature (along with epic and lyric poetry). Drama belongs simultaneously to theater and literature: being the fundamental basis of performance, it is also perceived in reading. It was formed on the basis of the evolution of theatrical performances: the promotion of actors to the fore, combining pantomime with the spoken word, marked its emergence as a type of literature. Intended for collective perception, drama has always gravitated towards the most acute social problems and in the most striking examples it became popular; its basis is socio-historical contradictions or eternal, universal antinomies. It is dominated by drama - the property human spirit, awakened by situations when the cherished and vital for a person remains unfulfilled or is under threat. Most dramas are built on a single external action with its twists and turns (which corresponds to the principle of unity of action, which goes back to Aristotle). Dramatic action is usually associated with direct confrontation between the heroes. It is either traced from beginning to end, capturing large periods of time (medieval and oriental drama, for example, “Shakuntala” by Kalidasa), or is taken only in its climax, close to the junction ( ancient tragedies or many dramas of modern times, for example “Dowry”, 1879, A.N. Ostrovsky).
Principles of drama construction
Classical aesthetics of the 19th century absolutized these principles of drama construction. Considering drama - following Hegel - as a reproduction of volitional impulses (“actions” and “reactions”) colliding with each other, V.G. Belinsky believed that “in drama there should not be a single person who would not be necessary in the mechanism of its course and development" and that "the decision in choosing a path depends on the hero of the drama, and not on the event." However, in the chronicles of W. Shakespeare and in the tragedy “Boris Godunov” by A.S. Pushkin, the unity of external action is weakened, and in A.P. Chekhov it is completely absent: here several equal actions unfold simultaneously storylines. Often in a drama, internal action predominates, in which the characters do not so much do something as experience persistent conflict situations and think intensely. Internal action, elements of which are already present in the tragedies “Oedipus Rex” by Sophocles and “Hamlet” (1601) by Shakespeare, dominates the drama of the late 19th - mid-20th centuries (G. Ibsen, M. Maeterlinck, Chekhov, M. Gorky, B. Shaw , B. Brecht, modern “intellectual” drama, for example: J. Anouilh). The principle of internal action was polemically proclaimed in Shaw's work "The Quintessence of Ibsenism" (1891).
Basis of composition
The universal basis of drama composition is the division of its text into stage episodes, within which one moment is closely adjacent to another, neighboring one: the depicted, so-called real time unambiguously corresponds to the time of perception, artistic time (see).
The division of drama into episodes is carried out in different ways. In folk medieval and oriental drama, as well as in Shakespeare, in Pushkin’s Boris Godunov, in Brecht’s plays, the place and time of action often change, which gives the image a kind of epic freedom. European drama of the 17th-19th centuries is based, as a rule, on a few and extensive stage episodes that coincide with the acts of the performances, which gives the depiction a flavor of life-like authenticity. The aesthetics of classicism insisted on the most compact mastery of space and time; The “three unities” proclaimed by N. Boileau survived until the 19th century (“Woe from Wit”, A.S. Griboedova).
Drama and character expression
In drama, the characters' statements are crucial., which mark their volitional actions and active self-disclosure, while the narrative (characters’ stories about what happened earlier, messages from messengers, the introduction of the author’s voice into the play) is subordinate, or even completely absent; The words spoken by the characters form a solid, unbroken line in the text. Theatrical-dramatic speech has two types of addressing: the character-actor enters into dialogue with stage partners and monologically appeals to the audience (see). The monologue beginning of speech occurs in drama, firstly, latently, in the form of aside remarks included in the dialogue that do not receive a response (these are statements Chekhov's heroes, marking a surge of emotions of disconnected and lonely people); secondly, in the form of monologues themselves, which reveal the hidden experiences of the characters and thereby enhance the drama of the action, expand the scope of what is depicted, and directly reveal its meaning. Combining dialogic conversationality and monological rhetoric, speech in drama concentrates the appellative-effective capabilities of language and acquires special artistic energy.
In the historically early stages (from antiquity to F. Schiller and W. Hugo), dialogue, predominantly poetic, relied heavily on monologues (outpourings of the soul of heroes in “scenes of pathos”, statements by messengers, aside remarks, direct appeals to the public), which brought her closer to oratory and lyric poetry. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the tendency of the heroes of a traditional poetic drama to “florate until their strength is completely exhausted” (Yu.A. Strindberg) was often perceived in an aloof and ironic manner, as a tribute to routine and falsehood. In the drama of the 19th century, marked by a keen interest in private, family and everyday life, the conversational-dialogical principle dominates (Ostrovsky, Chekhov), monologue rhetoric is reduced to a minimum ( late plays Ibsen). In the 20th century, the monologue was again activated in drama, which addressed the deepest socio-political conflicts of our time (Gorky, V.V. Mayakovsky, Brecht) and the universal antinomies of being (Anouilh, J.P. Sartre).
Speech in drama
Speech in drama intended to be delivered over a wide space theatrical space, designed for mass effect, potentially sonorous, full-voice, that is, full of theatricality (“without eloquence there is no dramatic writer,” noted D. Diderot). Theater and drama need situations where the hero speaks out to the public (the climax of The Government Inspector, 1836, N.V. Gogol and The Thunderstorm, 1859, A.N. Ostrovsky, pivotal episodes of Mayakovsky’s comedies), as well as theatrical hyperbole: a dramatic character needs more loud and clearly pronounced words than are required by the situations depicted (the journalistically vivid monologue of Andrei alone pushing a baby carriage in the 4th act of “Three Sisters”, 1901, Chekhov). Pushkin (“Of all types of writings, the most improbable works are dramatic ones.” A.S. Pushkin. About tragedy, 1825), E. Zola and L.N. Tolstoy spoke about the attraction of drama to the conventionality of images. The readiness to recklessly indulge passions, the tendency to make sudden decisions, sharp intellectual reactions, and flamboyant expression of thoughts and feelings are inherent in the heroes of the drama much more than in the characters narrative works. The stage “combines in a small space, in the space of just two hours, all the movements that even a passionate being can often only experience in a long period of life” (Talma F. On stage art.). The main subject of the playwright’s search is significant and vivid mental movements that completely fill the consciousness, which are predominantly reactions to what is happening in at the moment: to a word just spoken, to someone’s movement. Thoughts, feelings and intentions, vague and vague, are reproduced in dramatic speech with less specificity and completeness than in the narrative form. Such limitations of drama are overcome by its stage reproduction: the intonations, gestures and facial expressions of the actors (sometimes recorded by writers in stage directions) capture the shades of the characters’ experiences.
Purpose of drama
The purpose of drama, according to Pushkin, is “to act on the multitude, to engage their curiosity” and for this purpose to capture the “truth of passions”: “Laughter, pity and horror are the three strings of our imagination, shaken by dramatic art” (A.S. Pushkin. About folk drama and the drama “Marfa Posadnitsa”, 1830). Drama is especially closely connected with the sphere of laughter, for theater was strengthened and developed within the framework of mass celebrations, in an atmosphere of play and fun: the “comedian instinct” is “the fundamental basis of all dramatic skill” (Mann T.). In previous eras - from antiquity to the 19th century - the main properties of drama corresponded to general literary and general artistic trends. The transformative (idealizing or grotesque) principle in art dominated over the reproducing one, and what was depicted noticeably deviated from the forms real life, so the drama not only successfully competed with epic kind, but was also perceived as the “crown of poetry” (Belinsky). In the 19th and 20th centuries, the desire of art for life-likeness and naturalness, responding to the predominance of the novel and the decline in the role of drama (especially in the West in the first half of the 19th century), at the same time radically modified its structure: under the influence of the experience of novelists, the traditional conventions and hyperbolism of the dramatic image began to be reduced to a minimum (Ostrovsky, Chekhov, Gorky with their desire for everyday and psychological authenticity of images). However, the new drama also retains elements of “implausibility.” Even in Chekhov's realistic plays, some of the characters' statements are conventionally poetic.
Although in figurative system drama is invariably dominated by speech characteristics, its text is focused on spectacular expressiveness and takes into account the possibilities of stage technology. Hence the most important requirement for drama is its scenic quality (ultimately determined by acute conflict). However, there are dramas intended only for reading. These are many plays from the countries of the East, where the heyday of drama and theater sometimes did not coincide, the Spanish drama-novel “Celestine” (late 15th century), in the literature of the 19th century - the tragedies of J. Byron, “Faust” (1808-31) by I.V. .Goethe. Pushkin’s emphasis on stage performance in “Boris Godunov” and especially in small tragedies is problematic. The theater of the 20th century, successfully mastering almost any genre and generic forms of literature, erases the former boundary between drama itself and drama for reading.
On stage
When staging a drama on stage (like other literary works) is not just performed, but translated by the actors and the director into the language of the theater: on the basis of the literary text, intonation and gesture drawings of the roles are developed, scenery, sound effects and mise-en-scène are created. The stage “completion” of a drama, in which its meaning is enriched and significantly modified, has an important artistic and cultural function. Thanks to him, semantic re-emphasis of literature is carried out, which inevitably accompany its life in the minds of the public. Range stage interpretations drama, as modern experience convinces, is very wide. When creating an updated actual stage text, both illustrativeness, literalism in reading the drama and reducing the performance to the role of its “interlinear”, as well as arbitrary, modernizing reshaping of a previously created work - its transformation into a reason for the director to express his own dramatic aspirations - are undesirable. A respectful and careful attitude of actors and the director to the meaningful concept, features of the genre and style of a dramatic work, as well as its text, becomes an imperative when turning to the classics.
As a kind of literature
Drama as a type of literature includes many genres. Throughout the history of drama there is tragedy and comedy; The Middle Ages were characterized by liturgical drama, mystery plays, miracle plays, morality plays, and school drama. In the 18th century, drama emerged as a genre that later prevailed in world drama (see). Melodramas, farces, and vaudevilles are also common. In modern drama, tragicomedies and tragifarces, which predominate in the theater of the absurd, have acquired an important role.
The origins of European drama are the works of the ancient Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the comedian Aristophanes. Focusing on the forms of mass celebrations that had ritual and cult origins, following the traditions of choral lyrics and oratory, they created an original drama in which the characters communicated not only with each other, but also with the choir, which expressed the mood of the author and the audience. Ancient Roman drama is represented by Plautus, Terence, Seneca. Ancient drama was entrusted with the role of public educator; it is characterized by philosophy, the grandeur of tragic images, the brightness of carnival-satirical play in comedy. The theory of drama (primarily the tragic genre) since the time of Aristotle has appeared in European culture at the same time as a theory of verbal art in general, which testified to the special significance of the dramatic type of literature.
In the East
The heyday of drama in the East dates back to a later time: in India - from the middle of the 1st millennium AD (Kalidasa, Bhasa, Shudraka); Ancient Indian drama was widely based on epic plots, Vedic motifs and song and lyrical forms. The largest playwrights of Japan are Zeami (early 15th century), in whose work drama first received complete literary form(yokyoku genre), and Monzaemon Chikamatsu (late 17th - early 18th century). In the 13th and 14th centuries, secular drama took shape in China.
European drama of modern times
European drama of the New Age, based on the principles of ancient art (mainly in tragedies), at the same time inherited the traditions of the medieval folk theater, mostly comedy-farcical. Its “golden age” is English and Spanish Renaissance and Baroque drama. Titanism and the duality of the Renaissance personality, its freedom from the gods and at the same time dependence on passions and the power of money, the integrity and inconsistency of the historical flow were embodied in Shakespeare in a truly folk dramatic form, synthesizing the tragic and comic. , real and fantastic, possessing compositional freedom, plot versatility, combining subtle intelligence and poetry with rough farce. Calderon de la Barca embodied the ideas of the Baroque: the duality of the world (the antinomy of the earthly and the spiritual), the inevitability of suffering on earth and the stoic self-liberation of man. The drama of French classicism also became a classic; the tragedies of P. Corneille and J. Racine psychologically deeply developed the conflict of personal feelings and duty to the nation and state. " High comedy“Moliere combined the traditions of folk spectacle with the principles of classicism, and satire on social vices with folk cheerfulness.
The ideas and conflicts of the Enlightenment were reflected in the dramas of G. Lessing, Diderot, P. Beaumarchais, C. Goldoni; in the genre of bourgeois drama, the universality of the norms of classicism was questioned, and the democratization of drama and its language took place. At the beginning of the 19th century, the most meaningful dramaturgy was created by the romantics (G. Kleist, Byron, P. Shelley, V. Hugo). The pathos of individual freedom and protest against bourgeoisism were conveyed through striking events, legendary or historical, and were clothed in monologues filled with lyricism.
The new rise of Western European drama dates back to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries: Ibsen, G. Hauptmann, Strindberg, Shaw focus on acute social and moral conflicts. In the 20th century, the traditions of drama of this era were inherited by R. Rolland, J. Priestley, S. O'Casey, Y. O'Neill, L. Pirandello, K. Chapek, A. Miller, E. de Filippo, F. Dürrenmatt, E. .Albee, T. Williams. Prominent place in foreign art occupied by the so-called intellectual drama associated with existentialism (Sartre, Anouilh); in the second half of the 20th century, the drama of the absurd developed (E. Ionesco, S. Beckett, G. Pinter, etc.). Acute socio-political conflicts of the 1920s-40s were reflected in Brecht's work; his theater is emphatically rationalistic, intellectually intense, openly conventional, oratory and rally.
Russian drama
Russian drama acquired the status of high classics starting in the 1820s and 30s.(Griboyedov, Pushkin, Gogol). Ostrovsky’s multi-genre dramaturgy, with its cross-cutting conflict between human dignity and the power of money, with the highlighting of a way of life marked by despotism, with its sympathy and respect for the “little man” and the predominance of “life-like” forms, became decisive in the formation national repertoire 19th century. Psychological dramas full of sober realism were created by Leo Tolstoy. At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, drama underwent a radical shift in Chekhov's work, which, having comprehended emotional drama intelligentsia of his time, clothed deep drama in the form of mournful and ironic lyricism. Replies and episodes of his plays are connected associatively, according to the principle of “counterpoint”, states of mind The heroes are revealed against the background of the ordinary course of life with the help of subtext, developed by Chekhov in parallel with the symbolist Maeterlinck, who was interested in the “secrets of the spirit” and the hidden “tragedy of everyday life.”
The origins of Russian drama of the Soviet period are the works of Gorky, continued by historical and revolutionary plays (N.F. Pogodin, B.A. Lavrenev, V.V. Vishnevsky, K.A. Trenev). Vivid examples of satirical drama were created by Mayakovsky, M.A. Bulgakov, N.R. Erdman. The genre of fairy tale play, combining light lyricism, heroism and satire, was developed by E.L. Shvarts. Social and psychological drama is represented by the works of A.N. Afinogenov, L.M. Leonov, A.E. Korneychuk, A.N. Arbuzov, and later - V.S. Rozov, A.M. Volodin. L.G.Zorina, R.Ibragimbekova, I.P.Drutse, L.S.Petrushevskaya, V.I.Slavkina, A.M.Galina. The production theme formed the basis of the socially acute plays by I.M. Dvoretsky and A.I. Gelman. A kind of “drama of morals”, combining socio-psychological analysis with a grotesque vaudeville style, was created by A.V. Vampilov. Throughout last decade The plays of N.V. Kolyada are successful. 20th century drama sometimes includes a lyrical element (“ lyrical dramas"Maeterlinck and A.A. Blok) or narrative (Brecht called his plays “epic”). The use of narrative fragments and active editing of stage episodes often gives the work of playwrights a documentary flavor. And at the same time, it is in these dramas that the illusion of the authenticity of what is depicted is openly destroyed and tribute is paid to the demonstration of convention (direct appeals of the characters to the public; reproduction on stage of the hero’s memories or dreams; song and lyrical fragments intruding into the action). In the middle of the 20th century, a docudrama was spreading, reproducing real events, historical documents, memoir literature(“Dear Liar”, 1963, J. Kilty, “The Sixth of July”, 1962, and “Revolutionary Study”, 1978, M.F. Shatrova).
The word drama comes from Greek drama, which means action.
Andreev L. Human life. Thought (comparative analysis of the play “Thought” with story of the same name). Ekaterina Ivanovna. (The concept of panpsychism).
Anuj J. Antigone. Medea. Lark. (Woman's Theme)
Arbuzov A.N. Tanya. Tales of Old Arbat.
Aristophanes. Clouds. Lysistrata. (Absolute comedy)
Beckett S. The sound of footsteps. Waiting for Godot. (Stream of Consciousness Drama)
Brecht B. The Threepenny Opera. Mother Courage and her children. (Epic Drama)
Beaumarchais. Marriage of Figaro. (The ideal canon of a classicist play)
Bulgakov M.A. Days of the Turbins. Running. Zoya's apartment.
Volodin A. Five evenings. Older sister. Lizard.
Vampilov A. Eldest son. Last summer in Chulimsk. Duck hunting.
Goethe I.-G. Faust. (“The Eternal Drama” or the Ideal “Play-to-Read”)
Gogol N.V. Inspector. Marriage. Players. (Mystical symbolism of the phantasm of reality)
Gorin G. A plague on both your houses. The House That Swift Built. (Game reminiscence)
Gorky M. At the bottom. Bourgeois. ( Social drama)
Griboyedov A. Woe from the mind. (The ideal canon of classicism)
Euripides. Medea. (Women's theme)
Ibsen H. Ghosts. Doll's house. Peer Gynt. ("New Drama")
Ionesco E. Bald singer. Rhinoceros. (Anti-play and anti-theater)
Calderon. Worship of the cross. Life is a dream. Steadfast Prince.
Cornel P. Sid. (Tragedy ideal hero)
Lermontov M.Yu. Masquerade. (Romantic Tragedy Drama)
Lope de Vega. Dog in the manger. Sheep source. (Genre polyphonism)
Maeterlinck M. Blind. Miracle of Saint Anthony. Blue bird.
Moliere J.-B. A tradesman among the nobility. Tartuffe. Don Juan. Scapin's tricks.
Ostrovsky A.N. Dowryless. Snow Maiden. Forest. Guilty without guilt. Warm heart. (" Extra people Russia" on the stage of the Russian theater)
Pushkin A.S. Boris Godunov. Little tragedies.
Radzinsky E. Theater of the times of Nero and Seneca. Conversations with Socrates.
Racine J. Phaedra. ("Psychological Tragedy")
Rozov V.S. Forever alive. (“Pathos without pathos”)
Pirandello L. Six characters in search of an author. (“Theatricality of the play”)
Sophocles Oedipus the King. Oedipus at Colonus. Antigone. (" golden ratio"dramas)
Stoppard T. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead. (Tragedy little man)
Sukhovo-Kobylin A.V. Krechinsky's wedding. Case. Death of Tarelkin. (Dramaturgy of Russian cosmism)
Turgenev I.S. A month in the village. Freeloader. (Nuances of psychologism)
Chekhov A.P. Gull. Three sisters. Uncle Vanya. Cherry Orchard. (Comedy human life)
Shakespeare W. Hamlet. King Lear. Macbeth. A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Shaw B. Pygmalion. The house that breaks hearts.
Aeschylus. Persians. Prometheus Chained. ("tragic myth")
V. TOPICS AND QUESTIONS ON THE COURSE “THEORY OF DRAMA”
(indicating personalities)
1. The balance of figurative and expressive principles in drama: the dialectic of “epic” and “lyros” (“musicality” as rhythm and polyphony). Personalities: Hegel, Belinsky, Wagner, Nietzsche.
2. Action as an internal and external form of drama: “imitation of action by action.” Personalities: Aristotle, Brecht.
3. External and internal architectonics of a dramatic work: act-picture-phenomenon; monologue-dialogue-remark-pause.
5. Imaginative and event-based modeling of action in drama. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Pushkin, Chekhov.
6. Nature dramatic conflict: external and internal conflict.
7. Typology of dramatic conflict.
8. Ways to organize a dramatic conflict along the line: image - idea - character ( character).
9. Collision and intrigue in the plot development of the play.
10. Structure-forming and structurally meaningful elements of the plot: “vicissitudes”, “recognition”, “motive of choice” and “motive of decision”.
11. Dramatic character: image - hero - character - character - role - image.
12. Character and deep levels of action development: “motive”, “actant models”, “typical” and “archetypal”.
13. Discourse and character: levels and zones of dramatic expression.
14. Poetics of dramatic composition: structural analysis.
15. The problem of the relationship between the compositional elements of drama and the effective (event-based) analysis of the play.
16. Genre nature of drama: comic and tragic.
17. Evolution of the genre: comedy. Personalities: Aristophanes, Dante, Shakespeare, Moliere, Chekhov.
18. Evolution of the genre: tragedy. Personalities: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Seneca, Shakespeare, Calderon, Corneille, Racine, Schiller.
19. Integration processes in mixed dramatic genres: melodrama, tragicomedy, tragic farce.
20. Evolution of the genre: drama - from “satire” and “naturalistic” to “epic”. Personalities: Diderot, Ibsen, Chekhov, Shaw, Brecht.
21. Evolution of the genre: symbolist drama - from “liturgical” to “mystical”. Personalities: Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Andreev.
22. General evolution of the genre: from drama to “anti-drama” of existentialism and absurdity. Personalities: Sartre, Anouilh, Beckett, Ionesco, Pinter, Mrozhek.
23. Form, style and stylization in dramatic art: era - direction - author.
24. Text, subtext, context in drama. Personalities: Chekhov, Stanislavsky, Nemirovich-Danchenko, Butkevich.
25. “Monodramatic” principle of unfolding action in a classical tragedy. Personalities: Sophocles (“Oedipus the King”), Shakespeare (“Hamlet”), Calderon (“The Steadfast Prince”), Corneille (“Cid”), Racine (“Phaedra”).
26. The free principle of self-developing action in a dramatic work. Personalities: Shakespeare (“King Lear”), Pushkin (“Boris Godunov”).
27. Dramatic character in a comic situation: sitcoms, comedies of errors, comedy of characters. Personalities: Menander, Terence, Shakespeare, Moliere, Gozzi, Goldoni, Beaumarchais.
28. Principles of action development in comedy: tempo-rhythmic organization of the play. Personalities: Shakespeare (“The Taming of the Shrew”), Moliere (“The Tricks of Scapin”), Beaumarchais (“The Marriage of Figaro”).
29. Paradoxes and contradictions in the drama of romanticism (Musset).
30. “Fantastic realism” in Russian drama: from the grotesque to the phantasmagoria of “cosmism.” Personalities: Gogol (“The Inspector General”), Sukhovo-Kobylin (“The Death of Tarelkin”).
31. Comparative analysis research method naturalism (Zola, Daudet, Boborykin) and artistic method Russian " natural school"(Gogol, Turgenev, Sukhovo-Kobylin).
32. Organization of action in symbolist drama. Personalities: Maeterlinck (“Sister Beatrice”), Andreev (“Life of a Man”).
33. Retrospective organization of action in analytical drama. Personalities: Sophocles (“Oedipus the King”), Ibsen (“Ghosts”).
34. Principles of constructing an epic drama (the concept of a double system). Personalities: Brecht (“Mother Courage and her children”).
35. The relationship between theme and idea in intellectual drama. Using the example of analysis works of the same name: “Medea” by Euripides and Anouilh; "Antigone" by Sophocles and Anouilh.
37. Principles of interaction between plot and plot in Griboedov’s comedy “Woe from Wit.” (Using the example of V.E. Meyerhold’s production of “Woe to Wit.”)
38. Compositional principles in the drama of the absurd. Personalities: Beckett (“Waiting for Godot”), Ionesco (“The Bald Singer”).
39. Myth, fairy tale, reality in Schwartz’s plays. "Dragon", "Ordinary Miracle".
40. Myth, history, reality and personality in Radzinsky’s plays (“Theater of the Times of Nero and Seneca”, “Conversations with Socrates”).
41. Internal conflict as a way of poeticizing heroics and everyday life in Soviet drama. Personalities: Vishnevsky (“Optimistic Tragedy”), Volodin (“Five Evenings”), Vampilov (“Duck Hunt”).
42. Play theater in Gorin’s plays (“The House That Swift Built”, “A Plague on Both Your Houses”, “The Jester Balakirev”).
43. Dramatic transformations " feminine theme"(from the tragedy of Euripides to the plays of Petrushevskaya, Razumovskaya, Sadur).
Tragedy(from gr. Tragos - goat and ode - song) - one of the types of drama, which is based on the irreconcilable conflict of an unusual personality with insurmountable external circumstances. Usually the hero dies (Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare's Hamlet). The tragedy occurred in ancient Greece, the name comes from a folk belief in honor of the god of wine, Dionysus. Dances, songs and stories about his suffering were performed, at the end of which a goat was sacrificed.
Comedy(from the gr. comoidia. Comos - cheerful crowd and ode - song) - a type of dramatic arbitrariness in which the comic is depicted social life, behavior and character of people. There is a comedy of situations (intrigue) and a comedy of characters.
Drama - a type of dramaturgy intermediate between tragedy and comedy (“The Thunderstorm” by A. Ostrovsky, “Stolen Happiness” by I. Franko). Dramas mainly depict the private life of a person and his acute conflict with society. At the same time, the emphasis is often placed on universal human contradictions, embodied in the behavior and actions of specific characters.
Mystery(from the gr. mysterion - sacrament, religious service, ritual) - a genre of mass religious theater of the late Middle Ages (XIV-XV centuries), widespread in the countries of Western Nvrotta.
Sideshow(from Latin intermedius - what is in the middle) - small comic play or a skit that was performed between the acts of the main drama. In modern pop art exists as an independent genre.
Vaudeville(from the French vaudeville) a light comic play in which dramatic action is combined with music and dancing.
Melodrama - a play with acute intrigue, exaggerated emotionality and a moral and didactic tendency. Typical for melodrama is a “happy ending”, a triumph goodies. The genre of melodrama was popular in the 18th century. 19th centuries, later acquired a negative reputation.
Farce(from the Latin farcio I begin, I fill) is a Western European folk comedy of the 14th - 16th centuries, which originated from funny ritual games and interludes. Farce is characterized by the main features of popular ideas: mass participation, satirical orientation, and rude humor. In modern times, this genre has entered the repertoire of small theaters.
As noted, methods of literary representation are often mixed within individual species and genres. This mixing is of two kinds: in some cases there is a kind of inclusion, when the main birth characteristics are preserved; in others, the generic principles are balanced, and the work cannot be attributed to either epic, clergy, or drama, as a result of which they are called adjacent or mixed formations. Most often, epic and lyric are mixed.
Ballad(from Provence ballar - to dance) - a small poetic work with a sharp dramatic plot of love, legendary-historical, heroic-patriotic or fabulous content. The depiction of events is combined in it with a pronounced authorial feeling, the epic is combined with lyrics. The genre became widespread in the era of romanticism (V. Zhukovsky, A. Pushkin, M. Lermontov, T. Shevchenko, etc.).
Lyric epic poem- a poetic work in which, according to V. Mayakovsky, the poet talks about time and himself (poems by V. Mayakovsky, A. Tvardovsky, S. Yesenin, etc.).
Dramatic poem- a work written in dialogical form, but not intended for production on stage. Examples of this genre: “Faust” by Goethe, “Cain” by Byron, “In the Catacombs” by L. Ukrainka, etc.