 Hello and welcome back. We are in the national program on technology enhanced learning and pital which is under a joint venture of the Indian institutes of technology and Indian Institute of Science. We are in the domain of English literature and language and today we are going to present the fourth module, Literary Genres and lecture three. I am Krishna Barwa. I teach English at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati and let us look into the review of what we had done in the first two lectures. Literary Genres as such we have seen is a specific type of classification for works of art literature music characterized by style, technique, form, etcetera. We have also seen that this common definition is that it covers major genres of poetry, drama and novel and fiction, etcetera. So, this genres as we have done, we had already done novel and poetry and today we are going to do drama. In lecture one, if you remember we had defined the novel, the structural aspect, the technical aspect, the evolution of novel as such and the design and representation in all its storytelling method. In lecture two, specially poetry which was something very, very illustrative, we could see that poetic devices which were employed, how is rhythm being managed, what are the arrangement of words, what kinds of comparisons we use, figures of speech we use for the ornamentation of style. So, today we are going to the most dynamic of all this genres and that is drama and originally as we have seen from the time of the Greeks from Aristotle and Plato, this was identified with poetry. Drama was a part of the poetic form and the dramatic mode was interspersed with epic lyrics. Somewhere we see that play acting and ritual drama had a large part in determining what was drama about. If we look into the etymological meaning of the word drama, it means to do or to act. So, play is a story acted out, it is performed. Drama therefore begins in make believe and is something which is enacted on the stage. This is the difference between drama and the other genres that we have been doing. This is almost connected with the visual art and as it began in the ritual of primitive religion, it never forsake in any period of time its primitive beginnings. For imitative action is its essence. Just now I told you that it is mostly for the way that drama imitated life and because it was a representational form of literature. Therefore, there was a lot of technique involved in the visual culture. Thus like play acting and ritual drama, let us note it creates its experience by doing things that can be heard and seen. So, therefore, which is not there in novel or which was not there in some sense it was there in poetry about sound and when you read out poem, but here what you can see and what you can hear, these are things which are very sensory details which are very very important in the appreciation of drama. And the things it does as with play acting and ritual what does it do? It creates another imaginary world, a world modeled on us yet leading to its own charmed existence. You can say that it is something which is almost based on another alternate existence. So, let us see the oldest recorded system of genre in western traditions we have already seen in novel we have seen in poetry could be traced back to Plato and Aristotle. Plato had three imitational genres, imitation based on the mimetic theory, mimesis is imitation. First he gave dramatic dialogue mind you he calls it dramatic dialogue then pure narrative then epic which is a mixture of dialogue and narrative. Now, the poetics is in part Aristotle when Aristotle wrote the poetics it was a response to Plato's idea of this genres in his republic. He wanted to show that poetry is not just mere representation of mere appearances right. So, if we go back to dramatic theory as such we can go back in the west to Aristotle poetics about 300 B.C. and Baruch Muni's Nitra Sastra in Indian, Indian dramatic theory which is about 200 B.C right. Well, let us look now even though we had done that last time how he had given his ideas on representation. The first ever work on theory in drama it has been said because he has worked upon Plato's theory on that genres and he gives therefore more emphasis on the dramatic mode. And it was published around 335 B.C. four types of classical genres. So, he makes it into four categories first the highest form of the genres literary genres he calls tragedy which he says is so superior of a high quality and that is dramatic dialogue. The second is epic superior mix narrative like we have the epic poems of Milton or we can have Homer's Odyssey. Comedy is lower down the line and it is inferior dramatic maniloc then parody is inferior mix narrative. Now it is very interesting actually when Aristotle laid down in his poetics what is what drama should be what would be basically the rules of which govern drama specially that of tragedy and he did it on the analysis of Sophocles Oedipus Rex. He had said that tragedy is an imitation of an action please see that imitation of an action which is serious complete and of a certain magnitude the meaning of magnitude the length the time the rhythm the movement is very important it will it should arouse pity and fear in the audience as it witnesses the action right and which should give it is like a purgation of your of your mind. So, consciousness is being developed right and therefore, the the the onus is on the audience right and will go more into it later the meaning of the audience and the writer and the drama related responses and which will bring in a catharsis of emotion which is almost like a purgation of all your emotions and which will lead to the to a different sort of higher consciousness. He also defined the tragic hero he is otherwise an ordinary man of course, he belongs to a high state not an ordinary man in the true sense of the term, but he has extraordinary you can say fillings and he suffers because of a tragic flaw which is called hamsia which may be pride or hubris or whatever and which will lead or make or un make his fortune. So, these rules were laid out by Aristotle in his poetics well. Now, let us look into the essential quality of this enactment of how it is being performed we have to envision the words in performance all the words have impact right. So, we have to go into performance theory or from the perspective of how you are seeing the seeing the drama right and dramas are not to be even though we can read a drama Hamlet can be read as well as performed, but at the same time we know that it is the visual contact which is the most important aspect in drama. So, when we look into all this great classics Sophocles Antigine Antigone William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ipsons Doll's House, Arthur Miner's that of a salesman, Edward Albury's The Jew's Story, Pinter's The Dumb Waiter, even Chinese author Gauss-Engine's dialogue and rebuttal what do we find in common? Do we find that they are concerned with the same modes of representation or are they evolving their own manner of writing a drama or are the characters the plot the theme differs from one another right. So, this takes us back to the core of the way of understanding drama right. So, this task of redefinition of techniques of form is carried out by the aesthetic theories of visibility and performance as students of engineering streams. I think you are always concerned with design and form and structure especially in the literary journals as we have gone through all not all whatever we have done of the literary journals till now we have seen that the rules and the systematic methodology of how it is represented is equally important as in a scientific treaty in a treaties is not it. So, let us look into it the mimetic theory right which is imitation and the digestist theory which is narration. So, is there a link between narration and imitation this have been contrasted since Plato's and Aristotle's times when you look when you go and see a drama or you go and see a film all right there is a difference between drama and a film. Film is something where there is no direct contact with the audience it is being enacted and there is no face to face response, but in a drama there is this face to face response with the audience. And therefore, you have to understand which I had told you earlier that what is important in the appreciation of drama is this collective consciousness which grows out utter. Miller I think he called it in the preface to all my sons the organic form of understanding drama there is a organic structure where it is a collective whole which ultimately makes it so beautiful right. When everyone looks in sees or goes to see a drama then what happens then this collective response is much more worthwhile than just reading the play in the cocoon of your room right well. So, what we had just told you just now mimesis shows the beauty of nature rather than tells while digestist however is the telling of the story by the narrator well well. So, while we are doing this module we see that drama as a literary genre is an art form that is meant to be performed it is at once therefore, literary as well as visual art it also goes into the margin of the visual culture we have to imagine life on the stage. So, it rest with us the imagination which is not only the script writer or the dramatist or the playwright, but the person who sees. So, it is a recreation of the flow of human life before a live audience in a specific place. So, this specific place the setting the theatre hall or how it is being enacted is equally it holds ground. It is drama if you define it as a fiction acted out rather than narrated on the stage experience collectively a collaborative effort of design stage craft, cumulative efforts of author, director, actor, technician, designer, lights props you see then you have it music and dance of course are integral parts of drama. Now, specially in modern drama when you have so many technological advances in the presentation of drama you find that it is an extension of the visual art as a representation well. So, if we go into the six elements of drama as such what are the six elements of drama as Aristotle had laid out. There is no escape from Aristotle when we go into western traditions and it is almost the base of what he had said about what poetics was about. He gave the six elements at thought or theme on ideas which is different from plot mind you and theme is the idea which is opposed to what happens in the plot. Sometimes the theme is clearly stated in the title sometimes it occurs as a lake motif or it is something as a reputation which you will have to understand the moral behind it. Second is the action the plot this is very interesting because the plot ultimately is how you are structuring the play whether you are dividing the first act into three or four scenes or into five scenes or only one scene again how the second act goes how it will go again into the third act right. So, this will be following triad of development almost as Aristotle had said that there was a triad of development in the plot. First is the opening you begin or you introduce the characters or the theme and then after that you have the developing of the action then it goes into a rising scale ultimately the reversal or the way that it is develops into the denouement or the end right. Now the third is the characters right. So, in a drama you cannot do away with characters right of course, there have been different modifications or innovations in modern drama where characters have been put into the background by somewhere the language describes the theme where we talk about existential drama as such. But here if we talk about classical drama or we look into the dramas of Shakespeare take for example, Hamlet we will find that the character how he develops from there is a growth from state of innocence to the state of from enlightenment right. So, the characters themselves can be round can be flat as we had done in the novel language which is very important the dialogues that are presented how it is presented what are the ways that the characters discourse interaction with them and another aspect is Aristotle said was music right which adds to the theme music does not mean only the background music or the way music is implemented on the stage it also talks about the rhythm in the dialogue right even in the way that the characters talk with themselves right. And the most important aspect which Aristotle had said mind you that was in 300 BC right that he had said about spectacles. Spectacles is what if you come to really the nitty gritties of drama dramatic presentation you will know that this is the stage craft what the stage is about aspects of scenery costumes spatial effects in a production the visual elements of the play created for theatrical when equally important in a drama. So, you understand it is not only the text which is important or which really allows the drama to move or to have an impact, but this are the props or this are the all elements which was laid out by Aristotle right. Therefore, the structure of dramatic text if we look into it Gustav Freitag's analysis of ancient Greek and Shakespearean drama was is very interesting he devised it into five parts. Therefore, as we have said the first is the exposition or the initiation as we find in the novel to then the rising action then it goes to the turning point it is like a triangle or the turning point then it comes back the falling action or the reversal of the action and then the resolution whatever you come to a conclusion which is called denouement in comedy or catastrophe in tragedy. A visual aid for Freitag's analysis of dramatic structure is Freitag's pyramid also known as a plot mountain. So, Freitag had also outlined this as the pyramid which he calls in the plot mountain. We have a drawing like this where it goes from the exposition the rising action climax falling action denouement next time you go to see a drama please see to it that does it follow this plot pyramid or not right and then you will be able to appreciate the drama quite well when whatever that may be a plot what Aristotle had said and what other dramatists have insisted upon is the soul of tragedy because action is paramount to the significance of a drama tragedy because not comedy they have emphasized here from the time of the from the Greeks the tragedy is the highest form of drama and comedy is somewhere it falls in the lower shelf of presentation. A plot must have a beginning a middle and an end as in on storytelling it must also be universal in significance have a determinate structure and it should maintain a unity of theme and purpose this unity of theme the sub plots or the plots which are there should have a story which has somehow it should have a late motive it should be parallel to the main theme it should not be a discordant element an outside element which has no connection with the plot. Now, this brings me to another topic another area of drama which we do not have in the other genres that we had done the difference between drama and theatre the place where drama is enacted this is equally important the theatre right. So, what are the basic elements of theatre specific place of the performance is also named by the word theatre at this also has a Greek meaning which is set the place for viewing. In this place for viewing even the place with its physical presence it has the the outside element coming in which is the script and the text how it has to be enacted then the scenario then the process in which it will be enacted then the audience which I have told you from the beginning US audience are more important than the drama than the actors who are enacting the part right we have the box office heads etcetera do not we right and we know that if the audience receives a play a audience understands a play then it becomes a best hit right and many have paid credit to the Elizabethan audience right that it gave you value even the not the very elite even the lowest class of people could understand Shakespeare and it was because of the popularity of Shakespeare's praise among the all the all classes of people that Shakespeare still is Shakespeare right. Therefore, the audience is what is the main dynamic force and theatre is a living dynamic breathing art form it can destroy the playwright it can destroy the drama or it can even make it well the basic categories of drama on the other hand can be generally divided into the genre coming from Aristotle definitions of genre we can now divide it into tragedy comedy melodrama tragic comedy music musicals the opera right. Of course, music is almost in every part of this genres right, but in the musicals it is where people sing in the music is the prominent element and in the opera to music is the prominent element in the enactment of the theme well. So, let us go into the evolution of the theatres right while we are talking of the structuring of the plays right we will have to see how in what place was the drama was enacted. As we have said earlier that it did begin with the primitive rituals it did begin with play acting maybe with children acting apart maybe with little little bits of imitations, but the technical terminology actually came into into it really came into form when the Greeks invented two kinds of drama while they were honoring they were enacting performance during ceremonies to honor the Greek god Dionysus. Originally it was a chorus there was not a drama as in the true sense of the term, but this were like a group of 50 men or women not women and boys who dance enchanted lines in unison. So, it was a big group a chorus and this was called a goat song or treasure which is the basis for the word tragedy. Ultimately tragedy came to be there and to be formed and it is said to be the invention of Thespis who brought from the chorus a different side of dialogues and became the first actor that is why we have the word Thespian when we talk about acting a mature actor right. So, who were the great classic greats in dramatic writing? Aeschylus, Sophocles, Eropydus and Aristoponnes who wrote comedies where all the most talented of Greek playwrights and the plays performed several times during the year and when where they perform as part of religious and agricultural festival. So, we see how from the chorus the dialogue has been brought in it includes into the chorus or from the chorus it comes into dialogue enactment and that is how we find that the tragedies were being formed. When we look into the theatre of the Greeks right this is the Greek theatre took place in large hillside amputators open amputators this was called amputators the players included the chorus and the leader and the lines were more chanted than spoken you just see the structure of the amputator right. Like the Greek theatre the Romans do use the facade stage right though here the facade is much more elaborate yet the architecture of the classical facade still makes for drama and dramatic performances quite different from modern proscenium or trust stages when you have the proscenium or the trust stages where you can see the drama as a only from the front view. For one thing unlike the Greeks the Romans typically build the taters on flat sides the Greeks of course had it on the hillside. So, that everyone could have a view on that on all sides combining the acting areas and the sitting areas into a single structure. So, the Roman structure is much more modern than the Greeks. We have a visual here of of the Roman amputator 3rd century BC Colosseum most of you know about that famous playwrights of that time plotters specially in comedy he brought out the stock characters the meaning of typical types in in life and Seneca's Oedipus 1st century AD some of the Roman playwrights who had greatly influenced European theatre. So, in the England of the 15th if we come back to the England of the 15th and 16th centuries we are just talking of the structure of the theatre not talking of drama as such the stages on which the works of a growing body of playmakers were performed evolved from the use of enclosed courtyards of inns to stage performances from the search it had gone to inns or stage performances from there this aprons stages this way called were surrounded by galleries and therefore, open stages even in Shakespeare's time when you look into the architecture of the globe theatre you will find that it is somewhere open the stage is open to all the audience the ground links used to be on the ground and the rest some of those who had a privilege used to take up the upper seats indeed they were so open that members of the audience not only sat in the galleries surrounding the stage on three sides in the ground space around the elevated stage, but on the stage itself they have been instances where the ground links used to. So, this is the drawing of the swan all right one of the theatres during Shakespeare's time Elizabeth in times right I just telling you how this amphitheater the concept of the proscenium and the trust theatre has given place to this type of the playhouse, but during the restoration you will find that the stage becomes different the stage is the stage that we are used to. So, let us look into the origin of drama as such as in Greece and Rome right, but it has also in religious practice rituals play a great part in dramatic performance and we have to take into account what are the different cultural indicators in the way that the dramatic performance is being being enacted. It was in fact creation of a search many have said that rituals have been such a prominent indicator in the development of drama that most of the dramatic performances have originated in the places of worship. Now, the Romans may have introduced drama to England, but it was the folk tales it may have been also something which was enacted in the folk tales and the retailing of old fables when people used to tell one thing from the other and actors travelling from one place to another and the mode became popular. In the poetry section when we did that we mentioned the troubadours of France did not we and when we mentioned that that he used to enact a part whenever the life of a saint or some story has been told. So, the actor becomes a travelling, travelling minstrel right he is a singer he is a performer all in one and more so it was after the Norman conquest that the vernacular plays following the French pattern were produced before that it was more or less imitation of what the European influences were seen. So, the first stage in the development of the English drama is discerned in such scriptural performances right inside the search premises by searchmen not withstanding that the influence of the folk or of the fables we find that literally speaking the drama began in the search. From the liturgical origin of the drama came its earliest pieces what were they they were the mysteries and the miracles the two types of scriptural plays if we go into the history of drama in England right then we will find that this where the mystery and the miracle plays were performed at religious festivals ok. But English drama before therefore 16th century is of mainly academic and historical interest why why so we will have to see that the occasional plays which possess charm and liveliness ultimate origins of all drama are concerned of the anthropologist too rather than of the literary historian this is a point to make up because drama and religious rituals seem to have been bound up with each other in the earlier stages of all civilization folk celebrations ritual miming of such elemental themes such as death resurrection seasonal festivals this lies in the background of all drama well when did the transition then take place the transition took place in the mid 15th century right after the mystery and the miracle take place the new type of drama immersed was called the morality place here the the subject matter became more allegorical it became more abstract good was represented as a form or evil or the devil was represented as an abstraction and that is how the moralities came into being the transition from the scriptural figures of the former place to the abstraction of the letter where we find the coventry cycles which was enacted from place to place in the evolution of British drama therefore what do we see this transition from the mystery to the morality forms the third stage right of all the moral place of medieval England therefore every man is the most celebrated and recognized one is every man and where we see the progress of every man from the state of ignorance to that of redemption or to enlightenment well so it was the influence of the continent that the Renasa came to English theatre now let us come to the most colorful period in English drama in England right the English drama like other literary branches had the enlivening influence from Italy to register significant strides right from the medieval mystery and morality place therefore we have seen there was sweeping advancement to regular now we are the the the the topic of drama has enlarged the Renasa has given in access to broader themes more enlarged vision of the world tragedies history please the main source of inspiration of of course the English tragedy was Seneca a Latin dramatic dramatist of the age of narrow the first English tragedy during this time was Gorbudak written by Thomas Noughton and therefore we understand now the Greek influence the Roman influence and the Italian phase and the other hand Terence and Plotus were the great Italian masters to inspire the earliest English comedies this Roman influence continues the first comedy therefore produced was well frustrated at Deuster and gamma-gaten's needle yes we now come to the 16th late 16th century and early 17th century who is the central son this was the age when we have done in our genre on poetry that this was the Elizabethan age was the age where was the nest of singing birds it can be also said to be the nest of dramatist it was in this world that William Shakespeare 1564 to 1616 it has been said the age of Shakespeare because the whole has been identified by the dramas of Shakespeare and acted in his plays in the late 16th and early 17th century Elizabethan and Jacobian theatre produced a number of notable playwrights the university wits which included Christopher Marlowe Thomas K John Lyley Green and Ben Johnson but Shakespeare towers above them who does not know about Shakespeare's plays his tragedies King Lear Othello Hamlet his comedies his romances historical plays Julius Caesar we have his late romances like Tempest he experimented with every form of drama every theme of drama and he can be said to be the master of all dramatists as seen from Hamlet ok supposed to be the masterpiece on dramatic presentation it has all the elements which we have discussed in drama whether in setting in character in in design in spectacle everything else from Othello here then from the time of the Elizabethans we come to the 17th century right so there was a lapse in this period English status were kept closed by the Peritons for religious and ideological reasons when the London theatres opened again with the restoration right so of the monarchy they flourished under personal interest and support of sales the second well even so the introduction one important aspect was during the restoration the 17th century it was the for the first time that women acted as in the stage first professional actresses now here we have found new genres of the drama of the restoration where the heroic play and restoration comedy which were polished very artificial form of dramatic presentation based on with on sexual explicitness and we have notable heroic tragedies of this period like Dryden's all for love and we have etcherages the men of mode Weiser least the country wife William Congress very lively comedy the way of the world ok so here the genre has taken on a different form altogether comedy and we find here that it has experimented not only with the character but also with style with technique and also with the way that you presented right so theatre in England if we see in the 18th century was dominated by David Garrick was a very well known actor he was manager as well his performances had a tremendous impact on the art of acting ok from which ultimately grew movement such as realism and naturalism from actor acting apart he could bring out a movement in a change in the mode of dramatic presentation so now we come in the 18th century that plays dealt with ordinary people as characters such as his tubes to conquer by Oliver Goldsmith and the mid of 18th century school for scandal research Seridan which are very very popular dramas now the growing desire for freedom both in Europe and North America again brought in different modes of representation it was also in the 18th century that commercial theatre of course theatre became commercial during the time of Shakespeare as long as the monarchy tried gave patronage right and before it was by the patronage of the aristocracy or by the monarchy later with the printing press and everything else right we find that theatre became drama became commercial but it was also in the 18th century that commercial theatre began to make its appearance in the colonies of North America so during the 19th century if we come back to the evolving of theatre now or drama in in England the industrial revolution we had seen in poetry as well as in the novel especially in the novel right how what was the impact of the industrial revolution the growth of the middle class are literary reading public since the way people lived and work and it seems the face of theatre as well playwrights such as Henry Gibson George Barnet Shaw it was not art for art sake dramas had to be written for life sake it had to have a model it had to have a purpose and Anton Chekhov and Oscar well we find this who were the thinkers who were the scholars even in the way that they wanted to present drama to the public so by the end of the 18th 20th century with the two wars in history we find that the saints mindset was different and therefore there were movements such as realism naturalism symbolism impressionism as it followed the parallel movement in the visual arts in painting in sculpture anti-realism all this also reflected in the way of dramatic procedures particularly in the early 820th century we have serious drama in the works of Eugene O'Neill in his trilogy morning becomes electro all this have become classics modern classics Arthur Miller that of a salesman all my sons the crucible and Tennessee Williams glass miniaturist ok where tragedy the whole form of tragedy was changed the history of theatre in the 1819 and 20th century therefore what does it show is one of the increasing commercialization of the art yes we are familiar with that aren't we accompanied by technological innovations the introduction of serious critical review expansion of the subject methods portrayed to include ordinary people ordinary views and an emphasis on more natural forms of acting this is waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett absurd play which talked about two persons estrogen and Vladimir they wait and wait and wait right and this is emptiness of the plot makes the audience wonder if anything is going to happen a landmark in absurd drama right we have another scene here of our terminus all my sons where the stage craft the importance of the stage craft alright the stage directions which has been given in the play it occupies almost most of the place of the of the drama and it has to be very minutely presented and it becomes a character by itself the backdrop by itself becomes a character in the plot yes so I hope by now you have come to understand what is drama about right and next time you go to see a play and you see the way the play you respond to the play you look into the organic structure of the play you being a part of the organic structure right because the audience is the most important participant of the dramatic performance and in doing that I hope you will be able to understand the way dramas are enacted well suppose I ask you a question what are the different types of drama would you be able to answer that question right going back from Aristotle how it has been innovated or how it has been reformed or how it has been changed you cannot just put it into categories of comedy tragedy and and the different tragic comedies you see that sometimes a comedy also verges on the tragic comedies and tragedy also verges on the comic right so here we have different types of drama yes but at the same time experiments are going on where there is an approach which leads to interdisciplinary areas of enactment on the stage character must be created solely through action behavior and speech isn't it compared to scale which was dramatic greater impression of the characters in the play if you take Shakespeare's Hamlet right and you see that the way Hamlet emotes on this on this on the stage is it because of the lines which has been given or is it because of the character because of the language and you will find in Shakespeare's play the soliloquy which was the monologue was an important part of of the play where he used to reveal what was going to happen to him the changes in his temperament what is the trauma that is undergoing right yeah setting now can often reflect the underlying ideas in a play just now I refer to you Arthur Miller's back stage the how it the whole action takes place in the backyard of a home in the light of this statement considered the importance and use of setting in two or three plays you have studied ok in whatever plays you have studied suppose again you take for example Hamlet it starts in the Twilight hours alright when there is a difference between now between the light and the and and darkness right and and the eerie atmosphere the setting of the ramparts where there is so much of loneliness and aloneness it itself indicates the theme of the play plays are really entirely tragic or comic but a mixture of the two I think I have already told you that using two or three plays you have studied say how far you would agree with the statement right you can even go into a really live play drama not a film right as I told you the film is something where you do not have face to face response yeah those are also the way that you can see drama dramas or films but at the same time it is the script writer who changes the text from to the film but yet you do not have the dynamic inter-election when you see of drama in its live audience as a live audience well some of this discussions that you can take part in the opening scenes of at least two plays you just see how it opens how it ends Aristotle said that it should be a proper magnitude that it should know when it should end it should not be extended so that the the the interest is not decreased in dramatic construction there must be variation of pace and rhythm monotony of any kind being certain to induce boredom some of the key source text in this lecture right the history of drama elements of literature thank you